Al Green censure highlights increased appetite for retribution in House

A formal House reprimand didn’t contain the fallout from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) interrupting President Trump’s speech to Congress, showing how petty fights and demands for retribution have become an increasingly prominent part of business on the House floor.

The House Freedom Caucus is asking Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to hold a vote next week on removing Green from his committees. And Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) could force a vote on another measure to remove Democrats from committees if they were part of the group that sang “We Shall Overcome” and got in a yelling match with Republicans on the House floor during Green’s censure.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in response called the Republicans “malignant clowns” and called Ogles a “complete and total fraud,” warning: “Don’t make me expose you to folks who don’t know you.”

That is true. Best to find out one way or another.

I saw Speaker Johnson on Fox News' Outnumbered on Friday. He said that town hall meetings have become unreliable due to organized left-wing agitators arriving early and occupying all of the seats at a venue, keeping out the true constituents. He said that new technologies like telephone town halls can alleviate this problem and allow thousands of people to attend a town hall event.

I have concerns about this, though. Telephone town halls may tend to be one-way push meetings by the politician, due simply to the logistics of having thousands of people on a call. Also, witnessing body language is crucial in assessing the character of a person.

Speaker Johnson also mentioned having town halls at "industrial" sites, meaning at places of business where outside agitators cannot enter. This would be a good idea. There were three occasions where my company hosted events with our Congressman on-site that was limited to employees and contractors only.

Finally, I suppose public-forum town halls could ensure that only residents of the district attend by requiring a photo ID with the person's address to enter.

Regard Al Green's specific district, it contains about 750,000 people. It is a D+26 district with an ethnic distribution of:

Hispanic: 39.3%
Black: 35.8
White: 12.4
Asian: 9.7
Other: 2.7

We'll see how the shift in sympathies towards President Trump affects the Hispanic, White, and Asian voters (combined 61.4% of the vote).

Local talk radio host Michael Berry talked about Green last week after his outburst. Berry was once on the Houston city council and said that he knew Green, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Sylvester Turner very well, and had cordial relationships with each of them.

Berry said that Green was a very congenial man who also sweet-talked the people he met. Examples were when seeing someone from church he would say "You looked so nice in your Sunday dress at church. Please say hello to your auntie for me...." However, Berry said that Green was a STUPID person.

Berry went on to explain Green's outburst:

In 2005, Tom Delay created a gerrymandered district map for Texas that took many 50/50 R/D districts and moved all the Democrats into one 90% D district for every three 90% R districts. One such D district was Sheila Jackson Lee's Houston district. Another was the district just south of hers, the TX-9th. Previously, the TX-9 was spread out from Galveston to Beaumont. That area is now TX-2. The current TX-9 was formerly TX-25.

The first Representative elected into the new TX-9 was Nick Lampson (D), who was the incumbent who was redistricted to TX-2 and lost reelection. Berry said that Jackson Lee and Turner pushed for Green to run for the new TX-9 and campaigned for him. Once Green won the seat, Jackson Lee kept him in her shadow because she was the "queen" of Houston politics. Green was not allowed to overshadow her.

Berry said that after Sheila Jackson Lee died, it allowed Green to become his own person and that is why he stood out at the joint session of Congress -- he was making an attention power play for himself now that Jackson Lee was out of the picture. Of course, he couldn't know that Sylvester Turner would die later that evening, leaving him to be the lone "senior" Congressman from Houston.

-PJ

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