House Democrats fractured Tuesday as Republicans moved to crush the latest effort to impeach President Donald Trump—just weeks before voters decide control of Congress.
The House voted 232–147 to table, or effectively kill, a resolution from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, accusing Trump of impeachable conduct over his administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.
Eighteen Democrats joined 214 Republicans in voting to shelve the measure. Another 46 Democrats voted “present,” including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., also voted “present,” bringing the chamber-wide total to 47. Nearly 150 lawmakers voted against tabling the resolution, signaling that a large majority of House Democrats were willing to let the impeachment fight proceed.
The maneuver spared lawmakers from casting a direct vote on the articles themselves—but it exposed a glaring divide inside the Democratic caucus at a politically perilous moment.
Green’s H.Res. 1486, filed Aug. 24, alleged that Trump abused his authority by allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to operate without sufficient accountability. The resolution accused the administration of civil-rights violations and efforts to conceal wrongdoing in deaths involving federal immigration officers.
The measure cited Renée Good, Alex Pretti, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Good and Pretti were U.S. citizens killed by federal agents during immigration operations in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Green argued that Congress could not postpone action simply because Democratic leaders wanted a broader investigation first.
“The Constitution doesn’t have a wait clause in it,” Green told reporters Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The Texas Democrat acknowledged that his bid faced long odds but cast it as a moral stand. On the House floor Tuesday, he described himself as an “unbought, unbossed, liberated and unelected Democrat,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
Democratic leaders countered that impeachment should follow a lengthy investigation, document review, witness interviews and congressional hearings—not a sudden floor vote.
“None of that serious work has been done,” Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar said in a joint statement Monday.
The trio said Democrats should remain focused on lowering the cost of groceries, gas, goods and health care while preparing to use Congress’ oversight powers if the party wins back the House.
Their “present” votes allowed them to avoid either endorsing Green’s impeachment push or joining Republicans to kill it outright.
Republicans quickly seized on the Democratic split.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., accused Democrats who opposed tabling the measure of catering to their “woke, extremist base,” telling Fox News Digital that voters were seeing “the party of obstruction.”
The clash landed during the House’s final scheduled week in session before the November midterms, when both parties are trying to keep their messages trained on pocketbook issues and control of Congress. Some Democrats privately complained that Green’s move was a distraction from that strategy, Axios reported.
But the vote also showed far more Democratic appetite for confrontation than Green found last year.
When he forced a separate impeachment vote in June 2025, 128 Democrats joined Republicans in tabling the measure. Tuesday, only 18 Democrats did so. The House later blocked another Green impeachment push in December 2025.
Tuesday’s showdown marked the third time during Trump’s second term that the House has quashed an impeachment effort from Green. Trump was impeached twice during his first term and acquitted by the Senate both times.
For Green, the vote may have been one of his final acts of defiance in Congress.
The 78-year-old lawmaker, who has represented a Houston-area district for more than two decades, lost a Democratic primary this year to Rep. Christian Menefee after redistricting pushed the two incumbents into the same district. Green is set to leave office in January.
That looming exit did little to soften his message.
Green warned ahead of the vote that lawmakers who tabled the measure would, whatever their stated reasoning, have the practical effect of protecting the president.
On Tuesday, enough Democrats joined Republicans—or stepped aside—to make sure the impeachment drive went no further.
