The House will vote Wednesday on a resolution that both censures Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and removes him from the Committee on Oversight and Reform, CNN reports.
Gosar is being censured for posting a photoshopped video of himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) and attacking President Joe Biden. He deleted the video but refused to publicly apologize or show any regret.
Gosar currently serves on the Oversight and Reform panel with Ocasio-Cortez.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is moving ahead with the vote because Gosar “made threats, suggestions about harming a member of Congress.”
“That is an insult — not only endangerment of that member of Congress, but an insult to the institution of the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said. “We cannot have members joking about murdering each other, as well as threatening the President of the United States.”
Pelosi was forced to take action because the Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy refused to do so. In fact, McCarthy never commented publicly on the issue until this week and he failed to condemn Gosar’s behavior.
“He didn’t see it before it posted. It was not his intent to show any harm,” McCarthy told reporters. “What I said to conference was (we) cannot accept any action or showing of a violence to another member.”
A censure would make Gosar the 24th House member to be censured in the chamber’s history and the first in more than a decade. The last lawmaker to be censured was then-Rep. Charlie Rangel, a New York Democrat, for multiple ethics violations back in 2010, CNN noted.
