House tables Mace push to remove Omar from committees over Kirk comments

The House on Wednesday voted to table a resolution brought forward by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to formally reprimand Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and remove her from her committee assignments after Mace alleged she “smeared Charlie Kirk and implied he was to blame for his own murder” in re-posting a video on social media.

Mace had forced action on the matter through a privileged resolution to censure Omar and strip her committee assignments, but Democrats moved to table the matter, thereby rejecting it.

The House voted 214-213 to table the resolution, with four Republicans voting with Democrats to defeat Mace’s anti-Omar effort.

Those four Republicans were Reps. Mike Flood (Neb.), Jeff Hurd (Colo.), Tom McClintock (Calif.) and Rep. Cory Mills (Fla.) who was facing a retaliatory censure and was the deciding vote at the last minute.

Omar after the vote thanked her "colleagues for having my back and not furthering lies on the House floor."

"Appreciate them safeguarding first amendment protections and the usage of the censure. Finally some sanity in the House," she posted on X.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries excoriated Mace in a statement ahead of the vote.

"Nancy Mace is a complete and total disgrace. Her racist, unhinged and xenophobic comments about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar are beneath the dignity of the Congress. Is this what civility looks like in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives?" Jeffries said.

"We live in an era of intense political violence as we have seen with the recent assassinations of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Nancy Mace’s crazed rhetoric has put a target on the back of Rep. Omar. Mace must cease and desist her inciteful behavior immediately," Jeffries said.

The vote came after Mace and Omar traded barbs on social media, with Mace saying “Ilhan Omar should be stripped of her seat and her citizenship” and Omar saying Mace is not “well or smart” and belongs “in rehab, not Congress.”

Mace’s underlying resolution referenced an interview that Omar did with commentator Mehdi Hasan in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination.

In that interview, Omar called Kirk’s assassination “mortifying” while criticizing conservatives using his death to attack the left and Democrats. Omar said Kirk had defended gun rights and “was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd,” saying it was “effed up” that there are people “talking about him just wanting to have a civil debate.”

But the text of Mace’s resolution did not quote any of Omar’s own words. Instead, it quoted extensively from a video that Omar re-posted on social media.

That video said Kirk “took complex socioeconomic issues and simplified them by pointing fingers at out-groups, demonizing those groups, and siccing his massive following on them,” calling him a “stochastic terrorist” and an “adamant transphobe.” It adds that Kirk, whose suspected killer has been described as left-wing by government officials, “was Dr. Frankenstein and his monster shot him through the neck.”

Omar noted that none of the quotes highlighted in Mace’s censure resolution were her own, and accused Mace of pushing the censure as a way to fundraise for her gubernatorial bid.

Ahead of the vote, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) expressed dismay at the House repeatedly voting to censure political opponents and individual members using procedural tools to force votes on such matters.

“I don’t like it because we're gonna be the minority someday, and you're gonna have the same kind of treatment,” Bacon said, adding that at that point he had not read the resolution and was undecided.

Indeed, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) appeared to respond to Mace’s move by bringing a resolution to censure Mills over allegations of domestic violence, threatening to release nude videos of an ex-girlfriend, and making false financial disclosures. A similar censure of Mills, who has denied those allegations, was abandoned after Republicans similarly voted to table a resolution to censure Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), who faces charges resulting from a clash with officials at an immigrant detention center.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called Mace's effort "ridiculous” in a video posted by Fox News.

"Everytime a Republican is offended, they file a censure resolution, and we're here as grown adults, here to legislate for the material needs -- I want to be helping veterans, I want to be helping schools, I want to be improving peoples' health care. I'm not here to be fighting over whatever, like, schoolyard thing is of the day,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Omar, a progressive Minnesota congresswoman has been a lightning rod in Congress and the target of numerous actions from Republicans in the House — and has even frustrated some Democrats. The then Democratic-controlled House voted in 2019 to condemn anti-Semitism in wake of uproar over Omar’s criticism of Israel. When Republicans took control of the House, they voted to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

That made the vote complicated for Republican members who may not think Omar deserves to be removed from committees and censured over her comments and reposting the video, but are also concerned about statements she’s made in the past.