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Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

Maybe it’s just pent-up negative energy from the long government shutdown, but since the U.S. House has been back in session our lawmakers have spent a lot of time formally rebuking each other. Last week, a resolution “reprimanding” Illinois Democrat Chuy Garcia for a shady-looking succession scheme narrowly passed. Yesterday the House deflected a censure motion aimed at Florida Republican Cory Mills for various acts of personal misconduct, referring it to the Ethics Committee. And there was more, as Axios reports:

Four censure resolutions have been floated in the last two days — including multiple [measures] against Mills.

The House narrowly voted down a Republican censure resolution on Tuesday targeting Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) for texting with Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing in 2019.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) said Wednesday he plans to force a vote on censuring Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), who was indicted earlier in the day for allegedly stealing $5 million in FEMA overpayments.

It’s an epidemic of finger pointing and virtue signaling. And it’s not just the usual partisan guerrilla warfare: The Garcia reprimand was introduced by fellow Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, and the Mills censure was sponsored by fellow Republican Nancy Mace. Partisanship has undoubtedly encouraged retaliation, however, as both sides keep count of how many of their teammates are being shamed. But any House member can make a “privileged” motion to reprimand or censure a colleague, which forces an almost immediate vote. And only a simple majority is required for passage (actual expulsion, however, requires a two-thirds vote and rarely occurs).

Fortunately, someone has come forward to get a grip on all the incensed censoring, notes Axios:

Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) introduced legislation Thursday to raise the threshold [for censure] to a 60% majority, according to legislative text obtained by Axios.

In a letter to colleagues, Beyer and Bacon wrote, “These cycles of censure and punishment impair our ability to work together for the American people, pull our focus away from problems besetting the country, and inflict lasting damage on this institution.”

“We believe this is a sensible reform that would fix a broken process and raise the level of sanity in the House,” they added.

The best endorsement of the measure came from Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes.

“I am in camp ‘shut this shit down,’” he said. “We’ll spend the next year censuring each other. It’s bullshit. We need due process.”

A 60 percent threshold would make purely (or primarily) partisan-censure resolutions impossible and would probably lead to a return to the days when House members condemned each other with rhetoric rather than formal measures. The way things are going, the cycle of rebukes and counter-rebukes could lead to mutually assured destruction.

A Bipartisan Idea for Congress: Fewer Stupid Censure Wars

A Bipartisan Idea for Congress: Fewer Stupid Censure Wars