Are you ready for another round of failure theater?

A resolution put forth by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to censure Adam Schiff failed on Wednesday after 20 Republicans joined with Democrats to kill it. The names of those who defected are listed below along with another oddity, which was Rep. George Santos voting present despite putting out a video earlier in the day urging members to vote in favor of the measure.

Four other Republicans did not vote or were not present to vote.

In addition, Santos (NY) and Issa (CA) voted present

McHenry (NC), Gonzalez (TX), and Dunn (FL) didn't vote

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 14, 2023

And with that, the GOP managed to miss yet another easy lay-up because the party can’t manage to get out of its own way.

To be sure, there’s blame to go around. The most obvious culprits are the Republicans who didn’t just suck it up and vote yes, regardless of whether they thought the censure resolution was flawed or not. I understand there were concerns over the legality of the fine and what kind of precedent it would set. But so what? It’s a censure resolution, not a constitutional amendment, and no one deserves to be censured more than Schiff.

And what in the world is Santos doing? It’s bad enough he’s probably cost the GOP a seat in an already slim majority due to his lies and indictment. Now he’s making videos pledging to vote for something and then backtracking within hours? I’m at the place where I wish that clown would just resign already. Let’s have a special election and get someone serious in the spot.

With that said, and I’m probably going to tick some people off with this critique, attaching a $16,000,000 fine to the censure resolution was idiotic. Such a fine would have never survived legal scrutiny because as Rep. Thomas Massie has argued, it was blatantly unconstitutional.

Whether you like Schiff or not, and I don’t think anyone reading this does, you can’t legally force him to pay back millions of dollars in investigative costs just because he’s a political hack. Making that the centerpiece of the censure resolution instead of making it a pure referendum on his behavior gave moderate Republicans (as well as the California members who banded together) an out and ultimately saved Schiff.

Why make that the issue when it was never going to be relevant anyway? Getting an actual censure of Schiff passed would have sent a big message and provided a moment of unity for the GOP. Instead, the resolution failed because Luna decided to Leroy Jenkins the matter for online clout.

That’s the problem with the modern Republican Party perfectly illustrated. No one can be bothered to ever think strategically. They’d rather push a resolution to the floor that they know will fail than ensure it meets a standard whereby it will pass. In the end, wouldn’t it have been better to, you know, actually accomplish something? I’m probably spitting into the wind at this point, but the frustration is real.

I’m just so tired of the ineptness. I’m tired of moderate Republicans who won’t grow a backbone, and I’m tired of opportunists who can’t think past their next cable news hit to actually get things done. The GOP remains a mess, and things aren’t getting better.