The Republican dilemma over Mayorkas’ impeachment: When should we take the loss?

After approving articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, doomed in the Senate, Republicans in the House of Representatives are faced with a confusing question: how — and when — to take a political loss. least embarrassing way?

It’s been nearly a month since Republicans in the House of Representatives impeached Mr. Mayorkas by a single vote, pursuing a case that constitutional scholars called baseless before Democrats won a special election on Long Island and won majority support wiped out what was necessary to approve the charges. But instead of quickly sending the articles to the Senate to try to get out one of the officials they blame for the chaos at America’s southern border, Republicans have sat on it.

There is little mystery about why Republican leaders know their impeachment case will quickly fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where even Republicans have expressed significant doubts about the exercise.

Leaders are expected to quickly forego a trial, either by immediately dropping charges or by calling for a snap vote in which Republicans have no chance of securing the two-thirds needed to remove Mr. Mayorkas. to convict and impeach. They take their time before suffering that high-profile defeat.

“They know it’s dead on arrival,” said Sen. Joe Manchin III, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia. “So they want to play with it as if it were still there. They’re going to use all the power they can get out of it, and get all the mileage they can out of it, because once it gets here, we’re going to bring it up and shoot it down and then it’s gone.

Democrats who control the Senate view the impeachment as a fact-free, partisan smear of a Biden administration official. They have made it clear that they intend to dismiss the case quickly rather than waste time on it.

Even many Republicans in the Senate, who consider themselves more serious statesmen than their counterparts in the other chamber, are less than enthusiastic about the strength of the House of Representatives’ case.

“The idea of ​​impeaching a Cabinet secretary seems a little strange to me, but they did it,” said Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota. “We are prepared to convene as a jury as soon as possible and put an end to it, but if it never comes to that, that’s fine with me too.”

House Republicans plan to push for a full trial, a leadership aide said, and will use the coming weeks to try to build public pressure to force the Senate to hold one. If they can get floor time for a trial, the thinking goes, they will at least gain media attention about their allegations against the Biden administration’s top immigration official. That could give them a high-profile platform for one of their biggest attacks on the president and Democrats this election year — a clear political boon even if Mr. Mayorkas is ultimately acquitted.

The current strategy is to wait until Republicans and Democrats finish negotiating and pass a series of spending bills, a process expected to last until March 22, Republicans say.

“We have to get the appropriations done,” said Representative Ben Cline of Virginia, one of the Republican Party’s impeachment managers, when asked about the reason for the holdup.

But the delay has also contributed to the widespread feeling on Capitol Hill that the charges against Mr. Mayorkas have no real sense of urgency, and that impeachment has now been so devalued as to be almost irrelevant.

“It hasn’t made any difference. It just hasn’t had an impact,” said Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota. He said his only concern would be “the amount of time” an impeachment trial could take before checking off a list of more important priorities, such as a national defense bill and reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We probably have another 20 weeks this year, but last year’s appropriations are not done yet,” he said. “We haven’t even started this year’s appropriations yet.”

“These are mandatory courses,” he added. “We’re not getting the required courses done.”

Democrats see a pattern in Republicans in the House of Representatives rushing to win temporary victories to appease their conservative base, without thinking about how to achieve lasting victories.

“I think the dog caught the truck here; they are stuck and don’t know how to move forward,” Representative Glenn F. Ivey, Democrat of Maryland and member of the Homeland Security Committee, said of Republicans in the House of Representatives. “On the one hand, the Senate has told them in no uncertain terms that they consider it a political stunt, and that they will simply throw it out immediately. On the other hand, they can’t sit on it forever because they acted like this was some kind of national emergency. So I don’t know how they get out of here.”

It is not the first time that the House of Representatives has postponed sending articles of impeachment to the Senate. In an effort to influence the rules of the first trial of President Donald J. Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi waited weeks in early 2020 before sending articles of impeachment to the Senate.

At the time, Republicans, including some who are now among the 11 Republican Party impeachment managers prosecuting Mr. Mayorkas, criticized Ms. Pelosi for withholding the articles.

“Speaker Pelosi argued that it was urgent to impeach President Trump, but then held up the Articles of Impeachment for nearly 30 days,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, one of the current impeachment managers, wrote on Twitter at the time. “Her veracity is highly questionable.”

Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee that led Mr. Mayorkas’ ouster, also took aim at how she delayed the articles.

“The Democrats promised us that the evidence was ‘overwhelming’ and that the matter was ‘urgent’.” Mr. Green had said. “But the only bipartisan vote was against impeachment, and Democrats sat on the articles for four weeks because they knew they had done such a terrible job of proving any evidence of an impeachable crime.”

The delay ultimately did not help the Democrats’ cause. The result, as expected, was Trump’s acquittal, which he crowed about as an apology.

“Now we have that beautiful word – I never thought it would sound so good,” Trump said at the time. “It’s called ‘total acquittal.’”