Censure resolutions: When to double down, and when to turn the page

The House voted Thursday to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Tex., for interrupting President Trump's Joint Address to Congress – but some of his colleagues think they should go further.

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Could the cover-up be bigger than the crime?

So it’s of little surprise that few people even realized that Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, appeared in the well of the House chamber and was formally admonished by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., with a resolution of censure Thursday morning.

The House voted 224-198 with two members voting present to censure Green for his antics during President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress Tuesday night.

Per the resolution, Green had to present himself in the well as Johnson read the resolution before the House for his infractions and officially castigated him, with a rap of the gavel.

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But you wouldn’t be alone if you missed it.

That’s because a host of Democrats joined Green near the dais. Johnson banged the gavel, imploring Green’s colleagues to stop. They sang "We Shall Overcome," drowning out Johnson.

But the deed was done. Green was censured – even if few really saw it. That’s because there’s a trend in Congress for colleagues to join the censured individual in the well of the House and make a ruckus, almost diluting the discipline.

This is why Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., argued that the House should now try to expel Green. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., is prepping a resolution to strip the dozens of Democrats who joined Green in the well from their committees. There’s also a move to relieve Green of his committee assignments.

It didn’t used to be this way. There’s an issue of debate about "who fired first." But discipline in the House over censure has disintegrated markedly in recent years. And so has bipartisan comportment of lawmakers when the president of the other party speaks to a joint session of Congress.

Green became the 29th member of the House censured in the institution’s history. But he’s the fourth Democrat censured by the House since 2023. The fifth overall member to be censured if you include the censure of Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., in 2021.

You have to go back to 2010 with former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., to find a member who was censured. Before that? Try 1983.

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The Rangel censure over abuse of office is significant. Rangel was a towering figure in Congress. A Korean War hero who was left to die on the battlefield. Rangel rose from humble roots in Harlem to become Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The House voted to censure Rangel in late 2010 after a lengthy investigation. After the vote, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asked the New York Democrat to "present himself in the well." With the entire House present, Rangel, ambled to the front of the chamber, his head hung low, hands folded in front as though he were about to pray.

No one said a word. Members from both sides sat in rapt silence as Pelosi read the text of the censure resolution in an uncharacteristically meek tone. Pelosi herself seemed stricken, having to censure her friend and such a vaunted colleague. Pelosi tapped the gavel so lightly at the conclusion of the censure exercise that it almost seemed accidental.

The deed was done.

That’s not how censures roll in the House anymore.

Contrast the censure of Rangel to the 2023 censures of former Rep. and now Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and you’ll find raucous affairs. Yelling. Shouting. Anything to cover up what the Speaker is reading from the dais.

In the case of the 2023 censure of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the resolution just declared her to be censured but did not require her to appear in the well of the chamber before the full House and the Speaker.

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The rate of censures is increasing dramatically. Republicans will argue that Democrats "started it." The House censured Gosar in 2021 for posting an anime video which showed him using a sword to kill Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and harming former President Biden. The measure also stripped Gosar of his committee assignments. In 2021, Democrats and 11 Republicans voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., from her committees. They argued she trafficked in conspiracy theories and racism which encouraged violence.

But in the case of Al Green, his conduct on the floor reflects a trend of hectoring the president in the House chamber. Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., certainly jeered and taunted former President Biden during his speeches to Congress. The former president even briefly engaged them on one occasion. This unfolded under three House Speakers: Pelosi, Johnson and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Yet there was never any effort by the Speaker to have anyone removed on those occasions.

That changed when Johnson ordered Green removed on Tuesday.

But when did this all start?

It goes back to September 2009.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted "you lie" at President Barack Obama as he delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress about health care reform. Wilson specifically accused the president of lying when he declared it was "false" that persons in the country illegally would qualify for health benefits.

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Bipartisan lawmakers condemned the outburst immediately. Wilson apologized to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. In a statement, Wilson said he "let my emotions get the best of me." He characterized the episode as a "town hall moment." By the weekend, Wilson was fundraising off the incident.

Pelosi didn’t want to go any further with a punishment. But her members pushed against the Speaker – and prevailed.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., who at the time served as the House Majority Whip, thought Wilson’s off-stage apology wasn’t enough. Clyburn, and fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus, believed the House needed to do something to assert its rules of decorum. They believed the verbal assault was tinged with race – directed at the first Black president. 

Appearing on CNN, CBC member and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., argued that if the House didn’t stand up to Wilson, "people with white hoods (would be) running through the countryside again."

Democrats wanted Wilson to apologize to the entire House. After he refused, Democrats forged ahead with a vote on a "resolution of disapproval" of Wilson’s actions.

A reprimand, censure and expulsion are the three formal modes of discipline in the House. A "resolution of disapproval" is kind of like receiving a Congressional parking ticket.

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Then-House Minority Leader and future Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the effort a "political stunt." Boehner asserted there was "behavior in this chamber that’s more serious than this."

Former Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., chaired the CBC at the time.

"Today’s resolution is an opportunity for us to come together and reject incivility," said Lee. "Let’s turn the page."

They’ve done anything but that.

The House is now involved in low-grade guerrilla warfare with periodic flare-ups. There’s routine sniping at the president – regardless of who occupies the office - when he comes to speak to a joint session of Congress. The parties battle over tit-for-tat resolutions of censure and committees.

They’re a long way from turning the page, as Barbara Lee suggested 16 years ago.

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And that’s why Mike Johnson must decide next week if he wants to wage another skirmish in this partisan fracas. He must decide whether to mete out more discipline to Green and those who stood by him in the well.

Or turn the page.

Chad Pergram currently serves as a senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based out of Washington, D.C.

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