Censure Them All
Plus: The latest on Ukraine, Mamdani, and MTG.
Happy Monday. This morning, I’ll have the latest for you on a number of big stories (Russia/Ukraine, Trump/Mamdani, MTG) — but first, a word on the latest craze taking over Capitol Hill: censures.
(Almost) everyone agrees: the U.S. House put on an embarrassing display last week.
“Even by the standards of the raucous House of Representatives, the past week was an exceptionally caustic one, with lawmakers from both parties lobbing or threatening no fewer than a half-dozen censures and official scoldings at one another,” the New York Times reported.
“Some House lawmakers want their colleagues punished, and it’s driving everyone else a little mad,” the Wall Street Journal put it.
“I think four censure resolutions in a week says it all. It’s not good for the institution,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told NBC News. “The mob mentality is not healthy.” Bacon and Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) are now shopping around a bipartisan proposal aimed at making it harder to force censure votes.
I understand this critique: censure resolutions eat up valuable floor time, pitting lawmakers against each other rather than encouraging them to work on legislation on behalf of the American people.
But there’s also something that inherently gives me pause about members of Congress trying to make it harder for attention to be called to their own potential misbehavior.
Bacon may be right that four censure proposals in one week is “not good for the institution” — but how about having four censurable lawmakers? I have found it odd that reporting on the censure votes has tended to emphasize the fact of the censures themselves over the substance of what they allege. To recap:
The House voted 236-183 in favor of a resolution rebuking Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL). In Illinois, the deadline to file papers to run for Congress was November 5. Garcia filed to seek re-election on October 27, but withdrew his nominating petitions on November 6 — one day after the deadline. As it turned out, his chief of staff Patty Garcia (no relation) had filed to run for his seat on November 5, the last possible day. At the time, she did not announce a campaign, nor did Garcia announce his retirement. By the time it was known that the incumbent congressman would not be running, it was too late for anyone but his handpicked successor to mount a campaign. Rep. Garcia has claimed that he did not assist Patty Garcia in circulating petitions beforehand, but that is belied by the fact that his signature is the first one on her petition (even though he was, in theory, a candidate for Congress when he signed it). His silence in public (even while working for her behind closed doors) ensured that his top aide would win her primary without any competition, denying Democratic voters the opportunity to pick a nominee.
The House voted 214-2019 against a resolution censuring Democrat Stacey Plaskett, the non-voting delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Newly released documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate revealed that Plaskett texted Epstein before and during a February 2019 hearing to solicit advice about her questioning of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen: “Cohen brought up RONA - keeper of the secrets,” Epstein wrote at one point, referring to former Trump assistant Rhona Graff. “RONA??” Plaskett responded. “Quick I’m up next is that an acronym.” Epstein replied: “Thats his assistant.” Plaskett then asked about Graff when it was her turn. At that point, Epstein had already pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution (in 2008) and the Miami Herald had reported (in November 2018) that Epstein had molested or sexually abused at least 80 women. Epstein, who resided in the Virgin Islands, was a major campaign donor of Plaskett’s.
The House voted 310-103 to refer a resolution censuring Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) to the House Ethics Committee rather than holding an up-or-down vote on it. The resolution listed a slew of allegations against Mills, including that a company he founded and owns has received almost $1 million in federal contracts since he joined Congress, which is generally a violation of House rules; that the company has also entered into contracts with eight foreign countries, at the same time as Mills served on the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees; that five soldiers who served with him in the Army have said he received a Bronze Star that he should not have received; and that he was investigated for allegedly assaulting a 27-year-old mistress.
Finally, a resolution was introduced to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) after she was indicted by a federal grand jury for conduct stemming from an overpayment of $5 million that her family’s health care company accidentally received from FEMA as part of a Covid-era vaccination staffing contract. Per the Justice Department, Cherfilus-McCormick “conspired to steal that $5 million and routed it through multiple accounts to disguise its source”; a “substantial portion” of the money was then funneled into Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign treasury.
It is probably not ideal for the House to be spending so much time censuring its members. (Although, I would note, the House could be holding these censure votes and also holding votes on legislation in the same day: it’s possible to do both!) And, certainly, everyone deserves due process — although, in this case, two of the allegations (against Garcia and Plaskett) seem fairly cut-and-dried, and the other two (against Mills and Cherfilus-McCormick) are heavily documented.
Perhaps even the Bacon-Beyer resolution, which would require a censure to receive 60% support (rather than a simple majority) to be successful, is wise.
But it has been odd to me to see that Washington’s prevailing takeaway from last week’s censure votes seems to be “Wow, that was too many censure votes,” rather than, “Wow, there is good reason to believe that members of Congress representing a combined 2.4 million people have engaged in some pretty serious misbehavior.”
