Previous Congresses barely saw one censure, let alone four in one week, which strategists say is indicative of the breakdown in procedure and decorum in the House. 

“It’s one of the quickest arrows in the quiver in terms of sanctioning and, or punishing the other side,” said Casey Burgat, associate professor and director of legislative affairs at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

But, he said, it’s a “downstream consequence” of polarized politics, the “us versus them” mentality.

At least two House members are fed up with their colleagues. A bipartisan duo, Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA) and Don Bacon (R-NE), sent a Dear Colleague letter out on Thursday, encouraging members to co-sponsor a resolution that would raise the threshold for a censure to 60% of the voting body.

“The censure process in the House is broken – all of us know it,” the lawmakers wrote, noting that in 100 years, the House only voted to censure members six times after “lengthy” ethics investigations that found evidence of “criminal activity or serious misconduct.”

That process has been upended, the lawmakers argue, noting that the “cycles of censure and punishment” impair the House’s ability to work together, “pull our focus away from problems besetting the country, and inflict lasting damage on this institution.”

Beyer and Bacon said raising the threshold is a “sensible reform” that would “raise the level of sanity” in the House. Those who submit an intention of cosponsoring before noon on Friday will be considered original co-sponsors of the legislation.

The Washington Examiner reached out to House leadership for comment. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters on Wednesday that censure resolutions are “too common” and should be an “extreme measure for extreme cases.” 

Jeffries seemed open to censure changes, telling reporters he’s “open-minded” about the possibilities of “getting the Congress out of this repeated effort by Republicans to censure members because these extremists in the House, Republicans in Congress, have nothing better to do.”

Some rank-and-file lawmakers also agree that censures are losing their punch.

“Heard a lot of talk about that on the floor this week,” Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) told the Washington Examiner. “We need a rules change. This is getting absurd.”

One House Republican said there are times when it’s appropriate, but agreed “it’s getting absurd.” The lawmaker said they’d “probably” support the Beyer-Bacon proposal.

The lawmaker told the Washington Examiner, “One colleague suggested just censuring everyone in one vote and moving on. Not a bad idea.” 

Burgat is not confident that raising the threshold will make much of a difference, calling it a “band aid to the bigger wound.” He said it may result in fewer censure pushes, but the ones that do pass tend to do so with large bipartisan support. 

“I don’t even think it would have a huge effect on deterring people from introducing the privilege center resolutions in the first place,” he said. “Oftentimes, that’s not their goal to get them actually passed, but really to be showing, being seen as taking that step in the first place and getting the media and the attention that comes with it.”

Censure overload

Only within the last few Congresses have censures become more prevalent. In the 115th and 116th Congresses, there were none. In the 117th Congress, there was one: a censure against Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who was also removed from his committees because he posted an animated video of himself enacting harm on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

In the last 118th Congress, the House censured now-Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in June 2023 for allegations that he abused the trust of his constituents by pushing the theory that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by colluding with President Donald Trump. Later that year, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was censured over anti-Israel comments.

In the 119th Congress, there have been several censure attempts, some successful. The House successfully censured Rep. Al Green (D-TX) in March for disrupting Trump’s joint address to Congress, but failed to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in September over remarks related to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

This week, the House adopted a resolution from Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) to rebuke Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for what critics believe was election subversion. That same day, the House rejected a resolution from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) over previous communications she had with Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. 

The next day, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) brought a censure resolution against Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) for allegations of misconduct against women and stolen valor, among other issues. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced a censure against Mills earlier in the day, but Democrats backed off once the measure against Plaskett failed.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) threatened to bring the fifth censure resolution this week against Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) after she was indicted by the Justice Department on allegations of stealing and laundering $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds. Instead, he decided he would move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick from the House.

Veteran Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said the frequent use of the censure resolution is “pretty ridiculous” and “it’s gotten completely out of hand.” 

“I think it used to be — the standard used to be high crimes and misdemeanors,” Bannon said. “Now the standard is, ‘I’m really pissed off at this guy or gal, so I’m going to, you know, send them a message with the censure.’ 

“It’s just a God-awful mess, and the whole sense of the use of the censure reflects how out of touch members of Congress are with the American public,” he added.

Longtime staffers, previous and current, have also noticed the erosion in the power of a censure resolution. Ron Bonjean, longtime GOP strategist and former top spokesman to the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader, said during his time in Congress, you could feel the “gravity” of a censure resolution.

“It was usually never introduced without thoughtful consideration and the understanding that this is a thermal nuclear weapon only to be used when a member truly deserves it,” Bonjean told the Washington Examiner. “Fast forward today, it’s used as just one of the many weapons of political combat that has desensitized its power, to the point of it being almost meaningless to the American public.”

Bonjean noted that there were few, if any at all, censure resolutions that came up during his time serving under leadership in the House, and said that a censure is not going to be closely watched unless the charges are “so over the top” to merit such a resolution. Bonjean previously worked under former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Hastert, who did not face a censure resolution while serving in the House, later went to prison after pleading guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws connected to a hush money scheme to conceal sexual abuse he committed against students while he was a high school teacher and coach decades prior.

One current senior House GOP aide, granted anonymity to speak freely, told the Washington Examiner that the deeper the political divisions, the more censures are going to keep ticking up.

The senior GOP aide said censures have become “cheapened” by members who “simply want it on record saying they disagree with someone.”

“Members aren’t scared of it happening to them, and the ones doing it see it as their way of standing against injustice,” the aide added.

The aide noted that members have lost faith in the Ethics Committee, pointing to comments made by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), stating that a referral to the committee is “where things go to die.”

“Whether talking about the exposure of what was supposed to be a private investigation into Matt Gaetz going public, or the failure to expose people like Cherfilus-McCormick before she was indicted, both sides have reason to doubt the committee’s priorities,” the aide said.

The increased use of censure shows there’s a lot of distrust not just across the aisle, but within the parties, as well, Burgat noted. 

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He said it is also a tool that forces media attention and “creates an incentive to use it to get your name out there” — especially for those who are seeking higher office, like Mace and Norman, who are both running for governor of South Carolina.

“It does discount not only the effect that it has, at least historically and by precedent, by tradition, but it just makes it the more you use it, the more you’ll use it,” Burgat said. “It just creates a reality where this is just another course of doing business, where it obviously wasn’t ever intended to be that way.”

Bonjean said the desensitizing of a censure paves the way for more bad behavior from lawmakers, because in their minds, its a minor and frequent reprimand from Congress.

“You’re an NFL player and you’re incurring small fines for bad behavior. Well, you’re making hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. You don’t care, right? So you’re just goign to do it,” Bonjean said. “So the value of these things, it’s just not that impactful.”