House Republicans struck back at Democrats for the floor demonstration they staged last year, by voting for new rules Tuesday that call for fines against lawmakers if they try it again.
Lawmakers voted along mostly partisan lines to approve the rules package, a must-pass measure that governs the entire two-year session. In the rules package was language that calls for fines against members who record or take pictures on the House floor.
The vote came more than six months after Democrats staged a “sit in” on the House floor over GOP inaction on gun control legislation. Republicans closed down the House floor during the protest, which disrupted legislative work for two days, but Democrats used social media tools to broadcast video and pictures from the House chamber, which is prohibited.
The rules change will authorize the House Sergeant-at-Arms to fine members $500 for their first violation, and $2,500 for subsequent violations. The language also prohibits lawmakers from committing disorderly conduct in the chamber, which Democrats were accused of doing during their June demonstration.
Republicans said the change was needed to ensure order is maintained on the House floor. But Democrats said the move was an attack on lawmakers who were standing against gun violence.
The June protest was led by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights icon who was arrested dozens of times in the 1960s while demonstrating against racial inequality. Lewis opposed the rule change Tuesday, but indicated it wouldn’t stop him from protesting again.
“I’m not afraid of a fine,” Lewis said on the floor. “I’ve been fined before.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the rules change “outrageous,” and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said it will shut down freedom of speech on the House floor.
“Our constitution elects us to speak our minds on the floor of the House,” DeLauro said. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said the rule would unfairly punish “enterprising” lawmakers who try to show the country what’s going on in the House chamber.
She was joined by other Democrats who said the rule change may violate their constitutional right to free speech.
But House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said the rules changes would maintain order on the House floor, not stifle free speech. “A rule of decorum has been placed upon that,” he added.
The rules package included other changes, including a provision that will make it easier for Republicans to use a budgetary procedure to repeal the healthcare law.
Lawmakers approved the package hours after Republicans backed down from a plan to include a provision to gut an outside ethics watchdog office. Republicans faced significant backlash over a last-minute plan to take away the independence of the Office of Congressional Ethics and place it under the jurisdiction of the House-run Ethics Committee.
