House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) are creating a bipartisan task force to set a process for kicking lawmakers off their committees.
According to sources, McCarthy has asked Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) to lead the task force, while Jeffries has coordinated a list of eligible Democrats to join as well.
The move comes after House Republicans voted to boot Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her position on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs after she made antisemitic comments about Israel that were criticized by both Democrats and Republicans.
While all but one Republican voted to kick Omar off of her Committee, several GOP members still expressed concern that the system to remove her lacked due process.
They reportedly compared it to the process under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif), which removed Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz) from their committee assignments during the last Congress, which Democrats controlled.
In 2021, Greene was removed from the Budget and Education and Labor Committee after the House accused her of spreading "racist conspiracy theories" on social media. A few months later, in November, Gosar was removed from the Oversight and Reform and Natural Resources committees after he posted a video that depicted him hurting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and President Joe Biden.
In January, McCarthy removed Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif) from their committees, to which Democrats claimed the action was for "political vengeance" after Greene and Gosar's removal.
A senior GOP aide said that the task force's goal is to find "a way to not have this devolve into every time it flips, anybody the majority doesn't like comes off their committees."
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