The House on Thursday formally rebuked Rep. Al Green for his cane-waving rant at President Trump’s address to a Congress.
As part of the censure, Mr. Green was required to go to the well of the House and face his peers while House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, read aloud the censure resolution against him.
But the admonishment of Mr. Green was interrupted by Democratic lawmakers crowding around him and singing “We Shall Overcome” to drown out the speaker.
When the Democrats refused to stop the demonstration on the House floor, Mr. Johnson gaveled the chamber into recess.
The censure resolution, which is a formal statement of disapproval, passed in a 224-198 vote with ten Democrats joining all Republicans in support of punishing Mr. Green.
Two lawmakers, Mr. Green and Rep. Shomari Figures, Alabama Democrat, voted present.
It took less than 48 hours for lawmakers to put forward, agree on and pass the censure resolution that denounced Mr. Green’s disruption as a “breach of proper conduct.”
Shortly after the vote, Mr. Johnson said that censuring Mr. Green was “critically important” to maintain “the dignity” of the House. Still, he took “no pleasure” in punishing the lawmaker.
“I want us to have dignity and decorum in this institution because it sends a message around the world, and these are the duly elected representatives of the people and they should be models of integrity and character and that’s not what we’re seeing,” he told Fox News.
During Mr. Trump’s speech Tuesday, Mr. Green was removed from the House chamber after he stood, waved his cane at the president and shouted “you have no mandate!”
The speaker warned Mr. Green to stop, and when he didn’t heed the call, Mr. Johnson ordered the House sergeant-at-arms to escort him from the room.
During a speech on the House floor ahead of the censure vote, Mr. Green did not defend himself or object to the rebuke. Mr. Green argued that on “questions of conscience you have to be willing to suffer the consequences.”
“Friends, I would do it again,” he said.
Mr. Green, a longtime Trump nemesis who says he will file articles of impeachment against the president, said he was protesting proposed cuts to Medicaid.
Mr. Trump and House Republican leadership have vowed that Medicaid would not be on the chopping block, but the House GOP’s recently passed budget resolution includes instructions to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the program, to find at least $880 billion in savings.
Lawmakers on the panel say the only way to hit that benchmark is to look for changes to the health care program.
Censure was a seldom-used punishment until the last Congress when three Democratic lawmakers were censured by Republicans.
Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman was censured for pulling a fire alarm during a pivotal vote. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan was censured for her rhetoric regarding the Israel-Hamas war. Sen. Adam B. Schiff of California, then a House member, was censured for leading investigations into Mr. Trump as chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
