Some House Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to sink an effort to censure Rep. LaMonica McIver over her involvement in a chaotic May scuffle outside an immigration detention center.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) forced the vote to formally reprimand McIver and remove her from her position on the House Homeland Security Committee, a handful of his GOP colleagues had little appetite for moving forward with the punishment.
Five Republicans — Reps. Don Bacon and Mike Flood of Nebraska, Dave Joyce and Mike Turner of Ohio and David Valadao of California — joined every Democrat in voting to table the measure, while two Republicans — Reps. Andrew Garbarino of New York and Nathaniel Moran of Texas — voted present.
“I think it’s best to let Ethics Committee finish its report,” Bacon said.
A spokesperson for Turner said after the vote the Ohio Republican inadvertently voted to kill McIver’s censure; the incorrect vote did not change the outcome.
Several Democratic officials, including McIver and Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, were attempting to conduct an oversight visit of the Newark, New Jersey, facility when federal agents arrested the city’s mayor.
Federal prosecutors abandoned a charge against the mayor, but acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba then charged McIver with offenses that come with a maximum sentence of 17 years in prison. Habba accused McIver of slamming a federal agent with her forearm, “forcibly” grabbing him and using her forearms to strike another agent.
McIver denied wrongdoing, with her lawyers explaining that an “unnecessary, reckless, and disproportionate escalation” by federal agents led to “chaos and a serious scuffle involving a great deal of physical contact.”
The McIver censure resolution prompted Democrats to threaten retaliation, with some members introducing a measure earlier Wednesday to censure Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) over a litany of ethics allegations. Censure resolution and other discipline-related matters can be fast-tracked to a House vote, but it’s not clear whether Democrats will now withdraw the Mills resolution now that the McIver censure failed.
“I’m going to have some conversations with my colleagues, with Ms. McIver in particular, and some of our leadership, and we’ll make that determination,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), who introduced the Mills resolution.
Ry Rivard and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