That said, censures are not the only potential response to such allegations. Ultimately, of course, voters are the ones who should decide whether certain misdeeds are worthy of removal from the House — but it is also true that voters aren’t always operating off of full information. Rather than reforming the censure process, maybe updates need to be made to Congress’ internal ethics process: after all, it has been 18 years since the Senate Ethics Committee punished anyone within its jurisdiction and 15 years since the House Ethics Committee has recommended a censure. Ethics committee investigations are often too long and non-transparent to provide full and timely information to the voters.
In addition, the Office of Congressional Conduct — a body also charged with reviewing allegations of misconduct against House body — was hobbled earlier this year when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) waited four months before naming board members for the office. Without board members, the office was not allowed to work; during that time, the watchdog received more than 4,000 messages from the public, some alleging serious misconduct by lawmakers. It was not able to investigate any of them.
In this light, it’s no surprise that lawmakers have started looking for other avenues to police their colleagues. In a way, the censure votes — which can be forced by just a single House members, at least unless the Bacon/Beyer resolution passes — are, similar to the discharge petitions I covered last week, a way for rank-and-file lawmakers to press for something (in this case, accountability) even when the chamber’s leadership doesn’t want to act.
Notably, two of the aforementioned censure efforts (against Garcia and Mills) were brought by members of those lawmakers’ own parties (Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, respectively), at a time when congressional parties normally march in lockstep, as enforced by leadership. Mace brought her motion against Mills amid allegations by some lawmakers that Johnson had inked a secret deal with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to defeat the Plaskett censure in exchange for shelving a Democratic attempt to censure Mills. Mace decided to bring her own censure attempt against Mills in response.
No, it’s not a great look that the House spent so much time on censures last week. But it’s also not a great look that members of the chamber have been credibly accused of trying to deny their voters a contested primary, consulting with a known sexual predator, receiving medals they don’t deserve and federal contracts that overlap with their committee work, and funneling federal money into their campaign war chests.
These sorts of allegations are exactly why Americans harbor such a low opinion of Congress — and trying to temporarily hide them under the rug won’t help the institution win back trust in the long run. Faced with this serious list of allegations, it is revealing that the first impulse of many lawmakers was to bemoan how easy it is to call out congressional behavior rather than to raise concerns about the misbehavior itself.
In other news…
President Trump unveiled a new Russia/Ukraine peace proposal last week and signaled that he was giving Ukraine until Thanksgiving to sign it — except the plan keeps changing. According to the Washington Post, the proposal was revised after a meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials on Sunday. Several Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about the plan, which would cede Ukrainian land to Russia that the Russian military hasn’t won during the war. A bipartisan group of senators said Sunday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio told them the plan was a Russian, not American, proposal, a claim Rubio has denied.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shocked Washington on Friday night by announcing plans to resign on January 5 after her alliance with President Trump began to fracture. Three potential explanations:
She’s running for president in 2028.
She didn’t think she could beat a Trump-backed primary challenger.
Greene, by all appearances, was a true believer who loved Trump and embraced all the tenets of MAGAism. It has clearly been disillusioning for her to see Trump, in her view, abandon those principles in certain ways — and likely disorienting to watch as a man she gave years of her life to started criticizing her. The ground shifted under her feet, probably in a deeply confusing and disappointing way, and maybe she just decided she didn’t want to be part of a Washington where this was her new reality.
Another surprise on Friday: Trump’s bond with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Although, of course, that depends on how surprised you are by President Trump enjoying the company of someone who’s smooth-talking, telegenic, and guaranteed to create a media spectacle. As I wrote in September, “The most influential person in Washington is whoever Trump talked to last.” Despite their buddy act on Friday, don’t be surprised if Trump is right back to criticizing Mamdani in a few weeks. The president, despite his outer bombast, is famously averse to in-person conflict and loves charming people when they’re in a room with him; once they leave (and other people get in his ear) all bets are off.
Great reporting. Good to know how corrupt some of the House members are, if only to shine a light on things that matter compared to what usually gets headlines
Anytime it’s left to a group to police its own members, it almost always comes up short. Congress is no exception. Leaving the system as is, with at least some information coming out in the process, is likely the best we can get. The ultimate “ censure” as you point out, is for that member to not be re-elected, especially given the small chance of a Congressional Ethics Committee actually doing anything. At least by making it public, voters can judge for themselves if it’s something they should consider. That the Speaker did not appoint members to a committee that might be helpful in exposing any malfeasance is unconscionable and is sadly a reflection of the desire to prevent the airing of dirty laundry. Making the process for censure even more difficult is not a great idea and if the media spent more time on the actual reasons behind each censure, voters would be more informed.