House votes to censure Paul Gosar over video depicting violence against AOC

The House delivered an extraordinary rebuke of congressman Paul Gosar on Wednesday, by formally censuring the Arizona Republican and removing his committee assignments for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden.

Gosar, a loyalist of Donald Trump and one of the most far-right members of Congress, sat in the chamber and listened as his colleagues debated the censure against him - the harshest form of punishment the chamber can mete short of expulsion.

The sanction was approved on a largely party-line vote, 223 to 207, with all Democrats and just two Republicans - Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois - voting in favor. Gosar was also stripped of his membership on the House Oversight Committee, where he serves alongside Ocasio-Cortez, and the Natural Resources Committee, which deals with issues critical to his state.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders have refused to publicly condemn Gosar for sharing the video and urged their caucus to oppose the sanction.

Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California who introduced the resolution, said partisanship was not the issue.

Far from being chastened, Gosar was defiant.

Democrats argued that depictions of violence and violent rhetoric from public officials can incite actual violence, pointing to the insurrection at the US Capitol as an example.

Gosar, a dentist who was first elected in 2010, has been tied to white nationalist and rightwing militia groups. In Arizona, his own siblings have appeared in campaign videos urging voters to remove their brother from office.

In its history, the House has censured members on nearly two dozen occasions, only six of which occurred in the last century.

The most recent censure was in 2010, after a lengthy congressional investigation found congressman Charlie Rangel, a Democrat of New York, guilty of a series of ethics violations. Pelosi presided over the censure of Rangel, a member of her own caucus, and a majority of his party supported the sanction.

Earlier this year, House Democrats took the unprecedented step of ousting Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Trump ally from Georgia, from her committee assignments for spreading dangerous and hateful conspiracy theories.

In the resolution, Democrats excoriate Gosar for targeting Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress.