Rhode Island
Senate rejects two impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Mayorkas • Rhode Island Current
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday dismissed two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The Democrat-controlled chamber voted, 51-49 along party lines, to adjourn the impeachment trial after finding that the impeachment articles accusing Mayorkas of not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and were therefore unconstitutional.
“The charges brought against Secretary Mayorkas fail to meet the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor before a series of votes. “To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.”
The adjournment vote followed successful votes to drop the two House-passed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, as well as a series of Republican motions to adjourn the court of impeachment or enter closed session, which all failed.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only senator to break party ranks during an afternoon vote series. She voted “present” on a motion to drop the first article of impeachment.
Senators were sworn in Wednesday as jurors after House Republican impeachment managers delivered the two articles of impeachment the day before, starting the proceedings. House Republicans voted to impeach Mayorkas, on their second try, in February.
Republicans have demanded a trial, while Senate Democrats indicated they planned to either dismiss the articles or table the trial because they argued the charges against Mayorkas did not reach the constitutional threshold required of impeachment, which is “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said.
Republicans blast process
Following the vote, Republicans slammed Democrats, arguing the move to avoid a trial set a precedent.
“They created a new precedent saying you don’t even have to vote on the articles (of impeachment),” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told reporters off the Senate floor.
Missouri Republican Eric Schmitt warned that voters would remember the Senate’s decision in the November elections.
“They see what a disaster the border’s been,” he said to reporters.
Congressional Democrats and the White House have criticized Republicans’ efforts to impeach Mayorkas as political and campaign fodder for the November elections. Congressional Republicans and the Biden administration have clashed over immigration policy for years.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell argued Wednesday it was senators’ constitutional duty to hold a trial.
“It is the job of this body to consider the articles of impeachment brought before us and to render judgment,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor.
Even if a trial had been held, it’s unlikely that the two-thirds majority in the Senate required to remove Mayorkas could have been reached.
In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said House Republicans have not provided the necessary evidence to warrant an impeachment effort.
“Secretary Mayorkas spent months helping a bipartisan group of Senators craft a tough but fair bill that would give DHS the tools necessary to meet today’s border security challenges, but the same House Republicans playing political games with this impeachment chose to block that bipartisan compromise,” the spokesperson said.
“Congressional Republicans should stop wasting time with unfounded attacks, and instead do their job by passing bipartisan legislation to properly fund the Department’s vital national security missions and finally fix our broken immigration system.”
Amid the impeachment proceedings in the Senate, Mayorkas has been making his rounds on Capitol Hill to defend the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.
White House Spokesperson for Oversight and Investigations Ian Sams praised the Senate’s decision in a statement.
“Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional,” he said.
Several votes
Washington state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray presided over the impeachment proceedings, which included several votes Wednesday afternoon.
Schumer tried to approve by unanimous consent a structure for the trial, including debate time and the number of points of order senators could make, but Schmitt objected.
“I will not assist Sen. Schumer in setting our Constitution ablaze,” he said.
Schumer then raised a point of order declaring that the first article of impeachment did not rise to high crimes under the constitution, leading to a series of Republican senators demanding votes on proposals to delay a vote on Schumer’s motion
Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, moved to go to closed session and debate the articles of impeachment but Schumer objected. GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah made the same motion. Senators voted on both motions and rejected them 49-51.
Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, made a motion to adjourn the court of impeachment and begin impeachment proceedings on April 30 at noon.
Kennedy’s motion failed 49-51.
GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida made the same motion to adjourn, which also failed 49-51.
They went back to the point of order Schumer made that declared the first article of impeachment was unconstitutional. The Senate voted, 51-48, to reject the first article of impeachment on the grounds that it did not rise to the constitutional standard for impeachment, with Murkowski voting present.
Schumer made an identical point of order on the second article of impeachment.
Kennedy again filed a motion to adjourn to May 1, 2004 for impeachment proceedings. He corrected his request to 2024. It again failed 49-51.
GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas then made a motion to adjourn until Nov. 6 until after the election and “before this body disrespects the Constitution.” It failed 49-51.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, moved to table Schumer’s second point of order that the second article of impeachment is unconstitutional. It failed 49-51.
Senators then approved Schumer’s second motion, 51-49.
House action
Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been at the forefront of impeachment efforts against Mayorkas, first introducing the measure in September.
Greene is also a House impeachment manager, along with GOP Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Andrew Garbarino of New York, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Laurel Lee of Florida and August Pfluger of Texas.
Two of the impeachment managers, Biggs and Higgins, came to the Senate Wednesday to watch that chamber’s proceedings.
The two articles of impeachment charged Mayorkas with not complying with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust.
The first article of impeachment accused Mayorkas of contributing to myriad problems, including rising profits for smuggling operations, a high backlog of asylum cases in immigration courts, fentanyl-related deaths and migrant children found working in dangerous jobs. Republican state legislatures have moved to roll back child labor laws in industries from the food industry to roofing.
Republicans argued that the first article of impeachment would hold Mayorkas accountable for the large number of migrants that have traveled to the southern border to claim asylum. The Biden administration is dealing with the largest number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years.
The second article of impeachment charged Mayorkas with breaching public trust by making several statements in congressional testimony that Republicans argue are false, such as Mayorkas telling lawmakers that the southern border is “secure.”
The second article also charged Mayorkas with not fulfilling his statutory duty by rolling back Trump-era policies such as terminating contracts that would have continued construction of the border wall and ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that was ended after it went up to the Supreme Court.
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(WJAR) — While Rhode Island prepares for its 50th Pride celebration, many are looking back on the history of the event and remembering the people who launched the movement.
“Being in the first parade in 1976, it was the bicentennial year,” said Billy Mencer Ackerly. “It was absolutely very scary and we didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Mencer Ackerly was among a group of between 70 and 100 people who marched in Providence’s first pride parade in June of 1976, at the time of the nation’s bicentennial celebration.
“People on the sidelines were still looking at us like we just came off of a spaceship,” Mencer Ackerly said. “It was almost like they didn’t believe that we would have enough courage to be able to say who we were.”
Billy Mencer Ackerly was among a group of between 70 and 100 people who marched in Providence’s first pride parade in June of 1976, at the time of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. (WJAR)
For some, it was a chance to come out and be seen. For others, like Billy’s family members who took part in the parade, it was an opportunity to show their support.
“My mother was in a car with two other mothers, and it was driven by a gay guy. And on each side of the car it said, ‘I’m proud to say my child is gay,’” Mencer Ackerly said. “It was the best thing my mother ever did for me.”
But the parade itself was almost shut down before it began.
“They were denied the parade by the police chief who said there would be no parade in providence over his dead body,” retired judge and former civil rights attorney Stephen Fortunato said.
First, the bicentennial commission rejected a proposal to include the pride parade in the bicentennial celebrations.
“They can be gay. I have no qualms about their activity or their private habits. We denied endorsement primarily because their activities do not sufficiently relate to the bicentennial,” said Patrick Conley in 1976. He was the Chairman of the Bicentennial Commission at the time.
Stephen Fortunato, who was a civil rights attorney at the time, took on the case.
“This group was ostracized, hated, discriminated against,” Fortunato said. “These civil rights and civil liberties cases depend on the courage of individual people or groups of people like the gay community at the time.”
Billy Mencer Ackerly’s mother, among other mothers, were in a car that read ‘I’m proud to say my child is gay’ during the first parade.
They took the case to federal court and won, paving the way for not just one parade, but five decades of love, acceptance and visibility.
“This movement is based on love,” said Rodney Davis, the current president of Rhode Island Pride. “I want people to come and experience themselves. Their whole selves, who they are.”
This year, organizers are honoring those who came before as well as the tens of thousands of people who show up every year to continue to carry the torch.
“Our theme for this year is ‘We are the people,’ because without everyone America isn’t America,” Davis said.
