Kate Riga: “He’s made his brand on wrinkled suits and a gravelly-voiced authenticity, championing workers rights as well as those of women and LGBTQ people. He speaks in economic populism, a language that may have endeared Ohioans to both him and Trump.”
“And he appears to have figured out a way to appeal across-the-board to a large state in which politics vary dramatically depending on what corner of the state you’re in.”
“We did not send him there to vote his conscience, we did not send him there to do the right thing, whatever he said he was doing. We sent him there to represent us, and we feel very strongly that he did not represent us.”
— Dave Ball, Washington County Pennsylvania GOP chair, on voting to censure Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) for his impeachment vote to convict Donald Trump.
Jonathan Bernstein notes that bringing back earmarks comes with real benefits but only minor disadvantages:
“The downsides are even more marginal. Earmarks are budget-neutral — they offer instructions about how to disburse money that is already being appropriated — not new funding. In a way, they do add an arbitrary element to government spending, giving advantages to those lawmakers who sit on key committees or otherwise have the ability to bargain for them. Those who think spending should be purely by formula might not like that. But defenders of earmarks will point out that government spending formulas are never neutral or nonpolitical, and that direct decisions by the people’s representatives are a more democratic way of allocating funds than turning the decision over to the bureaucracy.”
“In an emergency vote Monday night, North Carolina’s Republican Party voted unanimously to censure Sen. Richard Burr, just two days after the retiring Republican cast a ‘guilty’ vote in former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial,” the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
Burr called it a “truly sad day” for state Republicans.
He added: “My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tries to explain his vote to acquit former President Donald Trump in the Wall Street Journal.
“There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone. His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended.”
“I was as outraged as any member of Congress. But senators take our own oaths. Our job wasn’t to find some way, any way, to inflict a punishment. The Senate’s first and foundational duty was to protect the Constitution.”
Punchbowl News reports that Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) will announce shortly the reintroduction of earmarks into the appropriations process.
Jake Sherman: “Earmarks help the leadership govern. People who don’t listen to leadership don’t get them. People who do, do. Whether you like them or not, that’s true.”
“The fact of the matter is this didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me.”
— Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), in an interview on WISN radio.
“Some Utah Republicans are hoping to censure Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) for voting to convict former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial,” the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
The censure motion concludes Romney used his “senatorial power and influence to undermine” Trump and claims “Romney appears to be an agent for the Establishment Deep State.”
“The Maine Republican Party could vote by month’s end to censure Sen. Susan Collins over her Saturday vote to convict former President Donald Trump of a Democratic impeachment charge, a move that infuriated many in the conservative grassroots,” the Bangor Daily News reports.
Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-PA) has drawn rebukes from Republican leaders in multiple counties across Pennsylvania following his vote to convict former President Trump, CBS Pittsburgh reports.
Tim Miller: “So the only way to view McConnell’s deliberations is that he recognizes clearly the fundamental nature of the threat, he saw stopping the insurrection as part of his legacy, he knows that it is Donald Trump who was solely responsible for it, and yet he still cannot bring himself to vote to convict… unless the vote is in private.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) writes in the Baton Rouge Advocate why he voted to convict former President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial.
“I voted to convict former President Trump because he is guilty. That’s what the facts demand.”
“I have no illusions that this is a popular decision. I made this decision because Americans should not be fed lies about ‘massive election fraud.’ Police should not be left to the mercy of a mob. Mobs should not be inflamed to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”
“North Carolina Republicans are moving to censure Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) for his guilty vote Saturday in the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump,” the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) blamed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on ABC News for former President Trump’s acquittal in his second Senate impeachment trial.
Said Coons: “Once Mitch McConnell made it clear he intended to acquit, even despite the compelling evidence, what the House managers needed wasn’t more witnesses or more evidence, what we all needed was more Republican courage.”
He added: “I’m fairly certain there would have been a vote to convict with a secret ballot.”
“Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial followed a very predictable partisan path in the U.S. Senate last week, with Democrats voting to convict and most Republicans voting to acquit. There is a long list of reasons behind that breakdown, but one of them is the increasingly tidy alignment between the Senate and the presidential partisan maps,” NBC News reports.
“It used to be that many states featured divided Senate delegations, and that presidents won the vote in states represented by the opposite party in Congress’ upper chamber. But that pattern has been in decline for decades now. And it’s advanced to the point where today, in 2021, the presidential election and Senate maps look remarkably similar.”
“What we needed was not more witnesses, but more Senators with spines.”
— Rep. Stacey Plaskett, on MSNBC.
Walter Shapiro: “The most intriguing—if typically cynical—performance was Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s. After voting to acquit Trump on dubious constitutional grounds, McConnell then delivered a searing Senate speech. Referring to January 6, McConnell said, ‘There is no question—none—that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.'”
“Of course, McConnell is partly responsible for aiding and abetting Trump for four years. But it is telling that at a moment of Trumpian triumph, he chose to speak in a way designed to defuse the skyrockets at Mar-a-Lago. McConnell’s calculus—and never doubt his abilities at political math—is that the benefits of breaking with Trump far outweigh the price of continued fealty. That and the 7 Republican votes for conviction are the sole bright spots on a dispiriting Saturday.”
Axios: McConnell’s two-step portends challenge for Biden and Schumer.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.