As the house votes on its inquiry
With thanks to a long time reader who kindly informed us of something we didn’t realize and want to share with you.
“There are some rules that apply for Senate behavior during an impeachment trial. Among those rules are these. No member of the Senate can engage in campaigning during a Senate trial. That means Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Amy Klobucher would be off the trail.”
We didn’t realize that and since an impeachment trial could drag on for a month does that mean they will be locked up that long? I assume they can get out for the weekend, but a long trial can’t make them happy.
Of course others like Mayor Pete, Beto and VP Biden could stay out there.
We did some research on this and Intelligencer wrote this:
“The standing Senate rules do require a fairly expeditious beginning for impeachment trials after the House has passed articles of impeachment, so it’s not like Mitch McConnell can deviously get it rolling the night of the Iowa Caucuses. But if the House really doesn’t get its part done until well into December, you could easily see a trial running through the critical pre-Iowa stretch of frenzied activity. The Clinton trial, which was about as cut-and-dried as any presidential impeachment trial could be, lasted from January 7 until February 12, 1999. Let’s say for the sake of argument a Trump trial begins and ends precisely on those dates in 2020. It would encompass both the Iowa Caucuses (February 3) and the New Hampshire primary (February 11). If it started later or ran longer, it could directly interfere with the Nevada Caucuses (February 22), the South Carolina primary (February 29), or — worst-case scenario — the 12 states (including California and Texas) holding primaries or caucuses on Super Tuesday (March 3).
I wonder if the Democrats thought this through since the chances of the senate convicting is so slim.
one election update
This week Amy Klobuchar became the ninth candidate to make the November debate stage. She joins Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang.
Of those at the last debate, Julian Castro still has zero qualifying polls, Tulsi Gabbard and Beto O’Rourke each have two.
Candidates have until November 13th to qualify for the debate on the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia.