• Committees in both chambers of the Alabama Legislature advanced bills Wednesday to ensure President Biden appears on the November ballot.
• The legislation mirrors accommodations made in 2020 for then-incumbent President Trump.
• “We want to make sure every citizen in the state of Alabama has the opportunity to vote for the candidate of his or her choice,” Democratic state Sen. Merika Coleman, who sponsored her chamber’s version of the bill, said.

Alabama lawmakers advanced legislation Wednesday to ensure President Joe Biden will appear on the state’s November ballot, mirroring accommodations made four years ago for then-President Donald Trump.

Legislative committees in the Alabama House of Representatives and Senate approved identical bills that would push back the state’s certification deadline from 82 days to 74 days before the general election in order to accommodate the date of Democrats’ nominating convention.

The bills now move to to the full chambers. Alabama has one of the earliest candidate certification deadlines in the country which has caused difficulties for whichever political party has the later convention date that year.

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“We want to make sure every citizen in the state of Alabama has the opportunity to vote for the candidate of his or her choice,” Democratic Sen. Merika Coleman, the sponsor of the Senate bill, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The issue of Biden’s ballot access has arisen in Alabama and Ohio as Republican secretaries of state warned that certification deadlines fall before the Democratic National Convention is set to begin on Aug. 19. The Biden campaign has asked the two states to accept provisional certification, arguing that has been done in past elections. The Republican election chiefs have refused, arguing they don’t have authority, and will enforce the deadlines.

Democrats proposed the two Alabama bills, but the legislation moved out of committee with support from Republicans who hold a lopsided majority in the Alabama Legislature. The bills were approved with little discussion. However, two Republicans who spoke in favor of the bill called it an issue of fairness.

Republican Rep. Bob Fincher, chairman of the committee that heard the House bill, said this is “not the first time we’ve run into this problem” and the state made allowances.

“I’d like to think that if the shoe was on the other foot, that this would be taken care of. And I think that Alabamians have a deep sense of fairness when it comes to politics and elections,” Republican Sen. Sam Givhan said during the committee meeting.

Trump faced the same issue in Alabama in 2020. The Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature in 2020 passed legislation to change the certification deadline for the 2020 election. The bill stated that the change was made “to accommodate the dates of the 2020 Republican National Convention.” However, an attorney representing the Biden campaign and DNC, wrote in a letter to Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen that it was provisional certification that allowed Trump on the ballot in 2020, because there were still problems with the GOP date even with the new 2020 deadline.

Allen has maintained he does not have the authority to accept provisional certification.

Similarly, in Ohio, Attorney General Dave Yost and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, both Republicans, rejected a request from Democrats to waive the state’s ballot deadline administratively by accepting a “provisional certification” for Biden.

In a letter Monday, Yost’s office told LaRose that Ohio law does not allow the procedure. LaRose’s office conveyed that information, in turn, in a letter to Democratic lawyer Don McTigue. LaRose’s chief legal counsel, Paul Disantis, noted it was a Democrats who championed the state’s ballot deadline, one of the earliest in the nation, 15 years ago. It falls 90 days before the general election, which this year is Aug. 7.

Ohio Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio said she is waiting to hear from the Democratic National Committee on how to proceed. One of her members, state Sen. Bill DiMora, said he has legislation for either a short- or long-term fix ready to go when the time comes.

Senators were sworn in at 1 p.m. Wednesday for their third impeachment trial in four years, this time of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.

Three hours later, they had voted along party lines to dismiss both counts against Mayorkas.

House Republicans, who say Mayorkas has failed to fulfill his duties in upholding immigration law, pushed for a full Senate trial of the case against him. Senate Democrats called the allegations baseless.

The impeachment of President Biden’s top immigration official comes as Republicans make migration across the southern border an election-year issue.

“By doing what we just did, we have in effect ignored the directions of the House, which were to have a trial,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. “Today is not a proud day in the history of the Senate.”

Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant who grew up in California, is the first U.S. Cabinet official impeached in nearly 150 years.

Wednesday’s proceedings also marked the first time the Senate has ever declined to hold a trial after impeachment by the House.

It has been two months since Mayorkas was narrowly impeached in the House by a single-vote margin, with three Republicans and all Democrats opposed.

As the Senate convened Wednesday, Mayorkas was in New York City, where he held a news conference announcing a public awareness campaign to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. As the trial got underway, Mayorkas was in transit back to Washington.

“Today’s decision by the Senate to reject House Republicans’ baseless attacks on Secretary Mayorkas proves definitively that there was no evidence or Constitutional grounds to justify impeachment,” Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement. “It’s time for Congressional Republicans to support the department’s vital mission instead of wasting time playing political games and standing in the way of commonsense, bipartisan border reforms.”

Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, added that “President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas will continue doing their jobs to keep America safe and pursue actual solutions at the border.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) sought to accommodate the wishes of Republican colleagues in agreeing to a period of debate before moving to dismiss the case against Mayorkas.

Engaging in a full trial “would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” he said, urging colleagues to save impeachment “for those rare cases we truly need it.”

Schumer said the first impeachment article — for “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” — does not allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor and is therefore unconstitutional.

