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Lok Sabha Last week, three censures were voted on by the full 118th Congress, which inspired some republican And democrat To demand a change in the rules to curb the growing desire for grandeur.
On Monday, Washington Representative Mary Gluesenkamp Perez rebuked her fellow Democrat, retired Illinois Representative Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, after accusing him of attempting to disrupt the election of her successor. On Tuesday, South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman presented a unsuccessful proposal US Virgin Islands Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett has been rebuked after it emerged she was on texting terms with late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2019.
Finally, on Thursday, Rep. nancy maceSouth Carolina also failed to seek disciplinary action against Florida Rep. Corey Mills, a fellow Republican, for multiple crimes, including alleged corruption. Ultimately Mills’s case was Sent to House Ethics Committee For further investigation.
In the entirety of the preceding Congress—which ran from 2023 to 2025—only Democratic representatives adam schiff, Rashida Tlaib And jamal bowman faced censure votesAll this happened between June and December 2023.
No one in either House was reprimanded throughout the 2022 and 2024 calendar years, underscoring how extraordinary and unusual last week’s events on Capitol Hill were.
Censure motions are called for formal reprimand A member of either House of Congress, the President, a federal judge, or a government official, given a power with the option to discipline Representatives and Senators, such as by stripping them of their committee assignments. Article 1, Section 5 The US Constitution, which gives Congress responsibility for its members.
Condemnation of non-members of Congress does not have the same disciplinary authority. Nevertheless, it stands as an important formal declaration of disapproval of the conduct of the person concerned in the eyes of the House and the House. management committee,
A notable recent example of a censure resolution in action came in March this year when the House censured Texas Democratic Rep. al green To push again and again chairman donald trump When she addressed a joint session of Congress, Greene ignored calls to pipe down and was eventually forcibly removed by the sergeant-at-arms, while Republicans cheered.
Although this was an extraordinary event, the frequency with which censure resolutions have piled up has caused Virginia Democratic Representative Don Beyer and Nebraska Republican Representative Don Bacon to lose patience and introduce legislation to raise the threshold for securing a censure vote from a simple majority to a 60 percent majority.
bear told Washington Post His proposal was gaining bipartisan support and he said he introduced it because he was tired of “the tension, the anger, the refusal to work together.” He said he hopes it will be voted on early next year.
Others have expressed concern that the process is devolving into a tactic to discredit an opponent who wastes time in the House while also sidelining the Ethics Committee, which typically conducts painstaking, rigorous investigations of claims of misconduct against members of Congress. However, the panel may struggle for resources and in some cases be blocked by the Justice Department.
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar was aimed at Recent censure attempt failed Mace and others expressed outrage after the comments accused Republicans of taking advantage of Charlie Kirk’s murder and told Post This process is overused and stifles “civil debate”.
Omar said, “It puts us in a really bad position when it becomes a tool to raise money and publicize your name, then it loses the seriousness of why the condemnation was made.”
“And I believe we’re seeing members using it who are struggling to get attention or want to get attention.”
Perhaps the worst assessment of the situation comes from former Virginia Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who said that, in the past, censure was much less common because members were expected to resign when faced with serious allegations, but now they are more likely to stand their ground and try to toughen it up, a cultural shift she attributed to President Trump’s example.
Comstock said, “In the past, this type of action was not taken because members still had a sense of shame and modesty.”
“They would step down because they realized it would cause too much turmoil in their own caucus.”