Why Not Censure?

As the House of Representatives in Congress continues to drive the United States toward a full-blown impeachment of President Donald Trump, the idea that a less-but-still-significant statement from the body has yet to be entertained, let alone voted on.

That statement is that of a full Congressional Censure of the President for his various acts that the Congress feels are improper. Maybe even multiple censures considering the amount of actions that have riled up Congress.

Now I understand, before the flip of the House of Representatives to the Democrats in 2018, even the idea of a Censure of the President was a far reach. There was no way, especially during the last days of Republican rule in the House, that anything less than fawning adoration of the President was going to be entertained.

Enter the Democrats.

With their entry into majority-rule politics, it would seem to me that their endless levels of disgust for the President would lead immediately to the House starting to throw out censure after censure of the President by the House. While the Senate would not even look at them, it could be said that enough complaints filed could lead to some Republicans in the Senate to stop and say “okay, what’s really happening here”.

Of course, the theory goes that the Democrats put all their money on the Mueller report to have enough in it to file directly for impeachment and not waste time setting up a case through censures.

Unfortunately, that bet didn’t pan out. But here is my thinking – what if you had nothing on Mueller but all these censures on the President withstanding in which if you put enough of the pieces together, you could move ahead with impeachment just on that?

Now the Democrats are going down the road of impeachment based on a phone call the President made with the President of the Ukraine. One can think, again, that all the censures the House could have done, on top of this, could really seal a deal for at least some Republicans to think “hmm, maybe there is more here than just a political stunt”.

In the history of Congressional censures, only one president was ever censured – Andrew Jackson. But even that censure was expunged years later. Why the idea that censuring a President whom a good chunk of the Congress couldn’t stand, but decided to just go for impeachment is somewhat a mystery to me?

Maybe someone should call on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get that ball rolling. Because putting all your chips first on Mueller and losing almost everything was a silly bet. The fact that the President gave you new chips, but then you decide again to put it all on red, is still a stupid bet, just saying.