Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) confirmed that he will keep his promise to oust influential Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff (California), Eric Swalwell (California) and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) from their House committees.
Schiff and Swalwell served on the House Intelligence Committee while Omar served on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
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McCarthy began saying a year ago that if he became House speaker, he would remove them in retribution for the Democrats stripping Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Paul Gosar (Arizona) of their assignments when they had the majority of the House.
Greene was removed after she spread conspiracy theories about Jews, and Gosar was removed for his post on social media that portrayed violence against President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York). The two also attended a white nationalist rally in Florida.
Before the Democrats removed Greene and Gosar from their committees, the party in the majority did not control who or who could not be on a committee for the minority party.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) credited the Democrats for setting a new precedent when he was asked about what the removal process may look like.
“The Democrats set a precedent that we urged them strongly not to go down last Congress,” Scalise said. “They decided that they were going to break the precedent that had been in place for over 200 years and remove members of the opposing party that our party selected to be on committees. And so that was a practice they set and so, obviously, we’re going to be looking very closely at who they appoint. They haven’t appointed anybody yet to committees, but we’re gonna see if they do.”
