Who were the four Republicans who saved Alejandro Mayorkas from impeachment?

House Speaker's failed attempt to impeach Homeland Security's Alejandro Mayorkas reveals disarray in the chamber.

A failed attempt to impeach Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday night dealt a major blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson and exposed the disarray within his chamber.

The Four Republicans Saved Mayorkas from Impeachment-GOP Reps. Mike Gallagher (Top Right), Tom McClintock (Top left), Ken Buck (Bottom right) and Blake Moore (Bottom left). (Reuters/AP/AFP)

The impeachment vote, which would have been the first for a Cabinet member since 1876, fell short by just two votes. The final tally was 214 to 216.

The outcome was largely due to the defection of four Republicans who sided with the unanimous Democrats. They were Reps. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tom McClintock of California, and Blake Moore of Utah.

Moore changed his vote to “no” at the last second, allowing the House to revisit the issue later. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was absent from the vote. He has been undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma in Washington. It is uncertain if the GOP will try to impeach Mayorkas again.

The failed impeachment was another sign of the GOP’s diminished power in the House. The Republicans had a slim majority after the 2022 midterms, but they lost it after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy quit Congress following his removal.

Previously, the House also made history by voting to expel Rep. George Santos of New York.

Santos mocked his former colleagues on X (formerly Twitter). He posted a picture of the tied vote and wrote, “Miss me yet?”

Gallagher's gamble

One of the most surprising votes against impeachment came from Gallagher, who chairs the House’s select committee on China, a prominent position in the Capitol. Gallagher has been seen as a rising star in his party and was courted for a possible US Senate run this year.

Buck and McClintock say ‘no’ to Mayorkas

Two other Republicans who voted “no”, Buck and McClintock, had expressed doubts about the impeachment case against Mayorkas. They questioned whether the two articles of impeachment met the constitutional threshold for the charge. McClintock also warned that impeaching Mayorkas would set a dangerous precedent that could be exploited by future Congresses to impeach officials for poor performance.

Mayorkas’ impeachment was unlikely to succeed in the Senate, where Democrats and their allies have a narrow majority. The impeachment would have required 67 votes to convict, a high hurdle to clear. But senators from both parties have voiced their displeasure with the impeachment effort.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, told reporters, according to Huff Post, “What’s rich to me is the speaker says the [border] bill in the Senate is… dead on arrival. And then they proceed impeaching a cabinet secretary, which is obviously dead on arrival.”

Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, echoed Buck and McClintock’s concerns about the impeachment case against Mayorkas.

“I haven’t seen the Constitutional standard met yet,” Romney told Axios.

“We’ll see what they find in their investigation.”

Before the vote on Tuesday, McClintock sent a harsh 10-page letter to his fellow Republicans, criticizing their impeachment push. He also gave a speech on the House floor, saying, “stunts like this don’t help.”

“[T]aking the course outlined by the [Homeland Security Committee] is bad politics and bad policy. It is bad politics because it taints with partisanship what would otherwise be overwhelming national opposition to Democrats’ open borders policy. It is bad policy because it strengthens a dangerous constitutional precedent the Democrats will surely use against conservatives on the Supreme Court and a future Republican administration the moment they have that opportunity,” McClintock wrote in his letter.