The Republican Party Central Committee in Carbon County, Wyoming, has censured Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach President Trump, as support for the one-time rising GOP star crumbles in her home state.
The censure resolution passed in a unanimous vote by the 45-member central committee. It included a demand that Ms. Cheney appear before the committee to explain her actions.
“Our representative did not represent our voice,” said Carbon County GOP Chairman Joey Correnti IV, who presented the resolution to the central committee at a Saturday meeting where the vote took place.
The resolution condemns Ms. Cheney for conduct described as defying the will of most Wyoming Republican voters and joining in a rushed impeachment that did not examine all the facts and denied Mr. Trump due process.
The resolution also declared that a “vocal majority of Wyoming Republicans recognize there were significant irregularities” in the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Accusations of ballot fraud and election irregularities were the basis for the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally that became a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, temporarily halting the Electoral College vote count that affirmed President-elect Joseph R. Biden’s victory.
DOCUMENT: Resolution to censure Liz Cheney
The censure is the latest blow to Ms. Cheney, a member of the House Republican leadership team and the daughter of former Vice President Richard B. Cheney.
The Wyoming Republican Party issued a statement last week saying its GOP voters overwhelmingly condemn Ms. Cheney’s actions on impeachment. There’s also widespread talk in Wyoming of a primary challenge against Ms. Cheney in 2022.
Fellow members of the House Republican Conference are calling for her to step down from her post as conference chair. Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Matt Rosendale of Montana are circulating a petition to knock her off the leadership team.
Ms. Cheney has refused to step down.
She also had not responded to the county central committee as of Monday, Mr. Correnti said, accusing her of having practically gone into hiding.
“People in the county party have attempted to get a hold of Rep. Cheney through email, phone calls — and I think only one person got a response from a staffer and it was pretty short,” he said. “We haven’t heard anything.”
Ms. Cheney also did not immediately respond to a request from The Washington Times for comment on the censure.
The blowback against Ms. Cheney demonstrated Mr. Trump’s undented popularity with the party base. Roughly 87% of Republican voters approved of Mr. Trump’s job performance in an NBC News survey conducted after the Jan. 6 riot and his impeachment.
Ms. Cheney was heralded as a new GOP star and a potential future House speaker when she was elected to Wyoming’s single House seat in 2018.
But her political future has been cast into doubt since becoming the face of House Republican support for impeaching Mr. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
She was one of 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats to impeach Mr. Trump last week, but she was the one to whom House Democrats pointed during the impeachment debate as evidence of widespread and bipartisan support for ousting Mr. Trump.
“The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Ms. Cheney said last week in explaining her vote. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.