Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., on Monday blocked Democrats from bringing up a resolution to urge Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump from office.
Under House rules, it took only one lawmaker to block immediate consideration of the resolution aimed at pressuring Republicans to take power away from Trump.
Democrats can now bring it up for a vote on Tuesday as they move forward with an article of impeachment introduced Monday.
Mooney had been among the House Republicans who voted last week not to accept the state-certified election results showing Trump lost reelection.
The resolution calls on Pence and the cabinet to, within 24 hours, “declare what is obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that lawmakers must “act with urgency” because Trump is an imminent threat to both the Constitution and democracy.
“As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues.
Pence has not shown an interest in triggering the never-used section of the amendment that could strip Trump of his authority.
House Democrats are also moving forward with a new article of impeachment.
Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, one of the authors of the new article, said he and other Democrats would prefer that Pence trigger the 25th Amendment or that Trump resign on his own.
“Days have passed, and it is clear that neither of those possibilities will be realized,” Cicilline wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times published Monday. “So it is Congress’s responsibility to act.”
The impeachment article charges Trump with inciting an insurrection by falsely claiming the Nov. 3 election was stolen from him and encouraging supporters to storm the Capitol as lawmakers were certifying the results.
While a growing number of Republicans have denounced Trump’s actions, there is not broad GOP support for impeaching Trump or removing him from office.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Friday it would be better if Democrats and Republicans worked together to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.Get the Coronavirus Watch newsletter in your inbox.
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That view was echoed Monday by Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, head of the campaign arm for House Republicans.
In a statement, Emmer said House Democrats’ efforts to remove Trump are politically motivated and “will fracture our nation even more instead of bringing us together.”
For his part, Biden on Friday dodged when asked by reporters whether he supported impeachment. Biden said he would leave that question up to lawmakers.
USA TODAY