One of the biggest frustrations about the current GOP majority is that they simply do not act like the majority, and they cannot get unanimity on issues that should be easy.

For example, the vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas fell short yesterday. And I mean just short – the vote was 214 for impeachment, 216 against. What happened? Well, Steve Scalise missed the vote because of his cancer treatment schedule, there are vacant seats that were previously Republican, and then there were defectors.

The count was initially tied after Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) voted with Democrats against impeaching Mayorkas. Republicans, including Green, spent spent several minutes huddled with Gallagher on the floor, in an apparent effort to change his vote. One person close to the conversation, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said members argued to Gallagher that he would be inviting strong blowback from the base.

Instead, Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), the vice chair of the conference, flipped his vote to “no” — a procedural step that will let Republicans revive the impeachment articles, which some indicated could happen next week if Scalise returns. Johnson’s spokesman, Raj Shah, said in a post on X that the GOP “fully intends” to bring them back up “when we have the votes for passage.”

A frustrated conservative Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said: “Ken Buck is leaving. I don’t understand that. He could have done it just for the Republican party.” He noted Democrats seem to stick together and “we don’t.”

Also worth noting:

Note that one of the no votes was just to preserve the ability to bring it up again so this would have likely passed 216-215 if McCarthy hadn’t resigned.

Gaetz’s tantrum continues to pay dividends for Democrats. https://t.co/NWgkT3tDfY

— AG (@AGHamilton29) February 7, 2024

This entire exercise is beyond aggravating. Why did Speaker Johnson bring this to a floor vote without the votes in hand? We all know that Mayorkas has zero interest in doing his job and has allowed the border to become an open sieve, while the Biden administration fights with Texas because they are trying to patch up the holes. Democrats are now having to admit that the administration has failed on the border. Impeachment probably would not result in a conviction in the Senate, but are we trying to send a political message or not?

And to top that off, the standalone bill for aid to Israel also failed to pass yesterday. Speaker Johnson is batting a thousand this week.

The tally was 250-180 — short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure — with critics in both parties joining forces to quash it.

The stunning vote marked a defeat for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has opposed Democratic efforts to combine new Israel funding with other security provisions, including aid for Ukraine, and sought to pressure Democrats into swallowing the Israel piece as a stand-alone bill.

Instead, Democrats voted overwhelmingly against the measure, siding with their counterparts in the Senate — who are still fighting for a broader foreign aid package — and President Biden, who had vowed to veto the bill if it reached his desk.

Johnson’s gambit was also undercut by conservatives in his own GOP conference, whose opposition had nudged the Speaker to put the bill on a fast-track course — setting the threshold for passage at the higher two-thirds level — and whose “no” votes on final passage ensured it didn’t hit that mark. The conservatives were protesting Johnson’s decision not to offset the Israel funding with changes elsewhere in the budget, meaning the aid would have added to federal deficits.

Here’s the problem with the conservative strategy – Joe Biden had already promised to veto the bill. Does anyone really think, as wedded as Biden is to getting Ukraine funding, that he would spontaneously change his mind and sign the Israel bill? If the Republicans had stuck together to force Biden to veto it, that makes Biden own the decision. Johnson already put forward a bill that had the spending offsets, and that one failed as well. This Israel funding bill had two purposes – to try and get the funding, and to expose the Democrats for being willing to put Ukraine over Israel. Thanks to the idiots in the House, we can’t even get that moral point across. Yes, Johnson should put it up and try it again, this time without the fast-track. But what on earth made him think that the vote would be successful if he fast-tracked it?

But lest you think that GOP leadership is doing better elsewhere, think again. Mitch McConnell is not having a good time right now, either. He first supported the Senate border bill, but has caught so much blowback that he’s had to admit that the bill is going nowhere.

Though McConnell touted the work of Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and the bill’s endorsement by the Border Patrol union, he conceded what was obvious by Monday night: This legislation is dead.

“The reason we ended up where we are is the members decided, since it was never going to become law, they didn’t want to deal with it,” McConnell said in the interview. “I don’t know who is at fault here, in terms of trying to cast public blame.”

I have no idea what kind of drugs Lankford has been on to put his name and reputation on this crap sandwich, but it was no surprise that McConnell, who is a big fan of omnibus spending crap sandwiches, jumped on board. POLITICO claims that if Trump wins the election, McConnell will be facing another challenge to his leadership. That’s not the reason why McConnell, age almost 82, is likely on his last term as leader in the Senate.

Sen. Mitch McConnell freezes up while taking a question about running for reelection at an event in Kentucky. He had a similar episode in Washington a few weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/U6Iao4Venr

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 30, 2023

One can respect McConnell’s political savvy of the past, especially when it comes to the judiciary, while also pointing out that it is past time that the octogenarians of government should be headed into retirement. Especially when the cognitive or motor issues are becoming more obvious. McConnell has a seat in the Senate until 2026. There is no reason he should be GOP leader for that same length of time.

Despite the upswing in poll numbers for Donald Trump, the GOP is in disarray at pretty much every level. Leadership is going to need to pull itself together in order to prove that the Republican party can actually be functional and effective heading into the November elections. The last few days have not exactly inspired much confidence.

Featured image: GPA Photo Archive on Flickr, cropped, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)