House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Politico this week that Republicans will not abuse power in the way that Democrats have, should they retake the House in 2020.
The minority leader told the outlet that he is “fearful” that the unprecedented partisan impeachment process will “become the norm in Congress” but vowed that Republicans are “not going to do this” if they retake the House.
“I am so fearful that this will become the norm in Congress,” McCarthy told Politico. “I’m trying to tell our members, ‘When we capture the majority again, we are not going to do this.’”
Despite the contentious partisan process fraught with political vitriol, McCarthy said Republican members have conducted themselves well.
“The part I’ve always told our members: ‘Just stick to the facts.’ And the idea that we sit there and we just talk about the facts of what’s before us, they cannot prove a case because there’s nothing there,” he said.
“And I think they have done a marvelous job through every single committee,” McCarthy added.
The partisan impeachment efforts could have a significant impact on vulnerable Democrat members in the 2020 election, which could lead, some speculate, to a Republican majority in the House. Trump district Democrats, particularly, are feeling the heat.
As Breitbart News reported:
A total of 31 Democrats currently represent districts that President Trump won in 2016, none of whom have said they intend to support impeachment on the floor at this time. Two of them joined all Republicans in the House in voting against the authorization of the actual impeachment inquiry several weeks ago, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) and Collin Peterson (D-MN).
Both Van Drew and Peterson are again expected to join all Republicans on the floor of the House in opposition to the increasingly partisan Articles of Impeachment on the floor next week. The only question that remains is how many Democrats, exactly, intend to break with their party and join the bipartisan opposition to impeachment of President Trump — and whether that number will be enough to stop this train in the House.
Other reports indicate that Democrats could face “wide-scale defections” from moderate Democrats when the articles of impeachment come to the floor, expected just one week before Christmas, according to the Washington Post.
The Post reports:
Lawmakers and senior aides are privately predicting they will lose more than the two Democrats who opposed the impeachment inquiry rules package in late September, according to multiple officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly. Two senior Democratic aides said the total could be as many as a half-dozen, while a third said the number could be higher.
Predictions about some defections come as a core group of centrists from districts Trump won in 2016 are having second thoughts. While many knew impeachment would never be popular in their GOP-leaning districts, some have been surprised that support hasn’t increased despite negative testimony about Trump from a series of blockbuster hearings last month.
The news coincides with another damning impeachment poll released by the Trump campaign on Wednesday, showing two more Democrat incumbents — Reps. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA) — in a compromised position. A majority of voters in both districts oppose impeachment, and more voters in both districts said they would be “less likely” to vote for the Democrat lawmakers if they vote in favor of impeachment, as Breitbart News reported.