Unsurprisingly, Pennsylvania members of Congress split down the middle on impeachment

Pa. delegation: 9 votes for, 9 votes against

• Joseph Darius Jaafari
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  Joseph Darius Jaafari was a staff writer for the PA Post. His work covering crime, the military and LGBTQ issues has been featured in The Marshall Project, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Atlantic and The New York Times. He is a graduate of the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced for VICE and The New York Post. He is a native Arizonan and infamous for his love of tacos.

Nothing was a surprise yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives. The House voted to impeach President Trump for both abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Almost all the votes fell along party lines, as expected.

The day started off with Republicans attempting to adjourn the house meeting, followed by introducing a resolution condemning both Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler for how they handled the impeachment inquiry. But almost every move GOP lawmakers made in attempt to stall or avoid an impeachment vote was brushed aside by the Democratic majority.

Pennsylvania’s representatives didn’t sway far from what they’ve promised in the past few weeks, either.

Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican who represents parts of Dauphin, York and Cumberland counties, once called the impeachment inquiry a “one-sided event.” When he got up to speak yesterday, he reiterated that point by calling the impeachment, “bitterly and nakedly partisan.”

Though not shocking, what’s most interesting was to see how Pa. lawmakers from swing districts shored up support for the vote over the last week.

“What President Trump did was wrong,” said Rep. Conor Lamb, a Democrat from the Pittsburgh area, on Twitter. “We cannot allow any President of the United States to put his interests ahead of our national security.”

Lamb’s district is more moderate than progressive. Though he defeated a GOP incumbent to win a full term in 2018, he has faced increasing pressure from left-leaning Democrats to take action on progressive policies such as “Medicare for All.” Yesterday, Trump tweeted support for Lamb’s likely 2020 opponent, Sean Parnell.

Chrissy Houlahan from Chester and Berks counties, another district held by a GOP incumbent until 2018, said on social media that voting to impeach was, “the right thing to do for our nation and consistent with my oath of office.” Earlier on in the impeachment inquiry, Houlahan had been fairly silent on supporting other Democrats, focusing on local issues that affected her constituents.

Other swing district Democrats from Pa., such as Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright, also voted for impeachment.

The House convened at 9 a.m. and debated till past 8 p.m. Republicans compared the impeachment inquiry to the Salem witch trials and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican, went so far as to compare it to Pearl Harbor because both events occurred in December.

But Democrats weren’t without their own cringeworthy speeches. Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, for example, tried to invoke emotions by reciting a letter he wrote to his children in a speech during the debate to establish rules for impeachment.

At the heart of most of the speeches, though, Republicans and Democrats stuck to the same talking points we’ve been hearing: Republicans argued that the inquiry was a sham that didn’t include them in the process, Democrats stuck to the transcripts and witnesses.

Two Democrats — New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew and Minn. Rep. Collin C. Peterson — voted no on both articles of impeachment. Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ducked by voting “present.” (Gabbard said Trump should be censured rather than impeached.)

Another Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden from Maine, broke ranks on the second article of impeachment, which holds that the president is guilty of obstruction of Congress. Golden said in a Facebook post that he believed Trump was just flexing his executive privilege.

Calif. Rep. Duncan Hunter and Illinois Rep. John Shimkus — both Republicans — did not vote. (Shimkus isn’t running for reelection, and Hunter recently announced he will resign his seat after agreeing to plead guilty to illegally using campaign donations for personal use.) New York Democrat Jose Serrano was also absent. (He’s suffering from Parkinson’s and is not running for reelection.)

Trump is now the third president in history to be impeached, but whether anything comes from it is an entirely different story. To remove the president, two-thirds of U.S. senators would have to vote to convict. The Republican Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and other influential Republican senators have already declared that the president will not be removed from office.

As for Pennsylvania’s two senators, Democrat Bob Casey on Wednesday night took to Twitter to promise that he will uphold his oath to be an impartial juror during the Senate trial. Republican Pat Toomey has also pledged to withhold judgment until the trial. Casey has blasted the president repeatedly on social media in recent months, while Toomey has said he doesn’t believe Trump engaged in a quid pro quo in the infamous July call with Ukraine’s new president.

Best of the rest

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• Adjusting the scales: Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday signed into law reforms aimed at keeping low-risk offenders out of prison. AP’s Marc Levy has the details.

• Standing by the XL: PA Post’s Emily Previti digs into the legal argument the state is making to defend its certification of a voting machine that was responsible for incorrect vote tallies in one county last month. Read her story.

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• Volunteer your gun away: In an attempt to curb gun suicides, two women are attempting to push an effort for people with personal life challenges to turn away from their guns temporarily, by handing it off to consignment stores that sell guns to store them. The solution is non legislative and purely voluntary, which would appeal to gun-rights advocates. But it also runs counter to the debate on so-called “red flag laws,” which allow police to confiscate guns by court order if there are mental health issues in the home, where there needs to be intervention.

• European vacation: One week after a Kennett Township manager was caught allegedly stealing millions of dollars in taxpayer funds, residents showed up to confront the town’s leaders on what happens next. Lisa Moore, the former town manager, stole nearly $3.2 million from the township — located in Chester County — and funded European vacations and padded her retirement benefits, investigators said. At a town hall on Tuesday, the board of supervisors addressed concerns and told residents that, “the buck stops here.”

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