Republicans began stalling by initiating a series of increasingly far-fetched motions, which failed:

To adjourn the court of impeachment until April 30 at noon.

To adjourn until May 1 at noon.

To adjourn until Nov. 6 at noon — the day after the election.

Democrats pushed ahead and dismissed both impeachment articles on a vote of 51 to 49.

Along with their fellow Democrats, both senators from Mayorkas’ home state rejected his impeachment. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) called Mayorkas an exemplary public servant and said House Republicans failed to provide a shred of evidence that he had committed impeachable offenses.

Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) said, “Republicans would rather stand in the way of solving our challenges than do the hard work of leading our nation. … We don’t resolve policy disagreements by impeachment. We talk with the American people, get in a room, and do the work. The charged crime here is a farcical substitute for doing the hard work.”

Some experts raised concerns that Democrats’ decision to dismiss the impeachment before hearing evidence, even if the evidence was weak, further trivialized the process for what’s intended as Congress’ greatest power to hold officials accountable.

“A refusal to even consider something like this coming out of the House, it will allow Republicans, should Democrats advance a case of impeachment on their watch down the road, to say, ‘We’re just not even going to consider it, we’re going to follow the practice of Senate Democrats,’” said William Howell, director of the Center for Effective Government and a politics professor at the University of Chicago.

With the trial over, Howell said Republicans could pursue additional congressional oversight — hearings, investigations, and restrictions on discretionary funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

But Mayorkas’ impeachment, he said, illustrates the current struggle in Congress to determine the purpose of government. The impeachment might have ended with a fizzle, he said, but in the background remain questions about the direction of immigration and administrative policy.

“When Republicans lament what is going on in the administrative state, it almost always is the case that their arguments are about overreach,” he said. “There is a certain irony in Republicans coming forward and saying, ‘We’re going to impeach this person … for not doing enough, for not pursuing their legal mission as fully as they ought to.’”

Times staff writer Sarah D. Wire contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans are looking to hold as many votes as possible during the initial proceedings of the impeachment trial into Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas before Democrats in the chamber are expected to succeed in dismissing the trial. 

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., explicitly stated his intent to seek a dismissal of the House-passed articles of impeachment during a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday morning. While he had previously indicated that he wanted to quickly get past the proceedings, he had yet to confirm the Democratic plan to dismiss the trial. 

According to five Senate Republican sources familiar with the discussions, the structure of the proceedings is being negotiated with the Democrats. 

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The two parties are looking into a potential agreement for unanimous consent, in which Republicans are allowed to propose eight total points of order against the motions to dismiss. Each point of order, or fact that senators determine whether there is agreement on, will require its own vote. Lengthening the process and requiring Democrats to go on record on several components of the impeachment articles against Mayorkas. 

Schumer noted in his chamber floor speech on Wednesday that he would look to appease Republicans by allowing both points of order and debate time. “When we convene in trial today to accommodate the wishes of our Republican Senate colleagues, I will seek an agreement for a period of debate time that would allow Republicans to offer a vote on trial resolutions, allow for Republicans to offer points of order and then move to dismiss,” he said. 

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., joined by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., right, speaks to reporters following a closed-door policy meeting at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 7, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

This agreement will require that no senator objects, and Schumer urged them not to. 

The unanimous consent agreement which is being sought between the parties would allow 90 minutes of open debate after the senators are sworn in as jurors at 1:00 p.m. Then, two resolutions would receive votes, one from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, calling for a full Senate trial, and another from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that would refer the matter to a Senate Impeachment Trial committee first. 

Representatives for Lee and Cruz did not confirm the unanimous consent agreement discussions before the time of publication. 

GOP SENATOR EYES LEGISLATION TO DEFUND ‘PROPAGANDIST’ NPR AFTER SUSPENSION OF WHISTLEBLOWER

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Republican Senators criticize Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for his expected use of procedural hurdles to avoid trying to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Washington, D.C., on April 9, 2024. House impeachment managers are expected to deliver articles of impeachment on April 10, 2024. (Photo by ALLISON BAILEY/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

One source noted the GOP was making an effort to use every option possible to require more votes within the impeachment trial process, putting their Democratic colleagues on record as much as possible. 

Following the proposal of each point of order and prior to voting, the deal being discussed for unanimous consent would require four minutes of debate ahead of each vote. This time would be equally divided between the parties. One source explained that some Republican senators see this debate time as an opportunity to have the case for Mayorkas’s impeachment heard on the floor, even if it is not in the context of a full trial. 

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If Democrats’ motion to table an impeachment trial of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the Senate, five vulnerable lawmakers, Sens. Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown, Jacky Rosen, Tammy Baldwin and Jon Tester, could determine the outcome. (Getty Images)

Several Senate Republican sources also indicated that the dismissal route, which Schumer revealed he planned to take, was preferable to a motion to table. Tabling the trial has never happened with an impeachment, as GOP senators have noted, and it also does not provide the ability for any arguments from impeachment managers or defense counsel or debate between senators. 

If agreed to, the Mayorkas impeachment trial is likely to ultimately see dismissal, but Republicans will have several opportunities to put Democrats, particularly vulnerable ones who are up for re-election in pivotal states, on the record on multiple immigration and border related topics.