The House declined late Wednesday to punish one of its own over commentary in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, but the effort showed the reach of President Donald Trump’s push for political retribution and set the stage for more to come.
The 214-213 roll call shelved a resolution from GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina to censure Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and have her removed from two House committees: Education and the Workforce, and Budget. The two have feuded viciously on social media.
Mace has said Omar, an immigrant who criticized Kirk’s views of gun ownership and race relations in the aftermath of George Floyd’s 2020 death in Minneapolis, should be deported to Somalia. Omar was born in Somalia and became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
Omar said Mace is pushing a false narrative to raise money “and boost her run for Governor.”
“Is this what civility looks like in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives?” implored Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“We live in an era of intense political violence as we have seen with the recent assassinations of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk,” he said, referring to the shooting of lawmakers in Minnesota.
The legacy of Kirk’s personal and political influence runs wide and deep on Capitol Hill — House Speaker Mike Johnson is among those who considered the young conservative leader a friend — and, in the week since Kirk was assassinated, he has been memorialized in ways large and small.
A candlelight vigil was held late Monday evening inside the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, and a House resolution in his honor is expected to be swiftly approved. One lawmaker, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., who wrote that she owes “my entire political career to Charlie Kirk,” is seeking to place a statue of Kirk in the Capitol “to honor his legacy.”
At the same time, Republicans have unleashed a series of legislative proposals echoing Trump’s call for action against what he characterizes as the “radical left” — those challenging his views, and those of the slain conservative leader.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas to set up a select committee to conduct a “full scale investigation of the coordinated network of leftists attacking us.”
GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has promoted his bill to add rioting to the list of prosecutable offenses under racketeering laws, and GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wants Congress to revive a Cold War-era law that would “prohibit the U.S. government from engaging in domestic, political propaganda.” He’s calling it the Charlie Kirk Act.
GOP Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia, offered another resolution focused on reprimanding Omar, while Mace also proposed the Education Department strip federal funding from schools that fail “to act against staff who excuse or glorify the murder of Charlie Kirk.”
Many of those putting forward the proposals, including Roy, Carter and Mace, are all running for higher office in their states, showing the importance of carrying Trump’s message to their broader base of voters and supporters.
“In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, policymakers must do all they can to stop radical left-wing violence,” wrote the Heritage Foundation’s political arm, Heritage Action, in supporting Roy’s proposal for a new committee to delve into “the forces behind the radical left’s assault on America.”
It’s not the first time Congress has taken action against Omar or other lawmakers.
In 2023, Omar was stripped of her assignment to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the last Congress set a new standard for meting out censures and punishments.
This time, when Mace offered her resolution to go after Omar, Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas put up a swift response: A counter-effort to reprimand Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida with a censure over allegations involving his personal and professional conduct.
Mills was among four Republicans to join Democrats in rejecting the resolution against Omar.
More recently, the House appears to have been cooling these efforts. Lawmakers rejected a resolution to censure Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., and remove her from a committee assignment as she faces federal charges stemming from a visit to an immigration detention facility.
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