Jeffries pledges to hold Randy Fine accountable for post about Muslims
House democrats, led by Hakeem Jeffries, say they woudl hold Rep.Randy Fine accountable for anti-Muslim posts if they win the house majority, though Jeffries stopped short of calling for immediate censure. He urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to act after fine posted on X that “if they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a arduous one,” a remark tied to comments by Nerdeen Kiswani, who later said her post was satire.Fine responded with a dog-in-a-sombrero image, and Johnson did not publicly comment. Democrats such as Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for fine’s censure, while Rep. Robert Garcia urged Johnson to remove Fine from committees and push him to resign. The piece explains that censure is a formal rebuke that can carry penalties like losing committee assignments, and notes that any member can trigger a quick privileged vote on a censure.It also highlights a rising use of censures as a sign of hyperpartisanship in the House, citing recent censures of Al Green and Jesus Garcia and a push to raise the threshold for passage to 60%.
Jeffries pledges to hold Randy Fine accountable if Democrats win House majority
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Tuesday that Democrats would hold Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) accountable for controversial social media posts about Muslims if they win the majority, but he stopped short of pushing for an immediate censure of the Florida Republican.
Jeffries called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to hold Fine accountable, after the congressman posted on X that “if they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
The post was in reference to comments made by Nerdeen Kiswani, co-founder of a Palestinian group “Within Our Lifetime,” who served as an organizer for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign.
She called dogs “unclean” and said NYC is “coming to Islam” in a post to X, but later told NBC News in a statement that her post was satire.
“Kristi Noem literally bragged about shooting her own dog and most of you did not bat an eyelash. A Muslim in NYC says maybe the city is not the best place for pets and it is days of death threats from MAGA and Zionists,” Kiswani wrote in a separate post on X.
Jeffries called it “unacceptable that Mike Johnson and House Republicans continue to remain silent” in his statement.
“House Democrats will not let the racist and bigoted behavior of Randy Fine go unchecked,” Jeffries added. “Accountability is coming to all of these sick extremists when the gavels change hands in November, if not sooner.”
Fine responded to Jeffries’s statement with a photo of a dog in a sombrero and a play off the “don’t tread on me” flag. Johnson did not respond to a request for comment on Fine’s post.
Several House Democrats have demanded Fine be reprimanded for his post on Sunday and other inflammatory statements he’s made in the past, including some against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
A censure is a formal rebuke by a vote in the House and often carries consequences, such as the member losing their committee assignments. Any member can force a quick vote on a censure resolution by making it “privileged,” which allows them to sidestep GOP leadership on bills it would otherwise oppose.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said Fine “must be censured,” arguing it is about “morality and decency, not politics.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Fine’s post is “genuinely one of the most disgusting statements I have ever seen issued by an American official.”
“It should not stop shocking us that the Republican Party openly embraces this. Fine should be censured & stripped of committees. To ignore this is to accept and normalize it,” she wrote on X.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Johnson should remove Fine from his committees and “he should be forced to resign.”
Censure resolutions, once a rare reprimand for the most serious misdemeanors committed by House members, have become a common political tactic wielded by both parties to attack each other over comments and social media posts. Sometimes, a member of the same party will use censure to attack a colleague.
So far in the 119th Congress, the House successfully censured Rep. Al Green (D-TX), for disrupting President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress, and Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-IL), who was accused of election subversion by a fellow Democrat.
RISE IN CENSURES HIGHLIGHT HYPERPARTISANSHIP IN HOUSE: ‘GOD-AWFUL MESS’
In November of last year, there were four censure votes in one week. Previous Congresses barely featured one censure, let alone four in one week, which strategists say is indicative of the breakdown in procedure and decorum in the House.
The use of the censure got so bad that it forced a bipartisan duo, Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Don Bacon (R-NE), to send a letter to their colleagues in November encouraging members to sponsor legislation that would raise the threshold for the formal rebuke to 60% of the voting body, rather than a simple majority.
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