Thank you to the 4 Republican representatives who with their Democratic colleagues, have the moral courage to defend our constitutional right of free speech and our democratic Republic. I wish there were more of you for the sake of our nation and your political party. From the Washington Post.....
Effort to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar over Charlie Kirk comments fails
The effort was part of a GOP campaign to punish individuals Republicans accuse of posthumously smearing Kirk.
The resolution was introduced under special rules by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) on Monday, fast-tracking it to a floor vote. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts) introduced a motion to table — essentially, to dismiss — the resolution Wednesday.
The motion to table succeeded by a vote of 214-213, with four Republicans — Reps. Mike Flood (Nebraska), Jeff Hurd (Colorado), Tom McClintock (California) and Cory Mills (Florida) — voting with Democrats.
“This is a First Amendment issue,” Mills said. “We may not like or agree with what someone says, but that does not mean we should deny their First Amendment right.”
The vote followed bitter exchanges between Omar and Mace over social media.
President Donald Trump expressed dissatisfaction with Omar on Thursday.
“I think she’s terrible,” Trump told reporters as he traveled to Washington from his state visit to the United Kingdom, after being asked about the censure vote. “She should be impeached, and it should happen fast.” Congressional lawmakers are widely seen as immune from impeachment under the Constitution but are eligible for expulsion.
Had the resolution succeeded, it would have removed Omar from her congressional committees for comments she made about Kirk during an interview with liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan. The resolution also criticized Omar for reposting a video to X from an anonymous user who called Kirk a “reprehensible human being” who was “spewing racist dog whistles” in his “last, dying words.”
During the interview with Hasan, Omar expressed “empathy” for Kirk’s wife and children but also chastised those who “completely pretend” that the conservative influencer just wanted a “civil debate,” pointing to his views on guns, slavery and George Floyd.
In the wake of his death, congressional Republicans launched an aggressive campaign to punish individuals they accuse of posthumously smearing Kirk, threatening to bring them before lawmakers, defund entities that protect them and oust them from positions of power.
The resolution to censure Omar was the first legislative effort to punish someone perceived as a Kirk critic to come to a vote. Though it has failed, the others remain in motion, including a second resolution attempting to censure Omar, from Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Georgia), that seeks to remove Omar from the House Budget Committee and Education Committee.
Besides the censure efforts, one lawmaker from Wisconsin introduced legislation this week threatening to block federal funds to entities that employ people “who condone and celebrate political violence,” and three dozen GOP lawmakers are demanding the formation of a House committee to investigate the “radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.”
The aggressive rhetoric from House Republicans echoes the tone from the White House, where Trump, Vice President JD Vance and senior adviser Stephen Miller have vowed to undertake a broad campaign against left-wing groups they say have engaged in violence. And it’s a stark departure for the Republican Party, which has historically championed free speech and decried the “cancel culture” of the left for punishing those whose viewpoints it deems offensive.
By Kadia Goba
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