On eve of a (mostly) party-line impeachment vote, Ron Kind is the only undeclared lawmaker from Wisconsin

Craig Gilbert | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

WASHINGTON - On the eve of a historic House impeachment vote, Democrat Ron Kind is the only lawmaker from Wisconsin who has not said how he plans to vote.

The final House vote is expected to be almost entirely along party lines Wednesday, with only a few Democrats across the country breaking with their party to oppose impeaching President Donald Trump.

No Republicans are expected to support impeachment.

Kind is a centrist Democrat who represents a western Wisconsin district narrowly carried by Trump in 2016.

Of the 31 Democrats across the country who hold seats carried by Trump, almost all have nevertheless announced plans to support impeachment.

Kind is the last of these Democrats to announce how he will vote, according to some tallies kept by national media outlets. His office has not responded to a reporter’s inquiries about his intentions this week. But his public comments have been highly critical of Trump’s conduct, and as the vote approached, he had not been viewed as one of the Democratic moderates most likely to break ranks with their party on impeachment.

Trump carried Kind’s district in 2016 by 4 points, but Trump has negative approval ratings in the district this year. Combining six 2019 polls by the Marquette Law School, 42% of registered voters in Kind’s district approve of Trump’s performance and 55% disapprove.

The same polling shows that Kind’s congressional district is easily the most closely divided in Wisconsin on impeachment, with slightly more people opposing impeachment and removal than supporting it.

The Trump campaign in Wisconsin called out Kind in a statement Tuesday, chiding him for not disclosing his vote, and saying, "Will he choose to fall in line with Nancy Pelosi, or will he listen?"

Only two Democrats from any state have so far said they are voting against both articles of impeachment, and one of those (Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey) reportedly plans to switch parties from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Wisconsin’s other two Democrats, Mark Pocan and Gwen Moore, have supported impeaching Trump for some time. They represent lopsidedly Democratic districts where there is broad support for impeachment.

"I'm not jumping up and down, clicking my heels together," said Moore in an interview Tuesday. "I‘m really very depressed actually. I do realize it's very divisive ... I am afraid of how this president will react. I don't feel good (about impeachment), but I do think it's absolutely, positively my responsibility to do it."

Asked about the party-line nature of the vote that will occur Wednesday, Moore said that congressional Republicans who have presented a unified bloc against impeachment are "concerned about their base and ... President Trump. He has demonstrated he will retaliate."

Said Moore of her GOP colleagues, "They are living in the moment. They're not concerned about history. They're not concerned about what happens when their kids Google them years from now."

The state’s four House Republicans all oppose impeachment: Jim Sensenbrenner, Glenn Grothman, Mike Gallagher and Bryan Steil.

In an interview Tuesday, Sensenbrenner blamed the party-line nature of the impeachment vote on the decision by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to forge ahead with impeachment without a bipartisan process or laying the public groundwork for bipartisan support.

"Both Pelosi and Adam Schiff said impeachment needs to be bipartisan. They decided to go ahead with it even though it’s not. It's been divisive for the country," said Sensenbrenner, who was the only Wisconsin lawmaker to participate in the Judiciary Committee hearings. "The sooner we get this behind us, the better off we will be in terms of healing the breach."

Sensenbrenner said “most people are sick of this and have tuned out, particularly in places like Wisconsin, because the leaders of the impeachment effort have come from the coasts (and) are much more liberal than those of us in flyover country."

Gallagher argued Tuesday that Democrats have lowered the standards for impeachment, saying, “I worry this opens up a Pandora’s box where we're going to have perpetual impeachment any time the branches are disagreeing on something for political reasons.”

Steil said in a statement Friday: “After reviewing the articles of impeachment against President Trump, my position remains unchanged. I will be voting against the articles when they come to the House floor. This impeachment inquiry has divided the country and jeopardized Congress’ ability to focus on the real issues impacting Americans.”

One of Wisconsin’s eight US House districts — the Seventh District that covers most of the northern half of the state — will go unrepresented during the impeachment vote, due to the resignation of Republican Sean Duffy, who was the delegation’s most vocal Trump advocate.