NC House members vote along party lines as Trump impeached for second time
Updated: Here’s how North Carolina Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr voted in the Trump impeachment trial.
North Carolina’s Republicans in the U.S. House voted against impeaching President Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection on Wednesday afternoon, while the state’s five Democratic members supported the impeachment resolution.
The House impeached Trump for a second time in his four-year term Wednesday afternoon on a 232-197 vote. Ten Republicans voted for impeachment.
The Senate would next conduct an impeachment trial, likely after Trump has left office.
The vote came one week after a violent mob’s deadly attack at the U.S. Capitol, forcing the evacuation of Congress during the vote to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Five people died, including one police officer.
For weeks beforehand, Trump railed against the election results, claiming massive fraud. He pointed to certification on Jan. 6 as a final chance to undo the results and spoke to a crowd outside the White House before the attack.
Trump’s term ends Jan. 20, the same day Biden will be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.
Republican Reps. Virginia Foxx, David Rouzer, Richard Hudson, Dan Bishop, Patrick McHenry, Madison Cawthorn and Ted Budd voted against impeachment.
“Congress can disapprove, revile, condemn, even censure. But you cannot, consistent with the rule of law, punish that which the Constitution’s First Amendment declares protected,” Bishop said during morning debate on the House floor. “If you do it, the violators of duty to this Constitution, however angry, will be those who vote for this article of impeachment.”
Republican Rep. Greg Murphy, of Greenville, did not vote. He is in North Carolina, caring for his wife after back surgery. He released a statement after the vote saying he opposed impeachment.
Democrats Reps. G.K. Butterfield, Deborah Ross, David Price, Kathy Manning and Alma Adams voted in favor of impeachment.
“The President’s responsibility for the violence and insurrection that occurred last Wednesday cannot go unanswered. The President has had multiple opportunities to modify his behavior to bring this country together. Instead he uses his power to further divide us.. He is unrepentant. Congress must act for the good of this country,” Rep. Deborah Ross, a Wake County Democrat, said on the House floor during debate.
It was her first floor speech. Cawthorn, Price, Butterfield and Manning also spoke on the floor.
“I urge my colleagues to vote against this divisive impeachment and realize that dividing America will not save this Republic. I urge my colleagues not simply to vote for what feels good,” said Cawthorn, who also spoke to the crowd before at the pre-riot rally.
In his speech, Price said Trump “invited and activated a violent mob to invade the Capitol and achieve his desired result by insurrection. If that is not impeachable conduct, I don’t know what is. The president must be removed.”
Manning was in the House gallery when the rioters reached the House. One woman was fatally shot trying to get into the lobby next to the House chamber.
“The President has repeatedly lied to the American people about his election loss. He incited his followers to attack our democracy,” said Manning, a first-term Greensboro Democrat, in her first floor speech.
After the vote, Adams said: “We did our job.”
The House voted Tuesday night on a resolution calling for Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and become acting president as allowed by the Constitution. Pence said earlier Tuesday that he would not use the power.
U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, both Republicans, have not announced how they intend to vote on conviction in the Senate.
Burr and Tillis voted to acquit Trump in January 2020 after he was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of justice. The House charged Trump in late 2019 with seeking foreign interference from Ukraine in the 2020 election by seeking information on Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for releasing aid to the nation.
What they’re saying
• Rep. G.K. Butterfield (1st District, Democrat, Wilson) said on the House floor: “To violently overturn the results of a free and fair election is an attack on our rule of law. Any president and any member of Congress who obstructs the Electoral College or attacks judges and the court system where there is no evidence to suport their contentions undermines the public’s trust and confidence in the judicial process.”
• Rep. Deborah Ross (2nd District, Democrat, Raleigh) said on the House floor: “The President’s responsibility for the violence and insurrection that occurred last Wednesday cannot go unanswered. The President has had multiple opportunities to modify his behavior to bring this country together. Instead he uses his power to further divide us.. He is unrepentant. Congress must act for the good of this country.”
