One year ago today, Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives. The outcome was foreordained: Nobody thought at the time that there were 20 Republican senators who would vote to convict. We can argue forever about whether the Senate should have removed Trump and how 2020 and the election would have been different with Mike Pence in charge, but as I argued here and here, with no clear-cut criminal offense, the voters evenly divided, and a presidential election impending, it was entirely in line with the design and history of our system for the Senate to acquit and let the voters decide if Trump was truly unfit for office — which, in the end, is what they did.
In the House, only four members bucked party lines; in the Senate, only one. The lone House Republican to vote for impeachment, Justin Amash, left the party to become a Libertarian, and did not run again. The lone House Democrat to vote “present,” Tulsi Gabbard, was a presidential also-ran and did not run again for her House seat, either. One of the two Democrats to vote no, Jeff Van Drew, switched parties and was reelected as a Republican; the other, Collin Peterson, lost reelection after three decades in a House district that has turned increasingly red. The lone senator to buck his party, Mitt Romney, does not face the voters again until 2024.
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