Barely past the sham GOP-led impeachment trial of Donald Trump, U.S. senators on both sides of the aisle are already bracing for what they expect to be a shorter time period between this removal proceeding and the next one. But naturally, the goals of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are quite different, according to The New York Times.
Republicans hope to enact rules that would limit both the House’s ability to impeach a president and the scope of information that would be considered in a Senate trial. One GOP official is advocating for a way to block consideration of what they called "nuisance" impeachments sent over from the House, as if Donald Trump's attempt to rig U.S. elections with foreign help was just a pesky dust-up. To that end, Florida Sen. Rick Scott is pushing to raise the House threshold for impeachment to require three-fifths support in the lower chamber rather than a simple majority.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley also wants to thwart the House's control over when articles are officially transmitted by simply giving the Senate authority to initiate a trial within a certain period after the House impeaches.
Democrats, on the other hand, want to expand Senate trials by mandating that new documentary evidence and testimony be considered. “I’d like to see witnesses and documents be required,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said of the proposal from Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley.
But at least some Republicans are pulling for a cooling-off period before any new rules are implemented. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt noted that about a dozen years passed between the anticipated Nixon-era trial that ultimately never materialized and impeachment rule changes made in 1986. “They waited a dozen years before they said, ‘OK, now that things have totally settled down, nobody has an ax to grind, half the Congress that was here in 1972 isn’t here anymore, let’s look at the rules,’” Blunt said.