Not only is your position respectable, my best reading of the situation is that Nancy Pelosi would generally agree with you.
It could not have been anticipated that Trump would release a statement from the White House showing a violation of the election laws to the end of changing the outcome of a future election. When that happened, I don’t see how she could take it in as if a passive spectator.
That is also the unforeseen happening that took me off the hook. I no longer have to decide, but I lean towards the position that the existence of an impeachable offense does not impose a duty to impeach.
A FUTURE crime involving a federal election is not just any impeachable offense.
Leaving aside how I think the system is supposed to work, passing a bill of impeachment has the effect of smoking out every senator’s position. Moscow Mitch would never put anything the least bit controversial on the floor. The world’s greatest deliberative body has lost the knack for deliberating. A forced vote on impeachment throws all those delicate babies in the deep end of the pool.
It’s been said that a secret ballot in the Senate would result in conviction. Probably so, but it would not begin to repair the Senate. A public vote carries an obligation to give a reason.
I wish I could oppose your position more vigorously, because I think Pelosi has already passed the fork in the road you and I are addressing. It’s not clear she could stop impeachment now if she suddenly changed her mind. So I guess I would feel better about our current course if I could proclaim that it’s a black and white issue and you are on the wrong side of it…but the fact of the matter is that it’s a difficult issue and the position you’ve staked out illustrates just how difficult.
In short, I think those of us taking the quaint position of supporting the Constitution and a return to fact-based politics are all in. Not only are all our chips on the table, I think there is a contribution immobile geezers like me can make short of joining the post-conviction civil war. https://medium.com/@steverussell_9575/public-opinion-can-move-the-senate-trial-e92b859912d0
