Rep. Al Green of Texas thought about the Black liberation struggle of the 1960s on Thursday, as House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, prepared to read the resolution censuring the 77-year-old Democratic lawmaker.
“I recalled when we were faced with adverse circumstances, we would sing a song that would inspire and encourage us to move forward with alacrity,” Green said, after the House voted to censure him.
“The words were: ‘We shall overcome / We shall overcome / We shall overcome some day / Oh, deep in my heart / I do believe / We shall overcome some day,’” he added.
The resolution was in response to Green’s actions on Tuesday, when he protested during President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress. It passed 224 to 198, with 10 members of Green’s party joining Republicans.
Some House Republicans on Thursday threatened to take additional steps against Green to remove him from his seat on the House Financial Services Committee.
Toward the start of Trump’s speech on Tuesday, when the president claimed that the 2024 election offered him “a mandate like has not been seen in many decades,” Green interrupted. He shouted that Trump has “no mandate,” specifically no mandate to cut Medicaid, the health care program that some 80,000 Americans use. Trump also latched on to name-calling, referring to Democrats as “radical-left lunatics.”
Green, who’s represented a district in Houston since 2005, continued to protest, and was eventually ejected from the chamber. Believing that incivility is what Democrats must embrace under the current administration, he told reporters afterward that he was prepared for any punishment his colleagues might mete out.
“I’m not fighting the punishment,” Green said. “This is about the people who are being punished by virtue of losing their health care. This is the richest country in the world, and we have people who don’t have good health care. We’ve got to do better, and now we’re about to cut Medicaid, which is for the poor.”
Read on to learn about what a censure is, how lawmakers voted on the one regarding Green, and what this tension illustrates about Black political opposition to Trump.
This story will be updated as developments unfold.
What is a censure?
A censure is a formal rebuke of a member of Congress, a way to publicly register disapproval with that member’s actions. There’s no required penalty — such as losing the rights or privileges of being a member of the House — beyond this admonition.
However, the far-right House Freedom Caucus said on Thursday that it plans on filing a measure to remove Green from the House Financial Services Committee, and that it expects Johnson to bring it up for a vote next week.
“Green was censured in a bipartisan vote, but he needs real consequences to demonstrate that no one gets to disrupt the People’s business in lame attempts to derail President Trump’s agenda,” insisted Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, the leader of the caucus.
Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, a Democrat, was the last member of the House to be censured. Republicans accused him of pulling a fire alarm in a Capitol office building in 2023 in order to delay an important vote. Bowman, who lost his seat in a Democratic primary race last year, has maintained that he didn’t mean to pull the alarm.
The House must approve a sanction by majority vote. Once it does, the censured member stands in the well of the House while the speaker — or the presiding officer — reads the resolution.
Who supported the resolution?
Ten Democrats joined Republicans to pass the resolution punishing Green. Those lawmakers were Reps. Ami Bera of California, Jim Costa of California, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Ed Case of Hawaii, Laura Gillen of New York, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.
Green and Rep. Shomari Figures of Alabama, whose father was known for bankrupting the Ku Klux Klan, voted “present.”
But Green has received vocal support from members of his party.
During his weekly news conference, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that he voted “no” and that “the censure resolution put forth by extreme MAGA Republicans is not worth the paper that it was written on.”
And on social media, Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York told Green to wear the reprimand “like a badge of honor,” and added, “We stand with you!” Her post was shared by the official Congressional Black Caucus account on X.
What does Green’s protest say about Black political opposition?
In some ways, Green’s actions underscore the variety of ways that Black Democrats are defying the Trump administration.
For instance, while Green chose to attend Tuesday’s address and disrupt it, others, including Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, displayed their disapproval silently, holding up signs that read “False,” “Musk Steals,” and “Save Medicaid.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts was initially in attendance, there to honor her guest, a former employee at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development who was fired as the administration guts the federal government. But Pressley ultimately walked out, saying that she “could not in good conscience sit through the speech and give an audience to someone who operates with lawless disregard for Congress and the people of this nation.”
And still others, including Rep. Maxine Waters of California, emphasized the importance of boycotting the event.
“Dishonorable, deplorable human being,” she said of Trump on Tuesday. “He’s full of lies and deceit, and he’s aligned with [Vladimir] Putin and Russia. As a matter of fact, he should be tried for treason. That’s why I’m not going.”