‘Revenge actions’: Dem cries foul on House censures after GOP firebrand Mace files two

WASHINGTON — A rash of censure votes in the U.S. House of Representatives “has to stop,” a prominent California Democrat told Raw Story, recommending a bipartisan effort to make such moves rarer and thereby cool an increasingly heated tit-for-tat exchange.

“It has to stop because all it is is inviting revenge actions, one upon the other,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) said, walking in the Capitol prior to the Thanksgiving recess, after a recent run of such votes.

“We could all find behaviors that we find objectionable in people on the other side,” Chu said.

“So there has to be a higher threshold. I totally agree with this bipartisan attempt to increase the threshold.”

'Broad power'

“The censure process in the House is broken – all of us know it,” Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Don Bacon (R-NE) said, while introducing their measure last week.

“These cycles of censure and punishment impair our ability to work together for the American people, pull our focus away from problems besetting the country, and inflict lasting damage on this institution.”

The chamber has “broad power to discipline its members for acts that range from criminal misconduct to violations of internal House rules, as defined by the House itself.

“Over the decades, several forms of discipline have evolved in the House. The most severe type of punishment by the House is expulsion, which is followed by censure, and finally reprimand.”

The same source defines censure as a way to “register the House’s deep disapproval of member misconduct that, nevertheless, does not meet the threshold for expulsion.

“Once the House approves the sanction by majority vote, the censured member must stand in the well of the House … while the Speaker or presiding officer reads aloud the censure resolution and its preamble as a form of public rebuke.”

Until recently, such rebukes were extremely rare.

Between 1832 and 2021 there were just 23, with none at all between 1983 (when a Republican and a Democrat were censured for “sexual misconduct with a House page”) and December 2010, when the Democrat Charles Rangel was censured for a range of corrupt actions.

There followed another 11-year run without a successful censure.

But since 2021, in the age of Donald Trump’s Republican Party and ever-spiralling partisan warfare, there have been five successful censures and numerous unsuccessful attempts.

One Republican, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and four Democrats — Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Al Green (D-TX), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), the latter two having moved on, Schiff to the Senate, Bowman defeated at the polls — have been formally censured.

This month, Chu voted no on a move to censure the controversial Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) and remove him from the Armed Services Committee, a matter that was then referred to the House Ethics panel — the traditional venue for allegations about members’ conduct.

The Mills censure was proposed by a member of his own party, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).

Other recent censure efforts have been traditionally, and typically, partisan.

On Nov. 18, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) beat a censure vote brought by Republicans, regarding her revealed email contact with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was her constituent.

Chu voted no.

Also on Nov. 18, the House voted to disapprove (short of censure) the conduct of Rep. Chuy García (D-IL), after he announced his retirement in a manner that cleared the way for his chief of staff to succeed him without having to endure a Democratic primary in his Chicago seat.

Chu voted no, though 23 Democrats joined Republicans in voting yes.

On Sept. 17, before the long House recess during the government shutdown, Chu voted with all other Democrats and several Republicans to defeat an attempt to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a leading progressive voice.

That motion, also brought by Mace, concerned Omar’s reaction to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

‘Not normal at all’

Speaking to Chu, Raw Story said: “You've been here longer than many of your colleagues — this [rash of censure votes] is not normal.”

“No,” Chu said, “not normal at all. The censures that I remember were few and far between. I remember Charlie Rangel. But yeah, to do it all day, almost every hour?”

“Are all these members just crying wolf and fundraising off these attacks?” Raw Story asked.

“Some could be trying to gain national attention,” Chu said — a description that would certainly fit Mace, a notably publicity hungry Republican now running to be governor of South Carolina.

“But I also think there is a revenge motive, because if one side of the aisle is going to do it, then the other side of the aisle is going to do it.”