Liberal House Members Bowman and Tlaib Face Censure, Possible Removal From Committees

Congressman Jamaal Bowman and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib are likely to be censure by the House Republican majority in the coming days.

AP/John Minchillo, file
Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat of New York. AP/John Minchillo, file

With the House of Representatives finally returning to regular order Thursday, GOP leaders are eyeing censure resolutions against two Democrats that could lead to them being removed from their committee positions. 

A Republican congresswoman, Lisa McClain, introduced a resolution to censure Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for pulling a fire alarm at the Capitol complex. 

Mr. Bowman triggered the alarm on September 30 while the House was preparing to vote on a short-term funding bill to allow the government to avoid a disastrous shutdown. At the same time the alarm was pulled, Democrats were frantically urging House Republicans to recess so that members could have time to read the bill. 

“Capitol Police have concluded their investigation into Rep. Bowman and found his action of pulling the fire alarm in Cannon to be illegal,” Ms. McClain wrote on X. “I am introducing a resolution to Censure Rep. Bowman and remove him from all Committee assignments for the remainder of the 118th Congress.”

On Thursday, NY1 obtained video of Mr. Bowman pulling the fire alarm. In the footage, he can be seen realizing the the door is locked, knowingly pulling the alarm, and quickly walking away, images that contradict his claim that his triggering the alarm was accidental.

Mr. Bowman pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge Thursday and was ordered by a judge to write an apology letter to his colleagues. If he fails to do so, the judge warned that he would face up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine. 

Another censure resolution has been put on the floor by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene — this one aimed at Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. “Tlaib led a pro-Hamas insurrection into the Capitol complex, has repeatedly displayed her anti-Semitic beliefs, and shown her hatred for Israel,” the Georgia congresswoman wrote on X. “She must be held accountable and censured.”

Ms. Greene says that a protest that occurred on Capitol grounds October 18 was a direct result of Ms. Tlaib’s false insistence that the Israeli government bombed the Ahli hospital at Gaza earlier this month. The protesters led a sit-in at the Cannon office building, leading to dozens of arrests being made by Capitol police. 

Ms. Tlaib gave an emotional speech outside in the street, during which she said that “people think it’s okay to bomb a hospital,” referring to the claims made by Hamas and echoed by multiple press outlets. The Department of Defense and Israel’s intelligence agencies have concluded that it was a terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that accidentally bombed the hospital, not Israel. The Senate Intelligence Committee reached the same conclusion. 

Ms. Tlaib vociferously pushed back against Ms. Greene’s censure resolution in a statement released Thursday, saying, “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s unhinged resolution is deeply Islamophobic.”

“I am proud to stand in solidarity with Jewish peace advocates calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence,” she continued. “I will not be bullied, I will not be dehumanized, and I will not be silenced. I will continue to call for a ceasefire, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to be brought home.”

Ms. Greene herself was removed from her committee posts in 2021 after a series of social media posts were unearthed that showed she had made antisemitic statements before she was elected to Congress. 


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