(USNewsMag.com) – House Speaker and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries are forming a bipartisan task force which will create a policy to remove House members from committees they are serving on.
The idea of establishing the task force was first proposed by McCarthy after a vote that removed Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Squad member, from the Foreign Affairs Committee she had been serving on.
Republicans felt Omar should be removed due to statements she made in the past regarding Israel that both Republicans and Democrat members of the House had criticized as anti-Semitic. However, some Democrats and Republicans criticized the effort to vote her off the committee.
Some Republicans believed the current removal process does not allow for due process. McCarthy was able to get the 218 votes to remove Omar after talking with Nancy Mace and Ken Buck to create a task force which would create a better policy for the removal of House members from committees.
Republicans also removed two members from the House Intelligence Committee, California Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell.
In 2021, Democrats removed Georgie Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar from committees they were serving on for language and videos posted on social media. McCarthy argued that in removing Greene and Gosar, Democrats had created a different standard for removing members from committees. At the time he stated that if Republicans took control of the House, he would seek the removal of Omar, Schiff and Swalwell from their committees.
With Republicans in control of the House, both Greene and Gosar have been given new assignments to committees.
House members who have been asked to be a part of the bipartisan task force are four Democrats: Nikema Williams, Jim McGovern, Derek Kilmer and Veronica Escobar as well as four Republicans: Nancy Mace, Tom Cole, Ken Buck and David Joyce.
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