Here’s how Kansas City area lawmakers voted on impeachment

Impeachment, at least for me, is a stomach-churning experience. I do not hate this President. In fact, in my faith tradition, we are taught to pray for “kings and all those in authority.” Therefore, I pray for President Trump. When the day is spent, I kneel beside my bed and pray for our leaders and for the reconciliation of our nation.

My votes to support the articles of impeachment were not based out of hate for the President, but rather out of love for this country and the values imbued in our constitution. Sadly, the President perverted the powers granted to him by the constitution in an effort to coerce a foreign government into interfering in our sacred elections. When this was discovered and courageously reported by a nonpartisan career service official, the President stonewalled Congress and our constitutional right to provide oversight of the Executive Branch, seemingly, to cover up his misdeeds.

In the United States of America, no one is above the law. Not you, not I, and, as our founders made unequivocally clear, not the President. In the aftermath of this impeachment vote, I am praying that all Americans will dedicate themselves to the proposition that we will not allow our future to bear any resemblance to our present.

After three years of obstruction and resistance, Democrats brought forward articles of impeachment that prove once and for all this entire process has been nothing more than desperate political theatre. The American people deserve better. I will be voting no on both articles of impeachment. The facts show President Trump has not committed an impeachable offense. I was elected to Congress to deliver results for Kansans — not waste their time and tax dollars on a baseless witch hunt designed to delegitimize the 2016 election and divide our nation.