House Democrats have released the text of the impeachment resolution they plan to vote on, but when that vote will take place is still unclear.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi originally claimed the vote would be this Thursday. But today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer walked that back and said that not only was the vote “not an impeachment resolution” but that it might not be “ready to go on Thursday.”
“This is not an impeachment resolution,” Hoyer told reporters Tuesday morning. “I don’t know what an impeachment resolution is.”
Either Hoyer is not up to date with what the Democrats’ plan is moving forward or he severely blundered his way through that interview. Just a few hours later, the House released a document, titled “Resolution,” that spells out the rules for how the rest of this investigation will proceed.
The text of the resolution released by Democrats directs the House committees to continue their investigation into “whether sufficient grounds exist for the House to exercise its constitutional power to impeach” President Trump. It then establishes the ground rules for how the committees’ hearings, now to be made public, will proceed, allotting 90 minutes per witness questioning and giving the GOP the ability to call their own witnesses to the stand.
The resolution also allows the committees to subpoena relevant witnesses and information throughout their investigations. Most importantly, the resolution allows the committees to make all relevant information publicly available with the exception of classified and sensitive information.
This document confirms that the planned vote will “affirm the ongoing, existing investigation” into Trump’s alleged quid pro quo corruption. Pelosi and Hoyer might not think the vote is important, but it is a crucial part of what little impeachment precedent Congress has been given.
So, what’s the holdup? Hoyer, who controls the floor schedule, seems wary of fully committing to holding the vote on Thursday. “We are going to have to consider whether or not it is ready to go on Thursday,” he said on Tuesday.
If this resolution simply sets the parameters of how this investigation will proceed, there’s no reason Democrats should delay a formal floor vote. It will legitimize this process and give the American people a chance to weigh in.
Second-guessing the Thursday vote, as Hoyer has done, makes it clear that Democrats are wary of formally committing to this process, for both political and legal reasons. What’s more, Democratic leadership’s vague uncertainty should cause us to ask: Do the Democrats even know what they’re doing?
