{"id":8966,"date":"2024-02-13T12:27:49","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T13:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8966"},"modified":"2024-02-13T13:58:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T13:58:33","slug":"gallaghers-falling-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8966","title":{"rendered":"Gallagher\u2019s falling star"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2024\/02\/13\/gallaghers-falling-star\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gallaghers-falling-star<\/a><\/p>\n

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print.<\/a> Here\u2019s a part:<\/p>\n

\n

Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher has had quite a week. After a controversial vote against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Gallagher made the surprise announcement that he will not be seeking reelection. The moment says a lot about where the Republican base is right now.<\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

Impeachment is a political tool granted to the House of Representatives by the Constitution to be used against anyone in the other two branches of government. It is one of the famed \u201cchecks\u201d that creates \u201cbalance\u201d in our system of government. The criteria for impeachment are intentionally vague because it is a political tool \u2014 not a legal one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though the Democrat majority in the Senate would never convict Mayorkas, the House Republican leadership sought to impeach Mayorkas to vent the frustration of their constituents and use the most powerful tool available to them to try to check the Executive Branch\u2019s wonton disregard for the laws it is charged to faithfully implement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gallagher voted against impeaching Mayorkas and it failed by a narrow margin. Gallagher\u2019s reasoning was sincere, but flawed. He aspires to a higher standard for impeachment that the Democrats abandoned long ago and is not appropriate for the seriousness of the border crisis and Mayorkas\u2019 role in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reaction to Gallagher\u2019s vote from Republican voters and moderates was immediate and vicious \u2014 perhaps overly so, but reflective of the pent-up frustration and anger about Biden\u2019s border treachery. Republican voters are looking for elected Republicans to use every tool available to fight for a secure border. We are sick and tired of watching elected Republicans latibulate when our country needs people to fight for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gallagher took both barrels of that gurgling anger. Although he did not state this reaction as the reason, he announced that he will not seek reelection a couple of days after his vote. Gallagher was a rising Republican star with legitimate conservative credibility, but this singular vote has most likely ended his political career.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2024\/02\/13\/gallaghers-falling-star\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gallaghers-falling-star My column for the Washington County Daily News is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boots-sabers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8967,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8966\/revisions\/8967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}