NBC 10 asked Davis what he hopes to see in the future.
“I want to get to a point where we don’t have to fight to exist,” Davis said. “It’s gotten better, but it’s not there yet.”
Since 1976, Mencer Ackerly has attended Rhode Island’s Pride celebration nearly every year. This coming weekend, he’s once again looking forward to participating.
“When I’m in the parade, I will also be thinking of all those ’76ers that have passed away over the years and about their bravery and their courage,” Mencer Ackerly said. “And I just believe they’ll be clapping up in heaven and celebrating for all of us.”
This year’s PrideFest kicks off Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. at District Park in Providence.
(WJAR) — Tucked away in the woods of Exeter, a small museum is preserving stories that long predate Rhode Island’s founding, and even the arrival of European settlers in New England.
The Tomaquag Museum is Rhode Island’s only Indigenous-led museum and one of the oldest tribal museums in the United States.
For more than six decades, it has worked to preserve and share the history, culture and resilience of Native peoples across Southern New England.
A historic image from the Tomaquag Museum. (Tomaquag Museum)
“Tomaquag Museum is very unique in that it was founded by women,” said Executive Director Loren Spears.
The museum traces its roots back to 1958, when anthropologist Eva Butler and Narragansett Wampanoag elder Princess Red Wing set out to preserve Indigenous history through an Indigenous lens.
The collection originally began in Tomaquag Valley in Hopkinton, which inspired the museum’s name.
A member of the Narragansett Native American Tribe, Spears said the museum’s mission is to ensure Native voices remain part of the historical narrative.
A painting at the Tomaquag Museum that depicts a harsh scene. (WJAR)
“There is no U.S. history without First Peoples’ history,” she said.
The Narragansett Tribe, based primarily in Charlestown, has a history in the region stretching back more than 30,000 years.
Before English colonization, the Narragansetts were among the most influential Indigenous nations in Southern New England.
A display on historic documents at the Tomaquag Museum. (WJAR)
“We’ve had this interrelationship and this history the whole time and have contributed to the creation and formation of this nation in different kinds of ways,” Spears said.
Today, the museum houses thousands of cultural belongings and hundreds of thousands of archival materials documenting Indigenous communities throughout the region.
Among the artifacts on display is an American flag that flew in Afghanistan in honor of the Narragansett Tribe.
“People are often like, ‘Why is there a flag here?’” Spears said. “It’s here because this exact flag flew in Afghanistan in honor of the Narragansett Tribe.”
A U.S. dollar bill signed by Lynn Malerba, the first female chief of the Mohegan Tribe in modern times and the 45th Treasurer of the United States. (WJAR)
The museum also showcases a U.S. dollar bill signed by Lynn Malerba, the first female chief of the Mohegan Tribe in modern times and the 45th Treasurer of the United States.
“You can’t get any more American than a dollar bill,” Spears said. “To be able to see that an Indigenous woman is the one that signed that as the treasurer, we think is pretty remarkable.”
Visitors can explore the museum’s exhibit, “Revolution to Reclamation: Freedom Through Indigenous Sovereignty,” which includes hands-on activities designed for families and children.
Guests can create corn husk dolls, play traditional games, and learn about Native cultures through interactive displays.
Tomaquag Museum Executive Director Loren Spears and NBC 10’s Abbey Buttacavoli at the museum. (WJAR)
In 2016, the museum received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the nation’s highest honor for museums and libraries.
The museum is also preparing for a major new chapter. Within the next few years, Tomaquag plans to relocate to a new facility on the campus of the University of Rhode Island, with hopes of breaking ground by the end of 2026.
“There’s an importance to having Indigenous voice in the room and being part of the story,” Spears said.
Ethan McDermott, 22, was arrested shortly after midnight Friday as a “result of an investigation into a motor vehicle crash on Route 146,” the Rhode Island State Police said in a media release.
McDermott was also charged with reckless driving and other offenses against public safety and refusal to submit to a chemical test, according to the release.
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