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Is Speaker Pelosi Being Fair about Trump’s Impeachment Process?


            The House of Representatives has recently taken the bold move of proceeding impeaching the United States President. The House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has come forward saying the House is moving forward with an official inquiry on investigating President Trump’s suspicious phone call with the President of Ukraine.
The large question at play is should the Speaker be required to have an official vote on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump? From a CNN article, Pelosi believes a vote is not necessary and it would take too much time to officially write up (Herb). Many Republicans have come forward arguing yes, we need a vote and many Democrats have been arguing no, we do not (Herb). Ultimately, this issue comes down to how the rules of the House are set up. In this case, Pelosi is right, officially the House rules don’t require a vote, so legally it does not need to happen (Herb). However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Pelosi to “suspend the impeachment inquiry until equitable rules and procedures are established” and yet Pelosi still won’t budge (Herb).
Many are asking is this fair? Some are claiming that a vote to officially start impeachment wouldn’t even really matter because, the Democrats have the majority in the House already and many of them support the inquiry. However, the White House is claiming that the President’s rights are being taken away with no official vote taking place (Herb). The White House even stated they will not cooperate with the continuing of this inquiry if House Democrats don’t change the process.
            However, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has a large list of tasks to balance and with ever increasing polarization it makes sense for her to do what’s best for her party. From the article, Mischiefs of Faction called “Evaluating the Pelosi Speakership,” author Green argues that the Speaker has “the worst job in Washington.” Green argues that the main issues come from massive division in the country, that which makes it hard to lead the entire House and also represent your own party’s agenda. The article also explains that the Speaker’s goal is to “protect your majority,” and in this case Pelosi is protecting her party by not allowing a vote. She is attempting to keep the majority and do what her party thinks is best. Another fact that Green brings up is the “importance for speakers of maximizing their support among fellow partisans” (Green). This graph below from a New York Times article called “Complete List: Who Supports an Impeachment Inquiry Against Trump?” shows how many members of Congress want to start the impeachment inquiry on Trump.

This graph shows that almost all the Democrats in the House support Impeachment. For the Speaker, this is a cue to what her party wants. Even if Pelosi thought an official vote was fair, her fellow Democrats may think this is too much of a compromise or giving too much power to Republicans. If Pelosi’s other democrats didn’t trust her or if the party lost unity, then that could look bad for the Speaker and for the party, since her ultimate job is to keep the party majority strong.

Also, from book, The United States Congress by Adler, Jenkin, and Shipan they state that the “majority party priorities have largely defined the legislative agenda” and “partisan polarization still remains at an all-time high” (Adler et al. 233). Thus, this gives us more understanding as to why Pelosi is not budging on having a vote. Each party is highly polarized and won’t want to compromise in anyway. Plus, since the Democrats control the House, they have the ability to have high control and call the shots.
To some it may not be fair that Republicans most likely won’t get to vote on whether or not to continue the Trump impeachment inquiry. This is all due to major polarization, majority party rule, and a system that falls harshly on the minority party. However, in this country where this type of politics doesn’t appear to be changing, it seems almost understandable and reasonable how Speaker Pelosi is acting.

Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/politics/nancy-pelosi-letter-impeachment/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/trump-impeachment-congress-list.html
Matthew N. Green, “Evaluating the Pelosi Speakership”, Mischiefs of Faction
Adler, E. Scott, et al. The United States Congress. W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Comments

  1. LauraOctober 22, 2019 at 5:09 PM

    Kaylin, your input on where we are current with the impeachment process was very informative. As you mentioned, the reading "Evaluation the Pelosi Speakership" emphasized how the #1 goal for the majority party speaker is to protect the parties' majority. It will be interesting to see how the impeachment inquiry plays out during the next election.

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