Senators are discussing a long-shot, bipartisan effort to censure former President Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Members of the upper chamber are pitching …
Senators are discussing a long-shot, bipartisan effort to censure former President Trump over the Jan.6 Capitol attack. Members of the upper chamber are pitching their colleagues on the idea as it becomes increasingly clear that Trump’s impeachment trial will hand him a second acquittal after 45 GOP senators backed an effort this week to declare it unconstitutional because the former president is no longer in office. But the idea is facing both political and procedural roadblocks, with the Senate currently locked into holding an impeachment trial and few GOP senators openly interested. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters that the resolution would be “in lieu” of holding the trial. “It seems to me that there is some value in looking at an alternative to proceeding with the trial…. I realize the two leaders have already locked in a schedule. But it seems to me there is benefit in looking at an alternative that might be able to garner bipartisan support. I don’t know whether it would or not,” said Collins, who is working with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). A censure resolution, unlike impeachment, would only require 60 votes to pass the Senate, and it would amount to a historic rebuke of Trump. The Senate has only censured one president previously — Andrew Jackson, a decision it reversed three years later. “I have been talking with a handful of my colleagues, a handful, not forty,” Kaine said. “I think the Paul motion yesterday was completely clarifying that we’re not going to get near 67 votes. So I think there’s maybe a little more interest in could this be an alternative.” “To do a trial knowing you’ll get 55 votes at the max seems to me to be not the right prioritization of our time right now,” Kaine added. But Democratic leadership is showing no public interest in backing down from the impeachment trial, even though they don’t likely have the votes to ultimately convict Trump despite Republicans expressing broad frustration in the wake of the Jan.6 attack. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.
