WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Thursday voted to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., from the Foreign Affairs Committee — the latest skirmish in a long-running partisan battle over committee assignments.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy initially had faced a handful of GOP defections, but by Thursday he and his team had whipped GOP members back in line, and 218 Republicans voted to back the resolution condemning Omar for past antisemitic comments and removing her from the committee.
One Republican, Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, a senior member of the Ethics Committee, voted present.
All 211 Democrats unified behind Omar, who gave an emotional and defiant floor speech before the vote that left many of her colleagues in tears.
“There is this idea that you are a suspect if you are an immigrant, or if you are from certain parts of the world or a certain skin tone, or a Muslim. It is no accident that members of the Republican Party accused the first black president, Barack Obama, of being a secret Muslim,” Omar said.
“Well, I am Muslim,” she added. “I am an immigrant, and interestingly, from Africa. Is anyone surprised that I am being targeted? Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy? Or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced?”
Republicans defended their action, arguing that Omar’s antisemitic tropes she made several years ago disqualified her from serving on Foreign Affairs. In 2019, Omar infuriated Democrats and Republicans alike — as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — when she tweeted that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Jewish donors were paying politicians to back Israel, saying: “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.”
She also came under fire from fellow Democrats after they said she equated the “United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban.”
“How can someone not welcomed by one of our most important allies serve as an emissary of American foreign policy on the Foreign Affairs Committee?” said Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a former Trump White House aide who is Jewish and who authored Thursday’s resolution. “And given her biased comments against Israel and against the Jewish people, how can she serve as an objective decision-maker on the committee?”
Others argued that Democrats took similar actions two years ago when they voted to oust two Republicans from their committees over racist and violent social media posts, and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked two other Republicans from serving on the select Jan. 6 panel.
Those comments infuriated one of Omar’s closest allies, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who had been targeted in a social media post by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and who took to the floor Thursday to rail against Republicans.
“Consistency? There is nothing consistent with the Republican party’s continued attacks, except for the racism and incitement of violence against women of color in this body,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I had a member of the Republican caucus threaten my life and you all— and the Republican caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this Congress.”
The vote to remove Omar almost didn’t happen. Last week, several Republicans voiced opposition to the GOP taking action against Omar, threatening to derail the resolution given their new, razor-thin majority.
But this week, those defectors began to fall in line. On Tuesday, Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., flipped her vote to yes after meeting with McCarthy and securing language in the Omar resolution that would give lawmakers a chance to appeal removal from committees.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who was on the fence, said he would back the resolution. On Wednesday, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said he would change his vote to yes after talking to McCarthy, saying the speaker appeared open to a proposed rule change that would make it harder to kick lawmakers off of committees.
Moments before the vote, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, the lone GOP holdout, emerged from McCarthy’s office and announced she would also vote yes. Mace said she got a commitment from McCarthy to develop a better process to remove members from committees.
“We have a process today for [censure]. We have a process today to expel members from the Congress,” Mace told reporters. “We don’t have a process to remove members from their committee.”
Ali Vitali and Haley Talbot contributed.