WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives is back, with a vengeance.
The first full week of business since the end of the 43-day government shutdown has seen lawmakers at each other’s throats, with no fewer than five measures to censure or otherwise rebuke colleagues floated or voted on.
“I would like us to get back to normal Congress, it’s just no one knows what that looks like anymore,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) grumbled to reporters Wednesday after tensions flared up again following a vote to refer a censure resolution against Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) to the ethics committee.
“There’s never a dull moment around here, is there?”
Hours later, Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) announced he would seek to expel Rep.Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) after the Democrat was indicted by a Miami grand jury on federal charges of stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds to bankroll her 2021 congressional campaign.
The drama began even before the House voted to reopen the government Nov. 12, when Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) announced a resolution disapproving of Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) for alleged “election subversion.”
Garcia abruptly announced earlier this month that he would not run for another term — after the deadline for candidates to file for the Democratic primary in his Chicago-based seat. That left Garcia’s chief of staff, Patty Garcia (no relation), as the only candidate for the deep-blue district.
The GOP-led House adopted that resolution on Tuesday, with 23 Democrats voting “yea.”
That same day, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) forced a vote on a censure resolution against Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) over revelations she texted late sex predator Jeffrey Epstein to dig up dirt on President Trump during a 2019 House Oversight Committee hearing.
Norman’s resolution would also have kicked Plaskett off the powerful House Intelligence Committee. In retaliation, Democrats moved to force a vote on censuring Mills, who is facing accusations of domestic abuse, financial misconduct, and stolen valor — all of which he denies.
The effort to censure Plaskett failed, but that flop sparked an outcry by multiple Republicans who alleged there was a “backroom deal” to spare both her and Mills. Both GOP leadership and Mills denied those claims.
So on Wednesday. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) forced a vote to censure Mills and kick him off the House Armed Services Committee. That effort failed as well.
Around that time, news broke that Cherfilus-McCormick had been indicted.
The 46-year-old faces up to 53 years behind bars if convicted and has been facing scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee since late 2023.
Prosecutors accused Cherfilus-McCormick and several others of conspiring “to steal” an overpayment her family’s health care company received for a COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in July 2021.
During the competitive 2022 special election to represent Florida’s deep-blue 20th District, Cherfilus-McCormick raised eyebrows for loaning her campaign more than $6 million and then paying herself back about $2.5 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Cherfilus-McCormack ultimately won the Democratic primary by only five votes.
Initially, Steube planned to force a censure vote against Cherfilus-McCormick, but announced on Thursday he had changed his mind.
“On second thought, I have decided to skip censure and move straight to expulsion. Defrauding the federal government and disaster victims of $5 million is an automatic disqualifier from serving in elected office,” Steube wrote on X.
“If she refuses to resign and save Congress the embarrassment of having to expel her, I will bring this resolution to the floor for a vote.”
Only six House lawmakers have ever been expelled from the lower chamber, the most recent of which was lying Long Island GOP Rep. George Santos, who became the first lawmaker to be expelled without being first convicted of a crime or leading Confederate regiments in armed insurrection against the United States.
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