Chaos erupts on House Floor as Rep Collins takes on Pelosi

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (R) GA squared off against Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, using a parliamentary tactic to punish the House’s top leader for comments she made about President Donald Trump on the floor.

The nearly two-hour floor fight came after Pelosi called Trump’s tweets about four of her freshman colleagues “racist” in a floor speech.The standoff represented the rare occasion in which a member of the minority party has challenged the speaker – the most powerful official on Capitol Hill – on his or her own turf: the House floor.

The scene was reminiscent of one roughly 35 years ago, when words from then-Speaker Tip O’Neill about a rabble-rousing young Georgia congressman, Newt Gingrich, were struck from the congressional record for being too personal in nature.

Tuesday’s fight came as the House was debating a resolution condemning Trump’s comments that four freshman Democrats of color – U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib – should “go back” to where they came from.

At the tail end of an impassioned speech, Pelosi urged lawmakers to condemn the president’s “racist tweets.” “To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people,” she concluded.

The congressional rulebook considers “references to racial or other discrimination on the part of the President” to be out of order, and Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, asked Pelosi if she would like to rephrase her remarks.

After Pelosi declined – she said she’d cleared her remarks with the House parliamentarian ahead of time – Collins asked for Pelosi’s remarks be struck from the record.

The request screeched House proceedings to a halt for nearly two hours as lawmakers and aides debated with the parliamentarian.

Pelosi’s top deputy eventually ruled that Pelosi’s comments were indeed out of order – handing Collins a political victory – but not before another one of her designees stormed off the dais in a dramatic protest.

The House eventually voted along party lines not to strike the speaker’s comments from the congressional record.

Collins later said he was compelled to act against Pelosi for “her deliberate attack on the president.” “It bears repeating the House prizes decorum because it is a symptom of and a catalyst for a healthy, confident democracy,” said Collins. “I hope we recover that confidence soon and move forward with respect for the American people who sent elected officials, including the president, to represent them in Washington.”

We expect each other to speak fairly, truthfully and respectfully of our fellow members of Congress and of the president—not because we agree with each other at all times, but because of our great respect for the Americans who elected us to represent them. pic.twitter.com/jBngC0b9fl

— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) July 16, 2019

In addition to calling out Pelosi for the nature of her remarks, Collins also pointed at that Democrats “wrote a resolution last night” and then asked, “What happened to the 72-hour rule?” “What happened to regular order? This never came through committee.” And “why does the House have rules if the Democratic majority only follow them when it is politically convenient?”

Collins also brought up all the times the Democrats have refused to condemn actions such as the raising of the taking down of the US flag and raising a Mexican flag in it’s place outside an ICE facility in Colorado or the firebomb attack on the ICE facility in Washington. He also held up a list of things said by Democrats about the President that “I can not read on this floor”.

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