Rep. Kay Granger didn’t vote on President Trump’s impeachment. Here’s why.
U.S. Rep. Kay Granger of Fort Worth, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, hasn’t voted on House bills since Jan. 3 because she was been in quarantine until Thursday morning, but said she would have voted against the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“Healing the wounds of last week cannot begin with a partisan impeachment process aimed at settling political scores,” she said in a statement.
Granger, 77, tested positive for COVID-19 on Jan. 4, just two days before a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, which she condemned in a written statement a day later.
She didn’t vote on the certification of the electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden, the article of impeachment against Trump and the House call for Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Granger’s statement did not say how she would have voted regarding the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania or invoking of the 25th Amendment. A text to her spokesperson asking about the votes went unanswered.
She told CNN on Nov. 20 that it was “time to move on” when asked about Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
The option was there to vote remotely, but Granger is against voting via proxy, she said in Thursday’s statement. In May, the House voted to allow remote voting in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
Granger and other GOP representatives are trying to get rid of proxy voting through a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing that remote voting is unconstitutional, she said in Thursday’s statement.
“Speaker Pelosi’s scheme to allow voting by proxy, reversing over 230 years of precedent, is unconstitutional and a flagrant assault on the rights of the House Minority,” she said in a statement dated May 27. “ Under the House Rule adopted by Speaker Pelosi last week, House Democrats would need only a small fraction of Members present in the House Chamber to pass legislation, allowing for a select few to decide the work of the House”
A federal judge threw the lawsuit out in August, but was appealed and was taken to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where it has been pending since October.
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 5:18 PM.
