Schumer: House Republicans’ Mayorkas impeachment effort ‘illegitimate and profane abuse of US constitution’ – live

Interim summary

In response, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, is not happy that the impeachment trial is about to be tanked.

He’s accusing Democrats of failing to live up to their obligations to assess the evidence and render a verdict, and taking potshots at Joe Biden’s border policies:

Today it falls to the Senate to determine whether and to what extent Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas enabled and inflamed this crisis. Under the Constitution and the rules of impeachment, it is the job of this body to consider the articles of impeachment brought before us and to render judgment.

The question right now should be how best to ensure that the charges on the table receive thorough consideration. But instead, the more pressing question is whether our Democratic colleagues intend to let the Senate work its will, at all.

Tabling articles of impeachment would be unprecedented in the history of the Senate. Tabling would mean declining to discharge our duties as jurors.

It would mean running both from our fundamental responsibility and from the glaring truth of the record-breaking crisis at our southern border.

Absent from McConnell’s statement blaming Democrats for the border crisis is any mention that his own Republican senators negotiated, then sank, bipartisan legislation to address it.

The about-face came apparently at the urging of Donald Trump, Biden’s presumptive opponent in November, who did not want Republicans to hand the president a pre-election victory on a campaign issue.

Chuck Schumer has released a lengthy statement about the commencement (and presumably very swift termination) of the impeachment trial of homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this afternoon.

It is the “least legitimate, least substantive, and most politicized impeachment trial in the history of the United States,” the Democratic Senate majority leader said, encapsulating remarks he made in the chamber just now and posted to Facebook:

The charges brought against Secretary Mayorkas fail to meet the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.

For the sake of the Senate’s integrity, and to protect impeachment for those rare cases we truly need it, Senators should dismiss today’s charges.

So, when we convene in trial today, to accommodate the wishes of our Republican Senate colleagues, I will seek an agreement for a period of debate time that would allow Republicans to offer a vote on trial resolutions, allow for Republicans to offer points of order, and then move to dismiss.

Let’s not kid ourselves about what’s going on today: the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas has nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors and everything to do with helping Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

The votes could come in very short order, once Republicans have had their (very brief) say. The chamber has just convened to begin the proceedings.

Schumer concludes:

It is beneath the dignity of the Senate to entertain this nakedly partisan exercise.

Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements. That would set a disastrous precedent for the Congress and could throw our system of checks and balances into endless cycles of chaos.

House to vote Saturday on foreign aid packages

Schumer: Mayorkas impeachment ‘illegitimate and profane abuse of constitution’

Developments in Arizona over abortion, and the state’s supreme court paving the way for an 1864 act outlawing the procedure to take effect, have prompted a significant change in prospects for Republicans’ fortunes in November elections.

According to Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the website of the University of Virginia’s respected pollster Larry Sabato, Arizona’s open Senate race between Republican Kari Lake (if she wins her primary race, as expected) and challenger Ruben Gallego has shifted from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic”.

Similarly, the congressional race in AZ district six, currently held by Republican Juan Ciscomani, has moved from “leans Republican” to “toss-up”.

Arizona Republicans have faced a huge backlash over the abortion issue, and particularly after they blocked Democrats’ early efforts to repeal the 1864 law.

Terry Greene Sterling writes for the Guardian today about how Democrats in Arizona expect abortion to fuel a “blue wave” in November:

It’s a day off in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York, but the Republican presumptive presidential nominee is keeping busy.

He’s meeting Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, who once proposed naming a military base in his country Fort Trump, according to the Associated Press.

The pair will meet over dinner, the AP says, citing “a person familiar with the matter”. The agency states European leaders are preparing for the possibility of Trump’s return to the White House, with Nato leaders especially concerned given his support of Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin.

Some in Poland fear the get-together could hurt the country’s relationship with the Biden administration, the AP says, while others welcome the prospect of Duda leveraging ties with Trump to make the case for backing Ukraine.

Trump’s trial for covering up a payment to an adult film star resumes on Thursday, with seven jurors already seated, and five more, plus six alternates, still needed. Judge Juan Merchan has said opening arguments could begin as early as Monday.

Have a read of the Guardian’s latest Trump on Trial newsletter here:

Bob Graham, a veteran Democratic politician who served two terms as Florida governor, three terms in the US Senate, and ran for president in 2004, has died at the age of 87.

Known for his dislike of partisan politics, Graham enjoyed a career that spanned five decades. He was massively popular with Florida’s voters, and founded the concept of “workdays”, where he would join citizens in their daily life and talk to them about the issues that concerned them.

During 408 such days, Graham enjoyed stints as a housewife, boxing ring announcer, flight attendant and arson investigator.

He gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate intelligence committee in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, and as an early critic of the Iraq war that followed. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2004.

“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of a visionary leader, dedicated public servant, and even more importantly, a loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather,” Graham’s family said in a statement.

Republicans Ron DeSantis, the current Florida governor, and Jeb Bush, governor from 1999 to 2007, were among those paying tribute on Wednesday.

There’s news from Michigan, where the Guardian’s Alice Herman reports on Democrats seizing control of the state’s lower house following special elections there:

Special elections for two vacant seats in the Michigan house of representatives flipped control back to Democrats, who organizers say could use their restored trifecta in the state to pass legislation protecting voting rights and election administration.

A push to codify voter protections stalled after two Democratic lawmakers resigned and the party lost their majority in the house of representatives last November. With the election on Tuesday of Mai Xiong and Peter Herzberg, who represent sections of Detroit and its suburbs, legislators could use their newfound majorities to renew those efforts.

In November 2022, Michigan voters passed a constitutional amendment enacting sweeping election reforms, including establishing early voting, expanding absentee voting and pre-empting the creation of stringent voter ID laws. The following year, the Democratic-controlled state legislature passed legislation to enact the amendment, setting aside more than $40m in the state budget to fund a measure to expand early and absentee voting, which was adopted by election clerks across the state.

Despite some hiccups along the way, election offices across the state have succeeded in enacting the newly guaranteed nine days of early voting. Ahead of the 27 February presidential primary, more than 1 million voters cast their ballots early and absentee – a record, according to the state. The secretary of state’s office attributed the high turnout to the expanded early voting measure.

In their last legislative session, Michigan lawmakers introduced other measures to protect voting rights – including establishing, through a package of bills, a state-level Voting Rights Act and a ban on prison gerrymandering. The Michigan Voting Rights Act forms part of a slew of measures states have taken to fill in the gaps left by weakened federal voting rights protections: New York, Connecticut, Virginia, Oregon, Washington and California have already passed such legislation.

Read the full story:

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