Congressman Blake Moore votes against impeaching Mayorkas as a ‘procedural’ move

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — On Tuesday, Feb. 6, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas narrowly avoided impeachment thanks to a last-minute switch from Utah Congressman Blake Moore (R) and a few holdouts.

Mayorkas faced impeachment over issues regarding migrants coming to the United States and the southern border. House Republicans have claimed the secretary is violating immigration laws by not detaining enough migrants or by implementing a humanitarian parole program they say bypasses Congress.

Moore had originally voted in favor of impeaching Secretary Mayorkas before switching his vote against impeachment at the last moment. The Associated Press reports the vote was tied for several minutes at 215-215 on the House floor before Moore swung his vote for a final vote of 214-216.

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Moore’s office told ABC4 the vote was a “procedural move” so that House Republicans could bring up the impeachment vote again at a later time.

“I voted in favor of [impeachment] and right before that vote was about to close it was clear that that vote was going to fail. It was 215 to 215,” Moore explained in a video posted to Twitter/X. “When it’s a tie in the House of Representatives that means that that bill or that motion or that resolution will fail.”

Moore explained that a member of the majority leadership team, which he is as a Vice Chair of the House GOP, will switch their vote at the last minute so they could offer a motion to reconsider.

“Instead of the bill failing and never being able to be brought up again, somebody will be able to bring that back up at a time and choosing of when the Speaker of the House and the majority leader want to do that,” said Moore.

The Utah congressman said he knew there would be some confusion with his vote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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