WASHINGTON – The Senate Monday rejected a bid to conduct a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as Republicans declined to defend him but rejected the effort as a “political stunt.”
On a 53-38 roll call, Democrats fell seven votes short of the 60 needed to invoke cloture and begin the debate on a resolution condemning Gonzales. Seven Republicans broke with the administration and refused to support the attorney general.
No Democrats voted against bringing up the resolution for debate.
Democrats had hoped their one-sentence nonbinding resolution – which says that Gonzales “no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people” – would be a step toward forcing Gonzales, under siege for the firings of some U.S. attorneys last year, to resign.
But Gonzales vowed again Monday to stay in office throughout the remainder of President Bush’s term despite intense congressional scrutiny of the prosecutor firings and alleged politicization of other divisions in the Justice Department on his watch.
Leading up to Monday’s vote, Democrats were aware that victory was unlikely, but they claimed a symbolic triumph in getting more than a handful of Republicans to join the effort to publicly shame the attorney general.
Instead of defending Gonzales, a longtime friend of the president’s from Texas, Republicans attacked the move as merely political and designed to embarrass Gonzales and the GOP senators.
The scandal grew out of the federal prosecutor firings and the multiple explanations provided for the dismissals, some of which have been contradicted by internal documents, public testimony from former aides and private interviews with current Justice officials.
Four members of Gonzales’s inner circle have resigned or announced their intention to resign, and the department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility are examining if laws were broken in allegedly politicized hirings of career prosecutors and immigration judges.
More than 20 current and former officials from the White House and Justice Department have been subpoenaed in the investigations, with Bush refusing to allow his West Wing advisers to testify or to turn over any internal White House documents.
While the probes continue on Capitol Hill – a House panel is set to announce another key hearing today – Democrats moved Monday to debate their no-confidence resolution, an effort for which chamber historians could find no parallel in Senate history. While the “no confidence” vote, more common in parliamentary systems, is not provided for under congressional rules, Congress has the authority to impeach Cabinet officials.
Republicans did not support Gonzales in the vote were Sens. Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania), John Sununu (New Hampshire), Chuck Hagel (Nebraska), Gordon Smith (Oregon), Norm Coleman (Minnesota), and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (both Maine).
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, voted “present.” Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., voted against the resolution.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has no plans to vote on a similar resolution in the House, although such a measure was offered last month by a pair of Democrats, according to advisers.
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