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The House voted Thursday to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee for anti-Israel comments she made earlier in her tenure on Capitol Hill.
The resolution passed the Rules Committee Tuesday night and Chairman Kevin McCarthy narrowly rallied the votes to pass the resolution with his slim Republican majority. The final vote was 218 to 211.
A small number of Republicans mentioned free speech issues before the vote, but all but one ended up voting in favor of the resolution: Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, voted ‘present.’
Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., joined the resolution after McCarthy promised there would be “due process,” allowing Omar to appeal the decision to the House Ethics Committee.
Rep. Nancy Mace, the last Republican holdout, met with McCarthy just before the vote and said she would vote yes after being told there would be a new bipartisan process for removing committee members in the future.
Before the vote, Rep. Ilhan Omar had said she was simply talking about US foreign policy.
‘Is anyone surprised that I’m being attacked?’ she asked on the Chamber floor.
‘Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak on American foreign policy? That they see me as a powerful voice that must be silenced. Frankly, it is expected. When you push the power, the power recedes. Representation matters.
Omar is shown above speaking to reporters after the vote to exclude her from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
In his press conference before the vote, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries questioned why Omar was being ousted, but Republicans had not been “held to account” for posting apparently anti-Semitic tweets.
Jeffries referenced a 2021 tweet posted by Rep. Thomas Massie accusing the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of “foreign interference in our elections” for running an ad directed at him.
But Massie doesn’t sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee: McCarthy has said Omar would be allowed to sit on other committees, but he represented a “national security concern” on this one.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, DN.Y., suggested that Republicans were being racist by attacking Omar, a Somali Muslim American.
‘Could it be the way it looks?’ he said on the House floor to applause from Democrats.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., echoed that suggestion.
‘This targeting women of color!’ she said herself on the House floor before the vote.
“One of the sickening legacies of 9/11 has been the racism and attacks on Muslim Americans and this is an extension of that legacy.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib accused Republicans of “using hate as a weapon against a beautiful black Muslim woman.”
“I’m so sorry, sister, that our country is failing you today,” Tlaib, a Minnesota Republican, said on the House floor as she broke down in tears.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a freshman Democrat from Florida who is Jewish, told reporters that Omar is not from Foreign Affairs but voted against the resolution to “protect the institution.”
Make no mistake about it. My vote was not a vote for Congresswoman Omar. Someone with your history of hateful comments does not belong on the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” she said.
‘My vote was a vote to protect the institution, for democracy and to prevent the use of weapons in the selection of the committee. When anti-Semitism erupts in the halls of Congress, you will find me on the House floor calling out any member who displays rabid anti-Semitism’, Moskowitz aggregate.
And while Republicans cited his earlier negative comments about Israel, several also suggested the move is payback for House Democrats who ousted two hard-line right-wing Republicans from their seats in the last Congress.
However, Chairman Kevin McCarthy told reporters after the vote that it was not a “tit for an eye” and that he and Jeffries were in talks to devise a new process for expelling committee members.
“The overwhelming number of members I spoke to don’t feel that, given their past and perhaps current views, he should have a Foreign Affairs position,” said South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson.
Omar’s House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, told DailyMail.com that he has spoken with the congresswoman about the current situation and that she has a “right to free speech,” but not to a seat on the committee.
“The Foreign Affairs committee involves, you know, sensitive intelligence briefings and things like that, and when it comes to our national security and our relationship with Israel, your views influence your ability to serve on that committee. . Barr said.
Barr also noted that Republicans are giving Omar an avenue for “due process” after Indiana GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz agreed to support the resolution Tuesday night if the progressive had an avenue to appeal. the decision before the House Ethics Committee.
“We are providing a process,” Barr said. ‘We are providing an appeal.’
Alluding to Democrats stripping Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her previous committee assignments for inflammatory social media posts before she joined Congress, she also said: “We’re also not removing people from committees because of statements that have done before.” They were in Congress. These are statements that she has made as a member of Congress.
“And that’s a significant distinction between what Speaker Pelosi did and what Kevin McCarthy did.”
Rep. Tom Cole, who chairs the committee that passed Tuesday night’s resolution to remove Omar from Foreign Relations, told reporters Wednesday morning that the full House process could begin today.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has vowed retaliation for the removal of Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their committees in the last Congress.
“They were warned two years ago: ‘If you do this, there will be consequences.’ You’re not going to, you know, deny our membership committees and kick Kevin McCarthy appointees out of things like the January 6th committee while putting their political counterparts in there and thinking there will be no consequences with majority changes,” he said. Cole.. ‘Now, the chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak.’
He added: “What I hope happens is that each side learns something from this and we don’t go down this path again.”
“But it won’t be a situation where our members are allowed to do that, and now they don’t even acknowledge that what they did was a mistake, that might help,” Cole said.
Along with Greene’s removal for social media activity repeating QAnon conspiracies and calling for violence against high-profile Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 117th Congress also removed Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar for posting a video of himself attacking progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Florida representative Byron Donalds asked DailyMail.com in disbelief: ‘Are you serious?’ when asked why he thinks Omar should be kicked off the high-profile Foreign Affairs panel.
‘First of all, Congressman Omar, this is the third time that issues have been raised about your anti-Semitic comments. In 2019, a resolution was introduced to the full House, specifically on her, that Nancy Pelosi watered down to say that Congress opposes anti-Semitism,” Donalds said.
‘Well, of course Congress is opposed to anti-Semitism, but there is a member who has had this rhetorical, and frankly philosophical, problem for some time.
‘We have our political problems here in the United States. We all know that. But the fact that Israel is our most important ally in that region has not been a source of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to foreign policy, except for one member. So why should that member continue to sit on Foreign Affairs?