Texas Dem vows to force impeachment vote, defying Pelosi

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) on Tuesday vowed to force another House floor vote on impeaching President Trump, a day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made her strongest statements yet opposing impeachment.

In a media blitz, with an interview with C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” and a press conference in his office, Green pledged to force a third impeachment vote and dared Democratic leaders to try to stop him.

{mosads}”There will be another vote on impeachment,” Green said in the C-SPAN interview. “If you desire to stop me, you but only have to change the rules so that I can’t bring a vote on impeachment. Otherwise I will, because the Constitution and the rules allow any one person to bring a vote on impeachment.”

Green announced last month that he would move forward with a third impeachment vote now that Democrats are in the House majority. Green didn’t offer a timeline then or on Tuesday. He still has to introduce his new articles of impeachment.

In an interview with The Washington Post published Monday, Pelosi reiterated her long-standing position that impeachment should have bipartisan support. But Pelosi added that Trump is “just not worth it” even though she doesn’t think he’s “fit to be president.”

“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it,” Pelosi said.

Green pushed back on Pelosi’s remarks, saying that “I think the country’s worth it. I think the Constitution is worth it.”

Green also dismissed the notion that Democrats should wait until Republicans get on board with the idea of impeaching Trump.

“If we wait on Republicans who are not going to buy in, then there won’t be any impeachment,” Green said during the press conference in his office.

Green twice forced procedural votes relating to his articles of impeachment in the previous Congress while Republicans held the House majority. Neither effort was successful, but each vote drew the support of more than 50 fellow Democrats: 58 in December 2017 and 66 in January 2018.

Green’s articles of impeachment in the last Congress alleged that Trump inflamed racial tensions in America. The articles stated that Trump “brought the high office of President of the United States in contempt, ridicule, disgrace and disrepute, has sown discord among the people of the United States, has demonstrated that he is unfit to be President, and has betrayed his trust as President of the United States to the manifest injury of the people.”