Democratic caucus chairs call for Boebert committee assignment removal

A group of five Democratic Caucus chairs penned an official statement calling for the removal of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) from her committee assignments in the wake of her “repeated anti-Muslim attacks.”

The letter comes as tension has increased surrounding Boebert and comments she has made about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), including that she sympathizes with terrorists and suggesting she may be a terrorist herself.

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty, Congressional Asian Pacific American Chair Judy Chu, Congressional Equality Caucus Chair David Cicilline and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Raul Ruiz joined forces in the Wednesday condemnation.

“Today, we are calling for Representative Boebert to be removed from her committee assignments,” the group wrote. 

“There must be consequences for vicious workplace harassment and abuse that creates an environment so unsafe for colleagues and staff that it invites death threats against them. There must be consequences for elected representatives who traffic in anti-Muslim and racist tropes that make all Muslims across the country less safe. There must be consequences when Members of Congress demonize an entire religion and promote hate from their positions of public trust.”

Condemning attacks on a colleague’s religion shouldn’t be a partisan issue, they argued.

“But this is the level to which the GOP leader and too many members of the Republican party have sunk,” the chairs wrote, slamming House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s lack of action on Boebert’s remarks.

They added, “In refusing to hold his membership accountable, Representative McCarthy condones this hatred and the danger it incites.”

Others have criticized McCarthy for his silence, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), several Democrats, and notably, GOP Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

“I think whenever, even in our own caucus, our own members, if they go the wrong direction, I mean, it has to be called out. It has to be dealt with, particularly whenever it is breaching the civility, whenever it is crossing the line in terms of violence or increasing the divide in our country,” Hutchinson told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Boebert’s remarks also set off a fight within the House between Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who criticized Boebert, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who called Mace “trash” for doing so. Mace responded by calling her fellow first-term Republican congresswoman “batshit crazy.”

McCarthy on Wednesday pleaded with Republicans to stop attacking each other, admonishing them that “Congress is not junior high.”