Democrats are calling out their Republican colleagues after the House voted on Thursday to censure Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) for pulling a fire alarm while Congress was in session to vote on government funding.
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Unsurprisingly, the vote ran along mostly party lines with a few exceptions, including Democratic Representatives Chris Pappas, Jahana Hays, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who voted to censure Bowman.
Representative Rashida Tlaib was quick to point out that it seemed as if Republicans were intentionally targeting people of color.“This censure of Representative Bowman is yet another attempt to silence a person of color in this chamber,” said Tlaib. “They are obsessed with attacking Black and brown members of Congress, but do nothing to help our families thrive. They need to get a grip.”
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also noted that the hypocrisy of the censure, saying Republicans were ignoring the rampant issues within their own caucus.
Rep. Bowman previously admitted to pulling the fire alarm, although he said it was an accident. He pleaded guilty in October to one count of falsely pulling the fire alarm and had to pay a $1,000 fine and issue an apology to U.S. Capitol Police.
He’s not the only progressive member of Congress to be censured as of late. Republicans, as well as several Democrats, censured Congresswoman Tlaib, the only Palestinian in Congress, for speaking out in defense of Palestinians. Rep. Bowman, who is Black, also signed on to legislation calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Curiously, quite a few names connected to the January 6th insurrection are not on the list of censured members of the House.
Earlier this year, Rolling Stone Magazine reported that several Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), were “intimately involved” in the planning of January 6th.
Rep. Greene has also been known to promote the white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory.”
“Joe Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, replacing your jobs and replacing your kids in school and, coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture,” said Greene at a rally in Arizona.
A resolution was introduced to censure the Georgia Congresswoman after she displayed sexual photos of President Joe Biden’s son during an IRS hearing. But Democrats ultimately scrapped that plan days before the House voted to censure Rep. Tlaib.
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