House lawmakers voted Thursday to censure Democratic Texas Rep. Al Green for repeatedly heckling President Trump during his annual address to a joint session of Congress.
In a 224-198 vote, ten Democrats joined 214 Republicans in approving a resolution formally denouncing Green, 77, for the breach of decorum during the marquee event.
Green, who voted present on the measure, is now the 28th lawmaker in US history to be censured.
The ten Democrats who backed the resolution were Long Island Reps. Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi, as well as Ami Bera of California, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state.
Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Ala.) joined Green in voting present.
After the vote, a group of Democrats joined Green as he stood in the well of the House chamber for his formal reprimand. They sang “We shall overcome” and repeatedly defied Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) instructions to clear out as he read the censure into the record.
Johnson then called the House into recess.
The vote does not strip Green of any privileges, though some Republicans had suggested he be removed from his committees as punishment for his outburst.
Moments into Trump’s remarks Tuesday night, Green repeatedly shouted that the president “had no mandate” and was removed from the House chamber by sergeant-at-arms William McFarland after he declined to stop.
“I heard the speaker when he said that I should cease, I did not, and I did not with intentionality. It was not done out of a burst of emotion,” Green admitted Thursday before the House vote. “I was emotional about it, but I did it with intentionality.”
“The sheer disregard for decorum during the President’s address from my colleague is unacceptable,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) who formally introduced the resolution, said before the vote.
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“A member’s refusal to adhere to the speaker’s direction to cease such behavior, regardless of their party, has and will continue to be reprimanded in the people’s House.”
Democrats had attempted to kill the censure resolution Wednesday evening, but came up short in a 211-209 party-line vote.
Other Democrats also protested against Trump during his Tuesday address, with some opting to skip the speech, while others held signs criticizing the commander in chief.
Most sat silently and refused to applaud any of Trump’s statements and a few dozen left the House chamber before the president concluded.
“Donald Trump is not the Republican president. He’s the American president,” Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.) said during the censure debate.
“And what happened … was beneath the dignity of the House and beneath the dignity of the American people.”
Green himself said he was prepared to accept the censure, saying Thursday he was “not upset with the members who are going to bring the motions or resolution to sanction. I will suffer the consequences.
“But I must add this, what I did was from my heart. People are suffering, and I was talking about Medicaid, I didn’t just say you don’t have a mandate. I said you don’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid,” he added.
“Truthfully, I would do it again.”
The last time the lower chamber censured a member was in late 2023 when the House rebuked then-Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol complex during the middle of consideration of a resolution to avert a government shutdown.
