Indiana Republican Congresswoman Victoria Spartz isn’t afraid to break with her radical nihilist GOP colleagues in the House, and she called out the juvenile tit-for-tat retaliation Speaker pro tem Kevin McCarthy has threatened to exact against Democrats for keeping violent, threatening Republicans off committees, NBC News reports.
“Speaker McCarthy needs to stop ‘bread and circuses’ in Congress and start governing for a change,” Spartz said in a statement, noting that she objected when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi excluded Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) and Paul Gosar (Q-AZ) after the individually made social media posts threatening the lives of members of Congress including Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Pelosi herself. Pelosi also refused to seat insurrection supporters such as Jim Jordan on the House Select Committee on the Republican-led January 6th domestic terrorist attack on Congress because they supported the violent insurrection.
In a move that is transparently retaliation for Pelosi holding Republican members to task for their words and actions, McCarthy has threatened to remove Democratic California Congressman Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee because they vocally supported impeaching Donald Trump and were members of the House Select Committee.
McCarthy also intends to deny Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, a Muslim woman who migrated to the United States from Somalia as a refugee, any committee seating; she was on the House Education and Labor Committee as well as the Foreign Affairs Committee. McCarthy improperly labeled Omar as anti-Semitic because she opposes the political policies of the Israeli government. Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has said she would also object to Omar’s removal, signaling wider division in the GOP caucus.
“Two wrongs do not make a right,” Spartz said. “Speaker Pelosi took unprecedented actions last Congress to remove Reps. Greene and Gosar from their committees without proper due process. Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented actions this Congress to deny some committee assignments to the Minority without proper due process again.”