Revealed: GOP's latest impeachment effort only passed because one Dem was out sick

When House Republicans managed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a single vote on Tuesday, two Democrats were missing from the House floor.

One of them, Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), soon revealed why she had been unable to attend on her X account.

"Unfortunately, I recently tested positive for COVID-19 and am isolating in accordance with CDC guidelines," Chu wrote. "Today, I was unable to be on the Floor to vote once again against impeaching Secretary Mayorkas. As I stated last week when this was first put to the House: impeaching a Cabinet member over policy disagreements isn't a solution to our broken immigration system."

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"This is an abuse of power by House Republicans, and they degrade the oath they took to the Constitution to score cheap political points with their extremist MAGA base," she continued.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) adopted a proxy voting rule to handle precisely this situation, where members could cast votes on behalf of a lawmaker who was unable to attend. However, after the GOP won control of the House in 2022, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) rescinded this policy.

The impeachment of Mayorkas, in which Republicans have remained vague about what high crimes or misdemeanors they are actually accusing him of, is expected to fail at trial in the Democratic-controlled Senate.