Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

What does censure mean?

Paul Gosar

Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona is the 24th House member to be censured.

Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images

For the first time in more than a decade, the House of Representatives censured one of its members Wednesday. While the rarely used action does not include expulsion, Rep. Paul Gosar faces other consequences that hamper his ability to participate in the legislative process.

The House voted 223-207 to censure the Arizona Republican after he shared an animated video on social media depicting him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden. The vote was split largely along party lines, with only two Republicans — Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — joining Democrats in the affirmative. (One other Republican, David Joyce of Ohio, voted present.)

This week's censure is only the 24th time such a disciplinary action has been taken in the House. While the disciplinary action has been used sporadically in modern history, it was more popular in the 1800s when disputes over the Civil War would break out.


The implications of censure

To censure a member of Congress means to register deep disapproval with the member's misconduct. It's a more severe formal rebuke than reprimanding, but doesn't go as far as expelling the lawmaker from the House.

"[Censure] is the first level of punishment that carries actual consequences for the members beyond a public embarrassment or a public reprimation. Censure has teeth," said Brad Fitch, president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

When censured, members can lose their seniority and committee assignments, which significantly diminishes their power in Washington. In Gosar's case, the Arizona Republican was stripped of his two committee assignments: the Oversight and Reform Committee and the Natural Resources Committee. Gosar can still remain in his caucuses, cast floor votes and make procedural motions.

Another aspect of censure is public embarrassment. When the House speaker reads the resolution calling for the censure of a member, that lawmaker must stand in the well of the House — front and center in the chamber, facing their colleagues. During Wednesday's vote, some of Gosar's conservative colleagues stood behind him in the well.

"One cannot diminish the psychological impact of having to stand in the well and hearing the censure read to all your colleagues," Fitch said. "It's perhaps done for dramatic effect, but from a congressional perspective and from the history of the House and Senate perspective, it has weight, as well as the actual other punishment that comes."

The history of censure in Congress

The House first censured one of its members in 1832 when Rep. William Stanberry of Ohio insulted Speaker Andrew Stevenson of Virginia. But perhaps one of the most well-known and dramatic incidents that led to a censure took place two decades later.

In 1856, tensions in Congress over the expansions of slavery came to a boiling point when Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina brutally beat Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the Senate chamber. The House failed to reach a two-thirds vote to expel Brooks for his actions, but lawmakers did vote to censure Rep. Laurence Keitt, who assisted in the assault on Sumner.

Before Gosar, the last House member to be censured was Democrat Charles Rangel of New York in 2010 over a string of ethics violations.

Although not a censure, the House did vote earlier this year to strip Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments for offensive social media posts she made before being elected to Congress.

The Senate has had only eight instances of censure, with the most recent rebuke occurring in 1990, when Republican David Durenberger of Minnesota was punished for campaign finance and ethics violations.

Read More

House passes 1,100-page spending and tax bill, raising debt by up to $4 trillion

US Capitol

Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

House passes 1,100-page spending and tax bill, raising debt by up to $4 trillion

Early Thursday morning the House passed H.R. 1: One Big Beautiful Bill Act — yes, that’s it’s official title — a 1,100+ page bill with large cuts to both spending and taxes. We know the big picture but little about the details because it hasn’t been available for long enough for anyone to actually read it.

This is the “reconciliation” bill, the first signature legislation moved by Republicans in Congress and President Trump. This bill has special rules that make it immune to the Senate filibuster, so it can pass the Senate if a simple majority vote for it.

Keep ReadingShow less
How the Trump Administration Is Weakening the Enforcement of Fair Housing Laws

Kennell Staten filed a discrimination complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development after he was denied housing. His complaint was rejected.

Bryan Birks for ProPublica

How the Trump Administration Is Weakening the Enforcement of Fair Housing Laws

Kennell Staten saw Walker Courts as his best path out of homelessness, he said. The complex had some of the only subsidized apartments he knew of in his adopted hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas, so he applied to live there again and again. But while other people seemed to sail through the leasing process, his applications went nowhere. Staten thought he knew why: He is gay. The property manager had made her feelings about that clear to him, he said. “She said I was too flamboyant,” he remembered, “that it’s a whole bunch of older people staying there and they would feel uncomfortable seeing me coming outside with a dress or skirt on.”

So Staten filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in February. It was the type of complaint that HUD used to take seriously. The agency has devoted itself to rooting out prejudice in the housing market since the Fair Housing Act was signed into law in 1968, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And, following a 2020 Supreme Court rulingthat declared that civil rights protections bar unequal treatment because of someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, HUD considered it illegal to discriminate in housing on those grounds.

Keep ReadingShow less
Just the Facts: What Is a National Emergency?

U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla

Just the Facts: What Is a National Emergency?

The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, we remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.

Has President Trump issued several executive orders based on national emergency declarations, and if so, which ones are they?

Keep ReadingShow less
The Hidden Moral Cost of America’s Tariff Crisis

Small business owner attaching permanent close sign on the shop door.

Getty Images, Kannika Paison

The Hidden Moral Cost of America’s Tariff Crisis

In the spring of 2025, as American families struggle with unprecedented consumer costs, we find ourselves at a point of "moral reckoning." The latest data from the Yale Budget Lab reveals that tariff policies have driven consumer prices up by 2.9% in the short term. In comparison, the Penn Wharton Budget Model projects a staggering 6% reduction in long-term GDP and a 5% decline in wages. But these numbers, stark as they are, tell only part of the story.

The actual narrative is one of moral choice and democratic values. Eddie Glaude describes this way in his book “Democracy in Black”: Our economic policies must be viewed through the lens of ethical significance—not just market efficiency. When we examine the tariff regime's impact on American communities, we see economic data points and a fundamental challenge to our democratic principles of equity and justice.

Keep ReadingShow less