Steny Hoyer Recalls Examples of ‘Republican Courage Throughout History’ Ahead of Impeachment Vote

In a speech during the debate prior to the House impeachment vote, House Majority Leader Rep Steny Hoyer detailed past moments in Republican courage and called for the members of the House not to let tyranny “find its toehold.”

“Madam Speaker, we have seen Republican courage throughout our history,” he began. “From the civil war to the Cold War. In 1950, Margaret Chase Smith, the senator from Maine, a Republican, spoke bravely against the cancer of McCarthyism in her party leading six of her Republican colleagues in a declaration of conscience against their own leadership. ‘We are Republicans,’ they declared, ‘but we are Americans first.”‘

He then spoke of the one “brave” member of Congress who took the”principled step” of becoming the first Republican to support President Richard Nixon’s impeachment.

“The Constitution and my own oath of office, he said,  ‘I demand, that I bear true faith and allegiance to the principles of law and justice upon which this nation was founded’, and he concluded, and ‘I cannot in good conscience turn away from the evidence of evil that is to me so clear and compelling,'” Hoyer continued on. “My colleagues, that congressman’s name was Larry Hogan, Sr.”

He also praised Rep. Justin Amash who left the Republican party and is supporting both articles of impeachment.

The House Majority leader then concluded by urging the members of the House to not turn away from the evidence or allow the rule of law to end.

“Let us not allow the rule of law to end or for tyranny to find its toehold,” Steyer said from the House floor. “With our votes today we can bear true faith and allegiance to the vision of our founders and we can show a future generation what it truly means to be Americans first.”

Watch above, via C-SPAN.

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