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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi leaves the floor after the close of a vote on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry on October 31, 2019.

The House of Representatives' large impeachment vote, explained

The chamber just voted to corroborate procedures related to the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Past Updated Oct 31, 2019, 11:32am EDT

The House of Representatives canonical its get-go resolution related to their impeachment enquiry into President Donald Trump in a Thursday morning time vote.

This vote was not, of class, about whether Trump should exist impeached. If that happens, it will come up further downward the road. Instead, the resolution before the House was a fix of procedures proposed by Autonomous leaders for how the impeachment research will function going forward. You can read its text here.

The resolution passed past a vote of 232 to 196, almost entirely along political party lines. 2 Democrats — Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) — dissented from their party to vote no. Sometime Republican Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI), who left the party before this year, joined Democrats to vote yep. All current Republicans voted no.

The US House of Representatives votes on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry of President Trump, on October 31, 2019.

This vote can exist read as a sign that Democrats are fix to move to a new phase of the inquiry: They're winding down the closed-door depositions they've held in recent weeks and moving instead to hearings that will take place in public.

The resolution as well makes clear who will take the lead in this phase: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chair of the Firm Intelligence Committee and an marry of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It tasks Schiff's committee with belongings these public hearings and eventually writing a report. That report volition be handed off to the House Judiciary Commission, which would draft articles of impeachment. But we're still a ways off from that.

Thursday'southward vote is intriguing politically for two reasons. First, this is a vote that Pelosi has spent all yr trying to stave off thanks to fear of putting vulnerable House Democrats from Trump-friendly districts in a tough spot.

Second, and relatedly, Republicans have spent weeks making the lack of this vote a central talking indicate in their criticisms of Democrats' impeachment enquiry. In fact, House rules exercise not crave a vote to start such an inquiry, nor does the Constitution, as Vox'southward Ella Nilsen explained. Merely now that Democrats have decided to hold one anyway, Trump'due south defenders will have to find some other process complaint to gripe about.

Why Pelosi has changed class and agreed to concord this vote isn't entirely clear, since information technology really isn't necessary for her to agree one. She could recollect Democrats now have the upper paw politically, with polls showing support for the impeachment process. She could want to accept one of Republicans' main talking points off the table. Or she could just think it'south the right time to movement the inquiry to a new phase.

Whatever her reasoning, it has cued up a major moment in political history: Today will be the day lawmakers take their beginning recorded vote on what will likely be the road to President Trump's impeachment.

What Business firm Democrats' impeachment procedures resolution actually does

Democrats' resolution is non a resolution to kickoff an impeachment inquiry; the party's position is that they've been conducting one for some time already. Instead, the resolution is framed every bit 1 "directing certain committees to proceed their ongoing investigations" as part of an "existing House of Representative enquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist" for the impeachment of President Trump. That is: The inquiry already existed and volition continue.

The resolution does, notwithstanding, lay out some specifics virtually how things volition piece of work going forward.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gavels the shut of a vote on a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry on October 31, 2019.

First, it says that open hearings volition exist held and, interestingly, the committee that will agree those hearings is the House Intelligence Committee, chaired past Schiff. That makes sense, considering the whistleblower complaint made its style to Schiff in the starting time place (his committee oversees the intelligence customs). And information technology'due south Schiff's committee that has been holding closed-door depositions of Trump administration officials for the by month (though members of two other committees, Foreign Relations and Oversight, have as well been invited to take part).

Notwithstanding, the move raised some eyebrows, because traditionally, the Judiciary Commission has taken the lead in impeachment. The gossip in Washington is that Pelosi has not been happy with how that committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), has handled its public hearings this year. The resolution does signal a role for the Judiciary Committee eventually, though, as we'll see in a minute.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY), right, walks to meet with Speaker Pelosi to discuss impeachment proceedings, on September 24, 2019.

