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House Republicans on Thursday voted to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from the Foreign Affairs Committee — the latest skirmish in a long-running partisan fight over committee assignments.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy initially struggled with a handful of GOP defectors, but by Thursday he and his team had whipped GOP members back into line, and 218 Republicans voted to support the resolution condemning Omar for past anti-Semitic comments and she was removed from the committee. One Republican, Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, a senior member of the Ethics Committee, voted to attend.
All 211 Democrats united behind Omar, who delivered an emotional and defiant speech ahead of the vote that brought tears to many of her peers.
“There’s this idea that if you’re an immigrant or if you’re from certain parts of the world or a certain skin color or a Muslim, you’re a suspect. It is no coincidence that members of the Republican Party accused the first black President Barack Obama of being a closet Muslim,” Omar said.
“Well, I’m a Muslim,” she added. “I am an immigrant and interestingly from Africa. Is anyone surprised I’m being targeted? Is anyone surprised that I’m somehow deemed unworthy to speak on American foreign policy? Or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced?”
Last week, several Republicans opposed a GOP crackdown on Omar and threatened to derail the vote given their new, razor-thin majority.
But this week, those defectors started queuing up. On Tuesday, Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., turned her vote to yes after meeting with McCarthy and securing language in the Omar resolution that would give lawmakers a chance to appeal removal from committees to insert
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who was on the fence, said he would support the resolution. On Wednesday, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said he would change his vote to yes after speaking with McCarthy and said the speaker was open to a proposed rule change that would make it harder to throw lawmakers out of committees.
Just before the vote, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, the only GOP holdout, emerged from McCarthy’s office and announced that she would also vote yes. Mace said she received a commitment from McCarthy to develop a better process for removing members from committees.
“We have a trial for today [censure]. We have a process today to expel members of Congress,” Mace told reporters. “We have no procedure for removing members from their committee.”
This is an evolving story. Check for updates again.
