A Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania is pushing to censure Colorado U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, alleging Boebert made “racist and derogatory” comments about a Black colleague on television.
Boebert appeared Friday night on Real America’s Voice News, a conservative cable outlet, to comment on Texas Rep. Al Green shaking his “pimp cane” at President Donald Trump during his joint address to Congress on March 4, according to the censure resolution.
“Al Green was given multiple opportunities to stand down, to sit down, to behave, to show decorum — and he did not,” Boebert said during the interview. “For him to go and shake his pimp cane at President Trump was absolutely abhorrent.”
The Texas Democrat interrupted Trump’s speech by shouting “You don’t have a mandate!” and waving his walking cane. He was removed from the U.S. House of Representatives chamber during the speech after multiple disruptions from both Democrats and Republicans.
House lawmakers voted to censure Green on Thursday, the day before Boebert’s television interview.
Pennsylvania Rep. Chrissy Houlahan is now pushing for Boebert to be censured over her comments about Green. Boebert’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Houlahan was one of 10 Democrats who crossed party lines and voted to censure Green, according to roll call vote records. Four Republicans didn’t vote, but the other 214 all voted to censure the Texas lawmaker.
“After my discussion on the House floor last week when Speaker (Mike) Johnson told me he’d have to censure half the members if he actually enforced the rules of the Congress, I decided to help, and tonight introduced a resolution to censure Rep. Boebert for her racist and derogatory statements about Rep. Al Green,” Houlahan said in a Monday night news release.
The resolution repeats those characterizations and also states that Boebert’s comments were “a breach of proper conduct and decorum of the U.S. House of Representatives.”
A censure is a formal statement of disapproval that is proposed through a resolution. It requires a majority vote to pass, according to federal officials. The punishment is considered second only to expulsion in the House.
Censure does not remove a representative from office but, once the resolution is passed, the censured representative must stand in the well of the House while the speaker reads the resolution aloud “as a form of public rebuke.”
With Republicans holding a majority of seats in the House — 218 to the Democrats’ 214 and three vacant seats, according to federal records — it’s unlikely the resolution targeted at Boebert will pass.
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