Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina was formally reprimanded by his state Republican party on Monday night after he voted to convict Donald Trump – making him the third of the seven Republicans who turned on their former president to be punished.
All three have been formally censured – a censure from the party being essentially a public reprimand that lets party activists voice their disapproval.
Three more are likely to be censured, with only Lisa Murkowski of Alaska expected to escape the reprimand from her state party, while it’s uncertain if Utah’s GOP leaders will bend to a petition to censure Romney.
The seven senators – Barr, Murkowski, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana – all knew they risked angering some voters by opting to impeach Trump.
Some Republicans in Romney’s state of Utah accused him of having ’embarrassed’ them, claiming he is not representing their interests but is instead an ‘agent of the deep state’ and have started an online petition for a censure motion.
The leaders of Utah’s Republican party, however, put out a statement saying they’re not behind the effort and that they support a ‘diversity of thought.’
Meanwhile, Cassidy was censured formally by his party on Saturday, and Toomey shortly after.
‘I have no illusions that this is a popular decision,’ Cassidy wrote in a column published on Sunday.
‘I made this decision because Americans should not be fed lies about ‘massive election fraud.’ Police should not be left to the mercy of a mob.
‘Mobs should not be inflamed to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.’
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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the senator’s vote is ‘extremely disappointing’ and claimed that Cassidy has ‘fallen into the trap laid by Democrats to have Republicans attack Republicans’.
One of Toomey’s districts, Clarion County, called their senator’s impeachment vote ‘a purely self-serving vindictive and punitive action by those with establishment political objectives,’ in a document obtained by The Hill.
Burr and Toomey have both already announced that they are stepping down in 2022.
Murkowski is not facing an imminent censure from her party.
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Romney, who was the lone Republican to vote for Trump’s impeachment in February 2020, was facing a backlash from some constituents.
Some in Utah accuse him, in a censure motion being circulated online among Republicans, of being ‘an agent for the Establishment Deep State.’
They argue that Romney failed to ‘represent the average conservative Utah Republican voter’ and say he is not true to the party, accusing him of having ‘misrepresented hi… (Read more)
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