In November, Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) polled his constituents regarding the ongoing impeachment hearings, asking whether they supported the inquiry.
On Thursday Westerman, whose fourth Congressional district includes Union County, said the feedback he's received has been overwhelmingly negative toward the impeachment hearings — hardly surprising, considering the political makeup of the district.
"They strongly do not support impeachment, that's what I'm hearing from the Fourth District of Arkansas," he said. "The people who do support impeachment are very vocal, but in the minority."
Westerman agrees with the majority of the feedback he's receiving, calling the impeachment process "ghastly."
"I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was seeing unfold before my eyes," he said. "It was such a bizarre approach with [House intelligence committee chairman Rep. Adam] Schiff as the prosecutor with no transparency, making up all the rules, not allowing Republican witnesses to be called. It's not something you would expect to see in the U.S. on something as serious as impeachment.
"It didn't get much better when it went to the judiciary committee. It looked like it was all scripted and the hearings were just checking the box to get to the pre-determined result."
Westerman said the two articles of impeachment written by the House — charging President Donald Trump with obstruction of Congress and abuse of power — were "pretty weak."
"Impeachments always have a political element to them, but with all the Democrat members who have said 'if we don't impeach the President he'll get reelected,' it's atrocious they would even be openly saying things like that. It's a broken process that has not developed strong articles of impeachment."
The House judiciary committee continued hearings Thursday as part of the articles of impeachment markup process. The committee was expected to vote Thursday evening to send the articles to the full House for a vote next week, where the House will likely vote to impeach President Trump along party lines. The impeachment process would then move to the Senate for the trial process, where a Republican majority is widely expected to clear the President. Westerman said he doesn't want to predict what his Senate colleagues will do, but that he "couldn't imagine" impeachment going anywhere in the Senate.
In the meantime, Westerman said he hopes Congress is able to return focus to the normal legislative priorities, including passing a budget.
He said that Democrats in the House want to pass 12 spending bills next week, which he said will be very difficult to do. The bills would then need Senate approval.
"I admire that goal, that's what we should be doing," he said. "I don't know that even if we don't sleep, if we could get that done."
A budget for the fiscal year was due in October, and another budget deadline hits next week, although Westerman said it's likely a concurrent resolution could "kick the can down the road" on budget talks. He added he doesn't foresee another government shutdown like the one that occurred last winter, when Congress and President Trump couldn't agree on a budget.
"I'm glad the Speaker [Rep. Nancy Pelosi] agreed to have a vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement," he said. "That will have a direct impact on Arkansas; there are about 7,000 manufacturing jobs in the state that depend on trade with Canada and Mexico. Mexico has now become our No. 1 trading partner, replacing China. If we get an agreement with Japan, we would have new trade agreements with three of our top four trading partners.
"El Dorado and Union County is a big manufacturing area with lots of great jobs and great opportunities, but you've got to have markets to sell those products into. It's all linked, and we need to continually be working to make sure we've got good trading partners."
Westerman emphasized that while national media coverage of the impeachment hearings depicts a fractured Capitol, that most members of Congress want to work together to improve the lives of the American people.
"After votes [on Wednesday], I was walking back to my office with a Democrat who is a friend, and we were both talking about how we came to Washington D.C. to help our country, help the American people," he said. "We both would love to get to a point where we can focus on the issues. There's a lot more of that than is portrayed in the national media. There's some on the left and the right that the TVcameras are drawn to, and that becomes the narrative for everything that's going in D.C. I often tell people the picture you see is not exactly what you see here on the ground."