Censures Proliferate in the House

“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 reports.

“The purported offenses ran the gamut. One Democrat plotted to handpick his successor, while another texted with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. A Republican was accused by his colleagues of contracting abuses, faking his military honors and assaulting a woman at his apartment. A third Democrat was indicted on charges that she stole Federal Emergency Management Agency funds.”

“It was a vivid illustration of how official House rebukes, once exceedingly rare and mostly a matter of consensus for the most egregious conduct or illegal acts by a sitting member of Congress, have become commonplace in recent years.”