House GOP's latest fracture: How fast to try to impeach Biden

House GOP hardliners have found a new tactic to push their party further rightward — and cause heartburn for Speaker Kevin McCarthy: forcing doomed votes on impeaching President Joe Biden.

The rush to impeachment votes comes after first-term Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) found success on her second try at forcing the House to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) for his lead role in investigating former President Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Luna is expected to prevail against Schiff on Wednesday using what's called a "privileged resolution," one that requires a speedy floor vote. And Luna's maneuver appears to have inspired her fellow conservatives to go much further against their favorite Democratic target.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), another House Freedom Caucus firebrand, is pushing forward with her own privileged resolution that would impeach Biden. At least two other Freedom Caucus members, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), told POLITICO they are pursuing separate impeachment resolutions.

It adds up to a new headache for McCarthy, just two weeks after roughly a dozen conservatives held the House floor hostage out of fury over the California Republican's debt deal with Biden. McCarthy privately told his members during a closed-door meeting Wednesday that now isn't the time for an impeachment vote, and some of his allies got more critical in public.

"Things like impeachment are one of the most awesome powers of the Congress. It's not something you should flippantly exercise in two days,” said Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), one of McCarthy's biggest sounding boards in the conference.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a battleground-district Republican, called the impeachment race among conservatives frustrating and described it as “a person thinking about themselves versus the team. Impeachment is a serious thing. It should go through committee. They got to make the case, find the facts.”

Luna revised her resolution to censure Schiff after her first attempt failed to garner enough GOP support over concerns it violated the Democrat’s constitutional rights. While her second edition is poised to pass on Wednesday, winning over even swing-seat Republicans like Bacon, the same can't be said for impeachment resolutions like Boebert's.

Any quick resolution to impeach Biden is likely to fail, with Democrats only needing a few Republicans to join them as opponents in the narrowly divided House. And nudging less-hardline Republicans to vote against impeachment puts those members in an uncomfortable position, exposing them to criticism from the party's fired-up, pro-Trump base — not to mention offering Biden a fundraising boon.

The president only has to look to Schiff as a model: His censure at the hands of Luna and the House GOP is giving him an opening to rake in cash as he runs for Senate.

But the risks of pushing for quick impeachment may not matter to the conservatives who are lining up to take their whacks at Biden.

After Luna’s first anti-Schiff measure failed, right-wing pundits like Steve Bannon used their platforms to condemn the 20 GOP members who voted against it, posting those Republicans' office phone numbers and attacking the members’ conservative bona fides. The former House Intelligence Committee chair is still a potent punching bag for the right thanks to his role in the Trump-era Russia probe — but most of the 20 Republicans opposed to Luna's first censure plan questioned the $16 million fine that she could have imposed upon Schiff.

A fine that size, some Republicans feared, would amount to a form of expulsion from Congress because Schiff would have to resign to have the levy dropped. Under the Constitution, expulsion from office requires support from two-thirds of the House.

Luna's revised censure pitch won the co-sponsorship of Biden-district Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.). Asked if there is a political risk in backing her now, Garcia replied: “Standing up for what's right is never going to hurt us, regardless of what color the district is.”

As for a Biden impeachment resolution, however, Garcia is a clear no: “That's ridiculous. That's literally what they did to then-President Trump. And we all looked at that knowing it was absurd. There was no testimony. There's no evidence. There was no due process."

Garcia added that conservative claims of cause to impeach Biden may prove "valid, but there's a process to get to that point of substantiation and validity. And we're not, in my opinion, there yet.”

Ogles said on Tuesday that he has already filed another privileged impeachment resolution against Biden related to unproven allegations the president and his family are involved in a bribery scheme, as well as Biden's handling of the southern border.

"I think people want some accountability and to know that there's not a two-tier justice system. And so this is a step in that direction. So whether you're moderate or conservative or somewhere on the spectrum, I don't think it should be a tough vote,” Ogles said. “There's a process for impeachment, but [people want] at least a vote, regardless of the outcome. So that's what we're looking at.”

Greene said Tuesday night — after Boebert introduced her impeachment resolution — that she, too, is moving forward with five previously floated impeachment resolutions that target Biden as well as Cabinet secretaries like Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Greene also signaled a hint of annoyance that Boebert went forward with a separate resolution: "I had introduced articles of impeachment on exactly all the same reasons, and she didn't co-sponsor mine. So then she did her own and introduced them on the floor. I don't know why. I'd asked her to co-sponsor. But I support it," Greene said.

The Georgian, also a close ally of the speaker, insisted that she's not trying to flout leadership's wishes.

"Mine is not against leadership at all. And I don't see it that way. It's me following through with the promises that I made to my district,” Greene said, praising McCarthy.

During Trump's term, House Democrats used the same strategy to circumvent their leaders — with mixed results.

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) roiled his party when he forced the House to consider articles of impeachment against Trump as recently as 2019, before there was strong Democratic support for the move. (Republicans, who held the majority the first time Green offered an impeachment resolution, tabled the proposal each time and got some Democratic backing.)

Schiff, meanwhile, has deluged his supporters with fundraising solicitations related to the House GOP censure. And the Republican rush to impeachment votes is also handing Democrats a political cudgel that they see as a boost to their hopes of reclaiming the House in 2024.

Biden's party is already eager to paint the measures as proof that the Republican fringe is more interested in fealty to Trump than in engagement on policy. Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday that Republicans' allegiance to Trump “time and time again" is evidence of "how extreme they are.”

Despite her rivalry against Schiff in next year's Senate race, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said it was “outrageous” for Republicans to punish him.

“I think that they need to figure out how they can serve their constituents and represent their constituents,” Lee said, “rather than trying to attack somebody who's trying to preserve our democracy.”