All eyes will be on Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-WA) when she presides over the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the coming days.
The trial will thrust Murray, who largely keeps a low profile despite being a member of Democratic leadership and chairwoman of the influential Appropriations Committee, into the spotlight in her role as presiding officer. Murray regularly presides over the Senate in her capacity as president pro tem, a role that places her third in line to the presidency, though she is not as frequently at center stage.
The presiding officer role is largely ceremonial, with Murray’s primary responsibility being to administer the oath of office to senators at the start of the trial. Murray will also be a juror alongside her colleagues, as former Sen. Patrick Leahy was when he oversaw former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial but declined to do so for the second. The Constitution requires that the chief justice preside over the Senate impeachment trial of a sitting president. (Democrats opting to impeach the outgoing president after his successor had been sworn in allowed Roberts to decide if he wanted to participate, and he decided against it.) The chief justice is also not required to preside over impeachment trials for Cabinet officials like Mayorkas, meaning he can sit these proceedings out.
The House voted Tuesday to impeach Mayorkas, whom Republicans have accused of refusing to enforce existing federal border laws amid record illegal migrant crossings, in a 214-213 vote. The impeachment articles will now be sent to the Senate for a trial, where members will act as jurors deciding whether to acquit or convict.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer‘s (D-NY) office said the articles would be delivered later this month when the upper chamber reconvenes following a two-week recess, at which point Murray would take on her role as presiding officer.
Democrats are reluctant to hold a drawn-out trial on what they have denounced as a political exercise and could move to dismiss the articles sometime after jurors are sworn in with a simple majority vote.
“As president pro tempore — in accordance with the Constitution, Senate rules, and precedent — I will fulfill my obligations under the Constitution,” Murray said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As the Senate determines how to proceed, I will consult with the parliamentarian and Senate precedent.”
“I’ll have more to say at the conclusion of this process, but what I will say now is that I wish the House would use its time to address other pressing matters: government funding, aid to our allies, and you hear them constantly talk about the challenges at our border,” she added. “If House Republicans were serious about the border, they should have worked with us on the bipartisan deal we negotiated, but instead, they killed it because Donald Trump told them to.”
Murray, who handily won reelection to a sixth term in 2022 after facing a well-funded GOP challenger, is the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate. She has served 32 years in the upper chamber, making history last April as the first female member to cast 10,000 votes.
She won her seat in 1992, famously dubbed the “Year of the Woman,” the same year as the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Murray has long cast herself as simply “a mom in tennis shoes,” a signature part of her Capitol work attire, who relates to the critical constituency of suburban women.
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She solidified that reputation during her 2022 reelection when she defied projections of a close race against Republican Tiffany Smiley and instead cruised to a 15-point victory. Education and abortion access have been two of her leading focuses.
The Washington senator, 73, can be frequently spotted around the Capitol flanked by her security detail, a perk of the pro tem role.