WASHINGTON — Rep. Paul Gosar (R) of Arizona has been censured in Congress, which means he is stripped of his committee assignments and for the time being does not have the right to speak on the House floor.
A censure resolution was drafted overnight by House Democrats after Gosar posted an anime on social media that depicts him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Gosar dismissed the anime simply as a “cartoon” and nothing more, saying he does not intend to inflict violence on anyone.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Gosar’s anime an inconceivable insult to Congress. She said depictions of violence against women and murder are not funny.
Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski (R) doesn’t disagree but said that the censure resolution skipped too many steps before being brought up for consideration on the House floor.
“Let me be clear, I condemn all acts of violence,” Walorski said on the House floor. “But as the ranking member of the House Ethics Committee, I find myself on the floor for the second time this year to address an issue that has been referred to Ethics, but has seen no committee process before coming to a vote.”
Walorski said the draft of the censure resolution was written by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) overnight, referred to Ethics, but then taken right to the full House for consideration.
She said that House Democrats have set a bad precedent in this turn of events and criticized the majority for not letting Republicans deal with the issue.
