The House Judiciary Committee had been set to vote on sending articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the full House of Representatives on Thursday. But a long day of debate between Democrats and Republicans resulted in committee chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler delaying the vote until Friday.
Nadler urged members of both sides to give deep consideration to the vote before them, the New York Times reported.
“It has been a long two days of consideration of these articles and it is late at night,” Nadler said on Thursday. “I want the members on both sides of the aisle to think about what has happened over these last two days and search their consciences before we cast our final votes.”
Doug Collins is SO MAD that he has to get up for a hearing tomorrow morning. Did he have bottomless brunch plans or something? pic.twitter.com/ULh1N6ZZyX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2019
The debate on Thursday lasted for 14 hours. After Nadler’s announcement, Republican ranking member Rep. Doug Collins complained about the delay in voting.
“The chairman just ambushed the entire committee and did not have any consultation with the ranking member,” Collins claimed, according to The Independent.
“We’re going to have votes at 10 am in the morning,” Collins further complained.
The decision, which was made just before midnight Friday morning, was made in part due to Republicans making the hearing last longer than was necessary, one Democratic member of the committee said.
“Republicans dragged out today’s mark-up to last 13 hours & force us to vote in the middle of the night. Instead, we will vote tomorrow morning in the light of day in front of the American people,” Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell said on Twitter.
Collins disagreed, suggesting that the daytime vote had ulterior motives.
“This committee is more concerned about getting on TV in the morning than it was finishing its job tonight and letting the members go home,” he said.