Speaker Pelosi’s change of heart on censure

The Hill’s Scott Wong reported on Jan. 13 that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in appearing at the House impeachment managers’ press conference following the acquittal of former President Trump, dismissed the alternative of censure as “a slap in the face of the Constitution; it lets everybody off the hook.” She went on to observe that, “We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose,” a reference to the House censure of then-Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) in 2010. It’s “a little slap on the wrist,” she concluded, slapping her own wrist.

And yet, on Dec. 19, 1998, Rep. Pelosi presented a forceful argument in favor of censuring President Bill Clinton as an alternative to the pending impeachment articles brought against him by the House. Pelosi cited an attempt in the House by Rep. Ed Livingston (N.Y.) in 1800 to censure President John Adams. In that instance, Rep. John Marshall (Va.) successfully argued against the censure, without claiming it was unconstitutional. Pelosi concluded, “The power to censure is an obvious corollary of the legislature’s inherent power as a deliberative body to speak its mind.”

I found Speaker Pelosi’s 1998 remarks on her House website’s archives of previous statements under the headline, “Pelosi Votes Against Articles of Impeachment; Argues in Favor of Censure.” The introductory explanation to her remarks makes clear that, “Pelosi’s statement was entered into the record.” In other words, she did not actually deliver her remarks on the floor, but exercised her prerogative to insert her views in the Congressional Record.

To ascertain the full context of that impeachment imbroglio, I retrieved the Congressional Record debate from December 19, 1998. After all the arguments were presented for and against the four articles of impeachment reported by the House Judiciary Committee, Democrat Rep. Rick Boucher (Va.) offered a motion to recommit the articles with instructions to report back immediately a substitute containing a censure. The five-paragraph substitute concluded: “William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, by his conduct has brought upon himself, and fully deserves, the censure and condemnation of the American people and this House.”

Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Rules Committee, reserved a point of order to allow for ten-minutes of debate on the question, equally divided, previously agreed to by the leadership. Boucher and Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt (Mo.) pointed out that the Judiciary Committee majority had voted to allow a censure substitute to be offered to the impeachment resolution, but the majority leadership had vetoed that process, thereby exposing the attempt to a point of order. Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.), a Judiciary Committee member, argued that the Constitution does not allow for a lesser punishment of a government official than impeachment.

Solomon then raised his point of order that the censure substitute was not germane to the base impeachment resolution (H. Res. 611). Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.), the ranking minority member on the Rules Committee, spoke in opposition to the point of order, citing from House precedents the impeachment case of Judge James Peck in which an amendment was offered indicating that “the House does not approve of the conduct of James Peck,” and went on to recommend that he not be impeached. Moakley noted that a Congressional Research Service report cited nine instances in which the House considered censure resolutions against executive officials, some of which were considered as privileged.

The presiding officer, acting Speaker Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), exercised the discretion of the chair to allow several other members (10 in all) to speak to the point of order before issuing a ruling — a debate that lasted almost an hour. The essence of LaHood’s ruling was that a censure substitute was indeed nongermane because it was a non-privileged matter under House rules, being offered to a constitutionally privileged resolution. Gephardt appealed the ruling of the chair, to which Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) moved to table the appeal. The tabling motion was adopted, 230 to 204. Rep. Pelosi’s remarks were inserted immediately after that vote, just before the House began voting on each of the articles individually. Two of the four were adopted. Clinton was acquitted at Senate trial on both counts the following February.

Speaker Pelosi was right last week in rejecting censure as an option to be exercised now. The process has played-out. Members are suffering I-fatigue and do not want to be put through another wringer. It is time to move on. On the other hand, she was wrong in dismissing censure as a meaningless expression, unless she somehow equates misusing official stationery with committing perjury under oath before a federal court, as President Clinton did. It can still be a powerful rebuke if used up-front as an alternative to impeachment in the future.

Don Wolfensberger is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Bipartisan Policy Center, former staff director of the House Rules Committee, and author of “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays.” The views expressed are solely his own.