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Senate should summarily dismiss impeachment and turn to ‘impeaching’ sanctuary cities

Senate should summarily dismiss impeachment and turn to ‘impeaching’ sanctuary cities

House Democrats will most likely vote to impeach President Trump on a strict party-line vote. Republicans control the Senate and will obviously never vote to convict the president. Senate Republicans have two choices: They can keep the news cycle all about an impeachment that’s going nowhere, or they can go on offense and kill impeachment by voting to impeach the Democrats with a very simple agenda in the upcoming budget – fund border security but not sanctuary cities that harbor illegal alien murders and sex offenders.

Just how unpopular are sanctuary cities with the American people? Let’s hear the words of a recent victim of sanctuary policies in Colorado that put a violent felon from Cuba back onto the streets.

“Why are you going to leave a person [in the United States] that is a criminal, knowing they're a criminal?"

That was the rhetorical question asked, not by some anti-illegal immigration activist, but by Julio Cesar Banda-Estrada, an illegal alien who was himself a victim of a criminal alien released by Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office. Why is it so hard to make that the question of this month’s budget battle and, frankly, of the entire election? It’s so simple, even illegal aliens, who themselves are often victims of sanctuary policies, understand.

Banda-Estrada received a knock at his door in Aurora, Colorado, on November 17, and Gonzalo Gonzalez-Gomez and Osmani Garces-Ortiz allegedly barged in and stabbed him in the arm. Garces-Ortiz, an illegal alien from Cuba, was released by Arapahoe County sheriff’s deputies in October despite an ICE detainer asking that he be held, after Garces-Ortiz had been arrested for possessing drugs, criminal trespassing, and violating a protection order.

These cases happen every day in the majority of states in this country. How can we allow a budding neo-confederacy to blossom right as Congress is appropriating funding for various cities and states? Now is the time to reinforce basic federal law. If even an illegal alien can understand the insanity of protecting other countries’ criminals, why have Republicans been so tepid about picking a fight over the issue?

If Senate Republicans are looking for a counter-impeachment strategy, they should look no further than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. While Trump’s personal approval remains low, Ron DeSantis has the highest approval rating of any governor, and his immigration agenda is regarded as more MAGA than Trump’s. DeSantis banned sanctuary cities and recently deputized some Florida prison guards to help enforce immigration law and ensure that no criminals from other countries ever cycle back onto Florida’s streets, like what happens in Colorado. DeSantis is now pushing mandatory E-Verify to ensure businesses can’t hire illegal alien labor.

The result?

A new poll from St. Leo’s University shows that 68 percent of Floridians approve of the job he is doing, while just 20 percent disapprove. Journalist Ryan James Girdusky confirmed from the pollster that those numbers are wide and deep:

DeSantis has 67 percent approval from Hispanics, even though he is America’s toughest governor on illegal immigration.

The bottom line is that Americans think impeachment is a dead end, but they certainly understand keeping their communities safe, especially from other countries’ criminals. Democrats will not score any points with impeachment, but Republicans will not score any points by defending against it for weeks on end in the Senate. Democrats believe the House has the right to impeach a president because they control that body. Fine. Well, Republicans have the right to ignore it altogether in the Senate and focus on what really matters to Americans.



Unfortunately, unless there is intervention with Senate Republicans, we are headed for the worst of all outcomes. While both parties are seemingly tearing each other apart over impeachment, they will likely quietly agree to codify the increased spending package from earlier this year and fund everything, including sanctuary cities, but not ICE and the border wall. Then, Senate Republicans will spend an entire month swatting down impeachment, but still fueling its existence, which is exactly what Democrats want. When it comes to the issues that are actually tearing our cities apart, not just fueling political must-see TV, the parties are awfully similar.

The GOP argument is that Democrats are essentially impeaching the president along party lines based on a slim selection of conflicting testimony from various witnesses, none of whom have direct firsthand knowledge of any quid pro quo between Trump and the Ukrainian president over military aid in exchange for help against Joe Biden. As George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley testified before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, “To impeach a president on such a record would be to expose every future president to the same type of inchoate impeachment.”

If that is indeed the basis of the GOP argument, then the GOP Senate has no responsibility to take up the impeachment inquiry, at least not constitutionally. Under a system of bicameralism, no single body is compelled to act based on the actions of another body, especially with regard to impeachment, where the Senate was given “the sole power to try” the president. The Senate has the prerogative to try or not try the president in the same way that the House has the prerogative to impeach or not impeach a president. Bicameralism is an oft-forgotten check and balance built into the system that is overlooked by those who look to the courts as the guardians of counter-majoritarian protections for liberty.

Even according to Senate rules (which are often “reinterpreted” and sidestepped by the majority party on a daily basis), which seem to indicate an automatic process for taking up a House impeachment inquiry, senators can summarily dismiss it in a day or two by laying out these exact flaws, conducting a simple vote to dismiss the charges, which anyway will be along party lines, and then simply dropping the issue until the House completes its homework. Any process is controlled by the Senate majority the same way the House majority controlled its process, and none of the issues are justiciable in the courts.

In the meantime, they should “impeach” every sanctuary city by bringing hundreds of angel families before the committees to lay out their stories of 100 percent preventable deaths of their loved ones at the hands of repeat offender criminal aliens. They should then push endless votes on the Senate floor for a budget that funds border security but not criminal aliens.

Do you really think that, if the shoe were on the other foot, a Democrat-controlled Senate, backed by a Democrat president, would indulge such a GOP-led impeachment inquiry by the House while agreeing with them to fund issues in the budget that almost every voter hates?

That is a much easier narrative with which to drive political points through the Christmas season. Heck, even an illegal alien understands the simple question: “Why are you going to leave a person [in the United States] that is a criminal, knowing they're a criminal?” Isn’t that a question House Democrats should be compelled to answer?


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