Seven Republican senators voted to convict Donald Trump in Saturday's Senate trial vote, which is honestly seven more than I thought it would be. The real shocker of the bunch is Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who apparently developed a spinal column over last week and has already received swift backlash from the state GOP.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy broke with the Republican party in visceral terms Saturday, voting with just six other members of his party to convict Donald Trump on charges of incitement of insurrection and declaring he was putting the Constitution over the former president.
The blowback from Republicans back home was swift and dramatic. The state GOP took the remarkable step of censuring the Baton Rouge Republican hours after his vote to convict. Several Republican elected officials condemned the senator, who was a reliable conservative vote during his first six-year term that began in 2014, voting with Trump 89% of the time.
The schism between Cassidy and his own party made clear that the allegiances among many Louisiana Republicans still lay with the former president, and not their senior U.S. senator.
“Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person,” Cassidy said in a brief video released after the vote. “I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.”
Cassidy joined six other Republicans in voting with all Democrats to convict Trump, leaving Democrats well short of the two-thirds threshold needed to convict. Still, they touted the vote as the most bipartisan impeachment vote in U.S. history. The historic impeachment trial centered around Trump’s role in inciting a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to interrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s electors. Five people died in the riot.
Louisiana’s other senator, John Kennedy of Madisonville, who is up for re-election in 2022, voted to acquit Trump, criticizing the impeachment proceedings as “political sport.” Kennedy had also voted earlier this week not to move forward with the trial on the basis that it was unconstitutional to convict a former president; Cassidy broke with most members of his party on that vote as well.
“The merits of the Democrats’ case were not even close,” Kennedy said. “The Democrats afforded the president no due process in the House — no hearings, no investigation, no right to be heard, no defense. No one is above the law, but no one is beneath it.”
Both Kennedy and Cassidy were Democrats for years -- the Democratic party for years dominated Louisiana politics -- before switching to the GOP as Republicans cemented their political power in the state.
Almost immediately after his vote to convict, Louisiana Republicans blasted Cassidy. Attorney General Jeff Landry said the vote was “extremely disappointing,” calling the impeachment trial unconstitutional. He said Cassidy fell into a “trap laid by Democrats to have Republicans attack Republicans.”
Mike Bayham, the secretary of the LAGOP, said he hopes the Legislature will revamp the state’s election system to hold closed primaries, which he believes will result in more reliable Republican candidates. Currently, all candidates for office appear on the same ballot regardless of party, in what's known as a jungle primary.
“Bill Cassidy is a senator without a party as of today,” he said.
LAGOP Chairman Louis Gurvich said the party condemns Cassidy’s vote.
“Fortunately, clearer heads prevailed and President Trump has been acquitted of the impeachment charge filed against him,” Gurvich said.
State Rep. Blake Miguez, of Erath, the head of the House GOP delegation, said Cassidy “no longer represents the majority of people in Louisiana” who voted him into office. “Don’t expect a warm welcome when you come home to Louisiana!” he tweeted.
Cassidy may have ruined his political career doing the right thing, but he also knows that the LA GOP won't lay a glove on him, not while his replacement would be selected by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Note that nobody is calling for Cassidy's resignation.
It's all politics and Cassidy knew what he was doing when he came out to convict Trump. Sure, he'll probably retire or be primaried out in 2026, but he's betting he's got five plus more years to cross that bridge.
The LA GOP formally censured Sen. Bill Cassidy today. Interesting side note: When I was on the staff of US Senator Bennett Johnston, we asked the LA Republican Party to censure our opponent, David Duke, because he had literally been a self-professed Klansman. They refused. pic.twitter.com/8WBW9qBDMa
— Robert Collins (@DrRobertCollins) February 14, 2021
And if he's "without a party", well, he can always caucus with the Dems...
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