Republicans want to force Democrats to stand up and announce their impeachment vote on the House floor to make the process more 'painful'
- Republicans want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to force members of Congress to stand up and announce their vote on the impeachment resolution on Thursday, rather than taking a normal electronic vote.
- The GOP wants to make the vote more difficult on purple and red-district Democrats for whom impeachment is politically dangerous.
- This practice is generally reserved for the House vote on the selection of the speaker.
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Republicans want House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to have members of Congress stand up and announce their vote on the impeachment resolution on Thursday, rather than taking a normal electronic vote, Politico reported Wednesday.
Rep. Brian Babin, a Texas Republican, is collecting GOP signatures for a letter to Pelosi requesting a "call of the roll," to make the vote more difficult on purple and red-district Democrats for whom impeachment is politically dangerous.
House Republicans are "hoping to make it as painful and public as possible," Politico wrote. This practice is generally reserved for the House vote on the selection of the speaker.
House Democrats officially filed a resolution laying out the rules and parameters of the ongoing impeachment inquiry on Tuesday. The vote on the resolution is scheduled for Thursday.
"The evidence we have already collected paints the picture of a president who abused his power by using multiple levers of government to press a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election," House Democrats said in a statement on Tuesday. "Following in the footsteps of previous impeachment inquiries, the next phase will move from closed depositions to open hearings where the American people will learn firsthand about the president's misconduct."
The resolution comes a little over a month after Pelosi formally announced that the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs Committees would jointly pursue an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
Republicans have complained that the impeachment investigation thus far hasn't been transparent enough. The White House has called it "an illegitimate sham."
But last week, a federal judge ruled that the Democratic impeachment probe has been conducted legally and a resolution is unnecessary.