Republican Party Censures Sen. Bill Cassidy For Voting to Proceed with Impeachment

It seemed very strange.  Sen. Bill Cassidy had sought out the support of President Trump in Cassiday’s bid for reelection in 2020.

Cassidy made sure Trump appeared in every campaign commercial he ran. He almost literally wrapped Trump’s Make America Great banner around himself, in an apparent effort to protect himself from conservative criticism of his voting record. As a result, he sailed to an easy victory, winning 58 percent of the vote statement, the same as Trump received in Louisiana.

Little did anyone realize how brief his alignment with the President would be!

Nov. 3, 2020 was a most unusual election, featuring tens of millions of mail-in ballots with few safeguards against vote fraud.

Trump took large early leads in most of the swing states, when suddenly vote-counting supposedly stopped in the six most critical states. Then, with counting supposedly stopped, Biden gained huge numbers of votes hour by hour. Something seemed very strange, and the people wanted answers.

But one of the first politicians to declare the election completely honest was Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.  It was as though he knew something the rest of us didn’t.  He somehow knew that everything in the election was just fine. In short, there was nothing to see!

Cassidy’s early determination that there was no fraud cut the legs from under the President’s and other’s efforts to determine what happened.  

Right away, Cassidy made it clear that he would not be one to call for an investigation or reject any of the states being challenged by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Then, when violence hit the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Cassidy was one of the first to blame President Trump for inciting it.  That was an amazing claim since the invasion of the Capitol began before Trump even finished speaking a 30-minute walk away.

Cassidy’s base in Louisiana, which consists of rank and file Republicans just like Trump’s began talking about Cassidy. The essence was, “What’s wrong with this guy? We thought he was a conservative.”

Then on Tuesday of this week, the senior Senator from Louisiana showed his true colors.

He aligned himself with all 50 Senate Democrats and five turncoat Republicans to embrace the supposed constitutionality of the Democrats’ Impeachment fiasco. 

The vote was 56 to 44 to continue the Impeachment trial in the Senate.  Cassidy was one of those 56 votes.  The reaction across the state was immediate and overwhelming.  Without any organized effort, tens of thousands of citizens called his offices to protest.  His social media posts were flooded with negative comments.  Even the simplest, non-controversial posts would draw thousands of angry comments.

As Republican Party chairman for East Baton Rouge Parish, I too was appalled.  Within hours after Cassidy’s vote, the 17-member Executive Committee of the Republican Party in the parish was working on a resolution to censure Cassidy — something the party had never done before.

On Wednesday, 16 of the 17 members were in attendance in person or by proxy. The resolution was discussed for an hour and then   adopted unanimously.  It is a strong rebuke of Cassidy’s action.

What else can be done? Unfortunately, Cassidy has just been elected to a new six year term, and senators are not subject to recall. The only thing we can do is let him know we expect him to represent the ordinary citizens of Louisiana, not the far left. 

REPUBLICAN PARTY

of East Baton Rouge Parish

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

A RESOLUTION

To commend the Honorable Donald J. Trump for his service as President of the United States of America and to reject the false and malicious charges against him.

WHEREAS, Donald J. Trump served our nation  honorably for four years and offered himself to serve for a second four-year term; and

WHEREAS, the people of the State of Louisiana showed their overwhelming support for President Trump and endorsed his reelection by a landslide; 

WHEREAS, President Trump’s vote total was the largest for any candidate for any office in the history of Louisiana; and

WHEREAS, this extraordinary vote is a tribute to the wisdom and many great accomplishments of the President, and

WHEREAS, this great President has been the subject of outrageous, scurrilous and false attacks throughout his presidency and has been impeached twice by the Democratic House, and

WHEREAS, the current charges against him of inciting an insurrection are completely false, malicious, and without merit, and

WHEREAS, these charges are a sham and a cruel hoax on the American people and attempt to perpetuate and legitimate a lie, purposely ignoring and editing from their “evidence” President Trump’s call for citizens to go to the Capitol to “peacefully and patriotically”  to make their voices heard, and

WHEREAS, one of the goals of the Democrats is to deprive former President Donald Trump of the right to run for President in the future, which would be undemocratic and a complete violation of the intent of the Constitution and place the United States in the category with Russia and various dictatorships around the world where the leading  opposition figure is forbidden to run for President, and

WHEREAS, on the matter of impeachment and conviction of former President Trump, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana has been a voice of reason upholding the rule of law and the  Constitution, but

WHEREAS, on the matter of impeachment, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has vacillated from voting that the current articles before the Senate are unconstitutional to yesterday voting that they are constitutional, 

WHEREAS, his vote yesterday to allow the impeachment fiasco to continue was a betrayal of the people of Louisiana and a rebuke to those who supported President Trump and him.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Republican Party of East Baton Rouge Parish that we condemn Senator Cassidy’s actions in the strongest manner.  He does not represent the people of this state or the Republican Party.  He represents himself and has joined with some of the most dishonest forces in our country to be part of this despicable sham.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Republican Party of East Baton Rouge Parish hereby takes an action which it has never before taken.  The Republican Party of East Baton Rouge Parish hereby censures Senator Bill Cassidy and holds him out as an object of shame.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this resolution shall be sent to Senators Kennedy and Cassidy, the other members of the Louisiana delegation, and to the news media.

Done this 10th day of February, 2021 in Baton Rouge. PASSED 16-0

Woody Jenkins, Chairman