In American history, congressional censures against sitting lawmakers has traditionally been quite rare. In the 20th century, for example, only five members faced this formal rebuke. In the 36-year span between 1984 and 2020, it happened only once, when then-Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was formally censured in 2010 after having been accused of, among other things, misusing his office for fundraising.
In recent years, however, it has become more common.
In 2021, House Democrats and a couple of GOP members added Rep. Paul Gosar to the list after the Arizona Republican posted an animated video online that depicted him committing acts of violence against Democrats. Two years later, the list grew when House Republicans censured then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for reasons that were never altogether clear. Soon after, the list grew again when House Republicans censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., over her reaction to the Israel-Hamas war, and then-Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., over his fire-alarm incident.
Last year, Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas was censured for heckling Donald Trump during a joint address to Congress, and this week the list grew a little longer. MS NOW reported:
After the House Ethics Committee found him in violation of a number of congressional rules on sexual harassment in early August, the GOP-controlled House voted to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards Tuesday night, adding a formal rebuke to the final chapter of the North Carolina Republican’s political career.
In early August, the House Ethics Committee announced the findings of its investigation into Edwards, and the results were rather brutal: The panel concluded that there was “substantial reason” to believe he violated congressional sexual harassment rules with his “intimate and effusive attentions” toward two young women who worked in his office.
Soon after, GOP leaders reportedly launched a private lobbying effort to persuade the congressman to abandon his re-election campaign. Those efforts appear to have worked: Two days after the Ethics Committee’s report was released, Edwards announced that his current term would be his last.
That did not, however, end the process. The Ethics Committee specifically endorsed a formal censure for Edwards, and while the North Carolinian lobbied his colleagues in the hopes of derailing the formal rebuke, his case proved unpersuasive: The House adopted the censure resolution 413-2 — the most lopsided censure vote in nearly a half-century — with the two “no” votes coming from Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Edwards himself.
This marked the first time a member was censured by a House led by their own party since the Rangel vote in 2010.
Hanging overhead was a question that went largely overlooked: Why were House Republicans, who tend to go out of their way to overlook other scandal-plagued GOP officials on Capitol Hill and in the Trump administration, willing to punish Edwards while giving a pass to other allies?
The reason is that there was no real downside.
Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, for example, has denied any wrongdoing, but he’s nevertheless faced serious allegations. He nevertheless continues to enjoy his party’s backing because GOP officials, mindful of their narrow majority, don’t want to deal with the consequences of him losing his seat in a competitive district.
Edwards, on other hand, whose apparent wrongdoing was extensively documented by a Republican-led ethics panel, is already headed for the exits. Formally censuring him, in line with the committee’s recommendations, came at no cost to the party.
On the contrary, it offered GOP members an opportunity to at least claim to take sexual harassment allegations seriously ahead of the midterm elections.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
