Over 30 Republican Senators said to favor removing Trump from office -- but only if they can vote in secret. Should they be allowed to?

It’s no secret that a presidential impeachment trial in the US Senate, whatever evidence is or is not presented, will end with Donald Trump’s acquittal. Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell has promised it.

But if the vote were conducted in secret, it seems, 30 or more Republican senators would find the president’s dealings with Ukraine violated the Constitution. Or so said former Arizona senator Jeff Flake in September.

@NickyWoolf
Former GOP senator @JeffFlake at #TribFest19 - "I heard someone say if there were a private vote [on impeachment in the Senate] there would be 30 Republican votes. That's not true. There would be at least 35."

Ever since, academics and pundits have been discussing the merits and drawbacks of a secret vote, while laying out the logistical path for approving cloaked ballots.

Senators could approve a secret impeachment vote if they wanted to. Impeachment trial rules are up to the senators and must pass by a simple majority—51 out of 100 members.


Republicans are now in the majority and have 53 votes. If they all toe the party line, McConnell can more or less design whatever trial he thinks will best advance his stated goal of acquitting the president. That wouldn’t include a secret ballot: McConnell is looking to vocally signal his party’s enduring support for Trump, not offer politicians an opportunity to vote their conscience.

Still, it wouldn’t take much right-wing resistance to force McConnell to cede to a secret ballot, as Juleanna Glover, a former adviser to president George W. Bush and other Republican politicians, noted in Politico. If just three Republicans premised their approval of the rest of the rules on a cloaked vote, they could make it happen.

Procedurally speaking, if there’s a will, there’s a way.

But other questions remain. For one thing, senators are elected representatives and we, the people, might rightly expect to be privy to their true opinions and for them to go on the record with critical decisions, especially on this question of presidential ethics.

For another, if the only way some senators can fulfill their constitutional duty to objectively judge the evidence and decide on guilt or acquittal is under the cloak of secrecy, it’s fair to ask whether they are up to the task of governance. Do they have the moral fiber to lead? Or, as one Twitter user crudely put it in response to talk of a mystery posse of Republican resistors, “profiles in pisspants.”

Ben Reilly wrote:

It’s no secret that a presidential impeachment trial in the US Senate, whatever evidence is or is not presented, will end with Donald Trump’s acquittal. Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell has promised it.

But if the vote were conducted in secret, it seems, 30 or more Republican senators would find the president’s dealings with Ukraine violated the Constitution. Or so said former Arizona senator Jeff Flake in September.

@NickyWoolf
Former GOP senator @JeffFlake at #TribFest19 - "I heard someone say if there were a private vote [on impeachment in the Senate] there would be 30 Republican votes. That's not true. There would be at least 35."

Ever since, academics and pundits have been discussing the merits and drawbacks of a secret vote, while laying out the logistical path for approving cloaked ballots.

Senators could approve a secret impeachment vote if they wanted to. Impeachment trial rules are up to the senators and must pass by a simple majority—51 out of 100 members.


Republicans are now in the majority and have 53 votes. If they all toe the party line, McConnell can more or less design whatever trial he thinks will best advance his stated goal of acquitting the president. That wouldn’t include a secret ballot: McConnell is looking to vocally signal his party’s enduring support for Trump, not offer politicians an opportunity to vote their conscience.

Still, it wouldn’t take much right-wing resistance to force McConnell to cede to a secret ballot, as Juleanna Glover, a former adviser to president George W. Bush and other Republican politicians, noted in Politico. If just three Republicans premised their approval of the rest of the rules on a cloaked vote, they could make it happen.

Procedurally speaking, if there’s a will, there’s a way.

But other questions remain. For one thing, senators are elected representatives and we, the people, might rightly expect to be privy to their true opinions and for them to go on the record with critical decisions, especially on this question of presidential ethics.

For another, if the only way some senators can fulfill their constitutional duty to objectively judge the evidence and decide on guilt or acquittal is under the cloak of secrecy, it’s fair to ask whether they are up to the task of governance. Do they have the moral fiber to lead? Or, as one Twitter user crudely put it in response to talk of a mystery posse of Republican resistors, “profiles in pisspants.”

https://qz.com/1774850/merits-and-perils-of-a-secret-impeachment-vote-in-the-senate/

This is America, where 30 to 35 of the 100 Senators would only do the right thing if nobody found out.

I propose a compromise -- a secret ballot which becomes public the day after the 2020 federal election. That way, Republican voters would be forced to decide simply on their candidate's merits, and not whether they're a loyal Trumpie.

Maddog wrote:I don't think Flake has a clue what they would do. I think that there are 30 Republicans that believe that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice and would vote to censure him or something like that. Removal from office is different. Basically the same position Dems took with Clinton. Was he guilty of perjury? Absolutely. Did they think he should admonished? Yes. Removed from office? Nope.