With all the focus on Lauren Boebert and her desperate switcheroo from the 3rd to the 4th Congressional District, you may not have noticed that Ken Buck, who is retiring after five terms representing the 4th CD, is still on the job.
But Buck is not, as the poet nearly said, going gentle into that good pension-and-perk-filled night. It seems he is intent on making some more noise before he goes.
In his latest shot at those House Republicans in thrall to Donald Trump, Buck has announced that he will not vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. That makes him the first House Republican to say as much. And Boebert, by the way, would be the last to ever say it, regardless of the evidence.
There’s good reason for Buck’s stance, which is that there is no reason — as in none, zero, zilch — to impeach Mayorkas other than Republicans’ willingness to engage in the lowest brand of politics. And, at the same time, the very same Republicans are refusing to do anything about the problems at the border.
It all makes sense, in a way. The impeachment attempt is what they call in the military and political worlds a diversion. I would go with perversion. Either one works.
It’s one in a series of GOP diversions. This one is not quite as ridiculous as the so-called “replacement theory,” in which Democrats supposedly support immigration reform as a conspiracy to replace white voters.
It’s definitely not as ridiculous as the latest right-wing conspiracy theory in which the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance is part of a Pentagon “psy-op” to help get Biden re-elected by somehow rigging the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl so that Kelce’s team, the Kansas Chiefs, would win.
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You see, if the Chiefs won, then Swift would have an even bigger voice when she endorsed Biden, as she did in 2020. Yeah, you can see the logic. Trump sees it, too. According to Rolling Stone, Trumpists are readying a “holy war” against Swift — MAGA vs. the Swifties. I mean, Swift has already said Biden actually won the 2020 election.
Compared to the Swift, uh, scandal, the impeachment of a cabinet member — even though none has been removed by Congress in more than 100 years — is small stuff. As Buck put it to MSNBC about Mayorkas, “The border is a disaster, but it’s not impeachable.”
Buck is no friend to Mayorkas. In a hearing, Buck once accused him of being a traitor and likened him to Benedict Arnold, who, if they teach high school history where you live, you’ll know was an actual Revolutionary War-era traitor. Buck’s unseemly accusation was way over the top.
But Buck’s stated refusal to vote for impeachment —- a full House vote is expected next week — was straight down the middle. Is there even a little hope that other Republicans would follow? (Hint: Um, probably not.)
As you may know, Boebert has been one of the leading voices to impeach Mayorkas and has been for years. She lately calls him a lying criminal — the kind of thing she usually reserves for Joe Biden, whom she also wants to impeach for no good reason — and responsible for an “all-out invasion of our southern border.”
I wonder where the rest of Boebert’s rivals in the 4th CD GOP primary stand. My guess is, most of them stand right along with her, even knowing that a Mayorkas impeachment trial in the Senate would never end with a conviction.
But the funny thing is, of course, that this vote comes at the same time as senators have come up with an actual bipartisan compromise that would address the acute overflow of mostly-asylum-seeking migrants. Speaker-for-now and Trump acolyte Mike Johnson has said privately that if the bill passes the Senate, it is “dead on arrival in the House.” Publicly, he has called it a “non-starter.”
Why is Johnson so negative? Why is Johnson, who has repeatedly called for legislative action on the border — as has nearly every Republican you can name — now saying that Joe Biden doesn’t need legislative action to act?
Could it be because Trump has called the bill, which was expected to be released over the weekend, a “horrible open border betrayal of America”?
Could it be because Republicans don’t want a deal because any deal would hurt Trump in the upcoming general election?
Could it be so that people like Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, can call the bill a “sham” and support for immigration “a purposeful effort to dilute our society and to undermine our way of life — to destroy Western civilization”?
The fact is that the compromise, bipartisan package is so Republican-friendly — with no protection for asylum seekers, no path to citizenship and no support for Dreamers included — that many progressive and Hispanic House Democrats are demanding substantial changes before they’d consider voting for it.
But Biden needs a bill. Democratic negotiators have given up more than they would in any ordinary circumstance. But the polls show that aside from Biden’s age, the border is his greatest vulnerability. And now that the economy seems to be improving, and faster than most economists expected, Trump needs chaos at the border.
As usual, he’s not shy about admitting as much. Trump has already said that if the bill is defeated “Please, blame it on me.”
It’s not the only immigration diversion. Ron DeSantis sent immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, when he’s not sending immigrants to Denver, is ordering the state’s National Guard to erect razor wire and floating barriers in the Rio Grande to obstruct — and, it turns out, possibly drown — immigrants trying to cross the border. The Supreme Court ruled that the Border Patrol could take down the wire. And now we have a Civil-War-era, states-rights debate on our hands.
Abbott may not be exactly defying the court, but he’s coming close. The Texas Guard — which has blocked the Border Patrol in parts of the state from, well, patrolling the border — is still putting up new wire, with Abbott saying that whatever the Constitution requires, a state’s right to defend itself from an what he calls an invasion “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”
It’s not yet a constitutional crisis. Texas isn’t seceding — yet. It is a moral crisis, though. As The Atlantic put it, Abbott is “taking a stand to protect the state’s right to let children die in the Rio Grande.”
Trump supports him, of course. Every Republican governor but one signed a letter in support. Boebert supports him, of course, and calls for the Border Patrol to protect Colorado’s border. Yes, she really does.
I don’t know how Buck would vote on it. You’ll remember that Buck said he was opposed to impeaching Biden, saying the Republican Party had lost all touch with reality when it comes to the Big Lie, but then voted with every other House Republican to allow an official Biden impeachment inquiry.
But if Buck blocks the Mayorkas impeachment, that would be a good way to end a career. And if his vote reminds his 4th CD constituents that groping for, uh, truth is an acceptable form of groping, that would be even better.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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