Harry Reid Warns Of Impeachment If Republicans Win The Senate

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. faces reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014, following a closed-door Democratic policy meeting. The Senate seemed ready Tuesday to vote preliminary ... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. faces reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014, following a closed-door Democratic policy meeting. The Senate seemed ready Tuesday to vote preliminary approval of a sprawling Democratic bill expanding health, education and other benefits for veterans, but the election-year measure faced conservative opposition and an uncertain fate as Republicans try to make it smaller and find ways to pay for it. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MORE LESS
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It’s crunch time in the midterm elections, and Democrats are pulling out all the stops to hold on to their endangered Senate majority, including reviving the specter of impeachment if they lose control.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will sound the siren in an email set to be sent on Wednesday afternoon to the roughly 1 million members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a copy of which was viewed in advance by TPM.

Frankly, a Republican House and Senate could go beyond shutting down the government — they could waste months of our lives on impeachment. And every month that goes by without solutions, struggling Americans are in pain,” he writes (emphasis in the original).

Even if Republicans were to win control of the Senate, it would not mean they’d have the two-thirds majority needed to remove the president from office in the event that the House votes to impeach him. There was some talk of impeaching President Barack Obama among Republicans earlier this year but that has largely died down in the run-up to next week’s midterm election.

The subject line of the PCCC email will be, “I need these three” — referring to Iowa’s Bruce Braley, Colorado’s Mark Udall and Alaska’s Mark Begich.

The email, signed by Reid, asks for donations for the candidates.

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Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for sooner sooner says:

    Awwww for dogs sake Harry, give it a rest. There are plenty of good reasons to not vote GOTP but fear-mongering over impeachment is nowhere near the top of the list.

  2. Sen. Portman basically sent out a dire warning to his fellow Republicans the other day. Although I do not agree with his policies in any way, I will say that he at least is not one of the typical lunatic right wing politicians. He is at least sensible.

    He basically told them, that if they eek out a tiny majority in the Senate, and plan to continue to just go right on doing nothing but grandstanding, and doing stupid things like trying to repeal Obamacare, or shut down the government again, they will live to regret it badly in 2016, and impeachment would end up being a nightmare for them.

    2016 is a Presidential year, and let’s face it, they have once again a very weak slate of candidates to go up against Hillary, but they also have many more vulnerable seats up in the Senate than the Dems do now, and if they keep the crap up for the next two years, their majority in the Senate will be short lived, they will hold no hope for the Presidency, and they may even lose seats in the House. I do not expect however, that the stupid party will heed those warnings though.

  3. This is NOT fear-mongering.
    The House would vote for impeachment in a heartbeat the same day the Republicans seat a Majority in the Senate.
    They won’t possibly have the 2/3 majority needed for conviction but that is not the intent. They would get their “pound of flesh” and time the impeachment and trial to occur in Sept/Oct. 2016, just in time to influence the election.
    Trust me, if the Republicans gain a Majority in the Senate it WILL HAPPEN (Yes, they really are that stupid to do it.)

  4. Okay, for a moment, let’s humor Senator Reid and pretend that impeachment is a realistic outcome. So what happens? Biden becomes President, and he’s less of a corporate puppet than Obama. Republicans get the “scary black man” out of office, and he’s replaced by a white man who’s more liberal.

    And I should be afraid, because… why?

  5. Avatar for bap bap says:

    This is the silver lining I see if the dems lose control of the senate. Perhaps a little short term pain for longer term gain.

    Honestly, a strong 2016 for dems scares me a little since 2020 will be a census/redistricting year. We all saw what repubs did in 2010 with respect to redistricting after riding the tea party wave following the dem wave of 2008. At least 2020 is a presedential year to get dems in to vote, but still…

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