Second, the resolution gives some details on how those hearings will exist conducted. The interesting part here is that Schiff (and the intelligence committee'south ranking member Devin Nunes) will each get to question witnesses at the beginning for longer than the traditional 5 minutes — upward to ninety minutes in total. They can also designate staff members to do this questioning. This is not typically how congressional hearings are conducted but it would allow witnesses to be questioned for lengthier periods past skilled attorneys (rather than bloviating politicians).

Third, the resolution says that Nunes can ask for his ain witnesses to be invited or subpoenaed to bear witness, but there's a catch. Nunes must give "a detailed written justification of the relevance" of each witness's testimony and either Schiff or a majority vote on the committee would have to approve information technology. This is an endeavour to preclude Republicans from playing political games past demanding that irrelevant witnesses appear.

Finally, the resolution makes clear how this phase of the impeachment inquiry will end: Later Schiff has held public hearings, he will write a written report laying out his findings and recommendations. That's when the handoff to Nadler's Judiciary Committee will occur. The Judiciary Commission will review the report and typhoon impeachment manufactures if they deem that necessary (which they virtually surely will).

How we got here

Democrats in the House of Representatives have been divided over whether to impeach Trump since their majority was sworn in in Jan — and those divisions have only recently subsided as the Ukraine scandal broke.

Activists and voters in the party take been demanding Trump'south impeachment for some time now for a variety of reasons: from bigotry to financial abuse to his general deport in office. Simply at the start of this year, party leaders similar Speaker Pelosi were wary of this pressure, for political reasons. Their hard-won majority depended on many members representing districts that had voted for Trump.

On March four, 2019, Nadler announced that his Judiciary Committee would investigate "alleged obstruction of justice, public corruption, and other abuses of power past President Trump, his associates, and members of his Administration." And for the months after, this was the Firm's master probe into the Mueller study's findings and potential impeachment.

It was generally expected that, if Democrats decided they did desire to seriously explore impeaching Trump, they would take the step of "opening a formal impeachment inquiry." That is not something that is required by House rules — the Judiciary Committee can draw upward and vote on impeachment articles whenever they want — but it is something the House did in advance of the impeachment efforts aimed at Richard Nixon and Nib Clinton.

Merely they did non do this, and Nadler and other Judiciary Commission Democrats spent a few awkward months trying to betoken to their base of operations voters that they were serious about impeachment even though they connected to avoid the phrase "impeachment inquiry." (Some attempted to argue that they had started such an inquiry months ago.) The reason for these contortions seemed to be that Autonomous leaders remained opposed to a formal research.

It took a new scandal to shake things upwards. News of a whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump had pressured Ukraine's president to investigate the Biden family unit broke in September, and that led Pelosi to cease the ambivalence. The speaker announced on September 24 that "the Firm of Representatives is moving frontwards with an official impeachment enquiry."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, tiptop middle, joins with members of the Republican caucus during the October 31 vote.

Still, Pelosi showed no inclination to hold a vote of the full Firm over this. It wasn't practically necessary, and it would be most uncomfortable for those Autonomous members in Trump-supporting districts. It took over a calendar month for her to finally decide that information technology was indeed fourth dimension to movement forward and get the full Business firm on tape voting on this for the first time.

What happens adjacent

Summing up, now that this resolution has been approved by the Business firm, this is how the impeachment enquiry volition keep going forward:

Schiff'southward Intelligence Committee will hold public hearings and eventually write a study.
Nadler's Judiciary Commission will then review that report and likely draft and vote on articles of impeachment for Trump.
Whatsoever manufactures of impeachment improved by the Judiciary Committee would then become before the full Firm for the actual vote on whether Trump would be impeached.
If Trump is impeached past the House then the Senate would concord a trial to determine whether to remove him from function.

Information technology isn't clear how long each of these phases will last. Democrats had at 1 indicate hoped to hold their final votes on whether to impeach Trump before Thanksgiving, simply that timeline has slipped. For now, they nevertheless appear to be aiming to wrap things upwardly in the House before the end of the yr.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2019/10/31/20940176/impeachment-house-vote-resolution-procedures