• Rep. Greg Murphy (3rd District, Republican, Greenville) said in a statement: “Regardless of how people feel about the President, the American justice system demands due process afforded by the Constitution. Impeaching President Trump a week before his term ends unnecessarily pours salt in our nation’s deep wounds. The President has committed to a smooth transfer of power. We should let that happen and work on uniting the country rather than dividing it further. I strongly oppose this action taken by the House today.”
• Rep. David Price (4th District, Democrat, Chapel Hill) wrote on Twitter: “President Trump is dangerously unhinged — he cannot remain in office for another day. Pence refused to act. The House will impeach.”
• Rep. Virginia Foxx (5th District, Republican, Banner Elk) said in a statement: “As Congress, the American people, and the nation seek justice, the current calls for a “snap” impeachment and unprecedented, supra-Constitutional remedies must cease. We cannot abridge the safeguards that are explicitly used to enshrine justice in the name of justice itself.”
• Rep. Kathy Manning (6th District, Democrat, Greensboro) said on the House floor: “This President is unfit to lead our nation and unable to discharge his duties of office. I call upon my Republican colleagues to speak the truth to their supporters and join me in holding President Trump accountable by voting to impeach him.”
• Rep. David Rouzer (7th District, Republican, Wilmington) said in a statement: ““The impeachment of President Trump today does nothing to unite this country; it only makes that effort more difficult in the coming weeks and months ahead. Today’s impeachment is knee-jerk reaction grounded in anger and disgust, which are genuine emotions that we all feel. But those are not legitimate or appropriate reasons to impeach — particularly when there have been no hearings and we still do not know the full set of facts from that day.”
• Rep. Richard Hudson (8th District, Republican, Concord) said in a statement: “Rushed impeachment is not serious and Speaker Pelosi knows it. Rather than lashing out at our political opponents, every one of us needs to ask what we can do to tone down the temperature of rhetoric, rancor, & violence.”
• Rep. Dan Bishop (9th District, Republican, Charlotte) said on the House floor: “An angry House majority races to impeachment in direct violation of settled Constitutional law.”
• Rep. Patrick McHenry (10th District, Republican, Denver) said in a statement: “While I wish that President Trump would have forcefully condemned the violent actions of that mob, there are a variety of reasons—both practical and otherwise—why impeachment is a bad idea and one that I will vote against. “Practically, doing this less than a week before President-elect Biden takes the oath is simply absurd. In a recent memo, Leader McConnell outlined how the Senate is incapable of acting on this until the President’s final day in office. Are we really going to spend the opening days of a Biden Presidency with the impeachment trial of his predecessor who is now a private citizen? That won’t make things better.”
• Rep. Madison Cawthorn (11th District, Republican, Hendersonville) wrote on Twitter: “We should be passing a bill today that puts America First. One that sends help to hardworking small business owners and their employees, that will lift people out of poverty, not bury them in partisanship. Instead dems will once again vote for impeachment... sad.”
• Rep. Alma Adams (12th District, Democrat, Charlotte) said in a statement: “Today, we gather to deliver accountability; and it starts with the President, whose actions and words led directly to the insurrection on January 6th. Make no mistake, the choice is clear: we either stand as guardians of justice and democracy, or as appeasers of fascism, autocracy, and white supremacy. Colleagues, we have an obligation to defend the sanctity of our Constitution and lead our country toward healing and unity. That does not happen by brushing the President’s actions under the rug. It requires speaking the truth and doing the right thing.”
• Rep. Ted Budd (13th District, Republican, Davie County) said in a statement: “Unfortunately, at a moment that calls for calm and peace, House Democrats are again ratcheting up the political volume through an impeachment with just one week left in the president’s term. A move like this will do nothing other than further inflame tensions and divide our country. If President-elect Biden and Democrats are serious about national unity, then they should end these political tactics and focus on the needs of the American people.”
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This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 1:54 PM.
