The House of Representatives voted to censure Texas Rep. Al Green on Thursday, but what does it mean to censure a Congressman?
The vote came down 224-198-2 against Green, with 10 Democrats voting to censure their colleague. According to The Hill, this marks just the 28th time that a member of the House has been censured.
Here’s what you need to know about the action.
While President Donald Trump was addressing a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, Green repeatedly interrupted his speech, shouting in the chamber as he was ordered to stop by Speaker Mike Johnson.
Green repeatedly yelled that Trump did not have a “mandate” to back his actions in the Oval Office, and shook his cane at the president as he yelled.
After Johnson asked Green to “take his seat,” the speaker ordered the House’s sergeant-at-arms to remove him from the chamber.
Members of both the House and the Senate can be expelled under powers granted to the chambers by the Constitution, but a “censure” is a step below a full removal from the body.
A censure essentially represents a formal reprimand for a member of the House, and is entered into the Congressional record, according to House rules.
The process of debating a censure resolution typically requires the member to remain in the well of the House while the resolution is read, and Green was present for that reading on Thursday.
Following the vote, there is typically no further action taken. The representative’s party could levy its own punishments, with removal from committees as a potential example of that, but there is no indication that Democrats intend to do so with Green. Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar was removed from committees after his censure in 2021.
If Republicans want to press the issue further, they could call for a vote to expel Green, though that would not likely be successful, as it would require a two-thirds vote of members to permanently remove him from the House of Representatives.
Expulsion is relatively rare, as only two members of Congress have been kicked out in recent years. That includes former New York Rep. George Santos, who was expelled in 2023 after a House Ethics Committee probe found he had committed fraud and misused campaign funds.
Ohio Rep. James Traficant was expelled in 2002 after he was convicted on numerous federal charges.
According to The Hill, only 28 members of the House have been censured, with several occurring within the last few years.
Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman were all censured in 2023 after Republicans took control of the House. Schiff was censured for making allegations that Trump had benefitted from Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. Tlaib was censured for her comments on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, specifically over her repeated use of the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider called “a call for the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews” as he cast the party’s only vote against her.
Bowman was censured for setting off a fire alarm in the Capitol, an offense for which he pleaded guilty in a Washington, D.C. court and paid a $1,000 fine under an agreement with prosecutors.
Republican Rep. Paul Gosar was censured in 2021 for posting a video in which an animated version of the Arizona representative committed acts of violence against President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Gosar was also removed from committees after the censure vote, according to U.S. News and World Report.
