Republicans remove Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar from powerful committee

Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.

The resolution to remove her was introduced by Ohio Republican Rep. Max Miller and was voted on party line, with Democrats opposing and Republicans voting in favor.

The party line vote was 218 to 211.

Omar has been a controversial figure on Capitol Hill for his harsh criticism of the Israeli government and its human rights record, explains The Hill.

According to Republicans, Oman crossed the line into anti-Semitism with some comments she has made, and McCarthy’s argument for ousting her from Foreign Affairs is based on that accusation.

The leader of the House of Representatives had already promised that he was going to remove her from that instance, even before she became president. speaker.

“Last year, I promised that when I became president, I would remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee based on her repeated anti-Semitic and anti-American comments. I will keep that promise.” McCarthy tweeted in November 2022.

The vote to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs committee follows McCarthy officially denying House Intelligence Committee seats to Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, the panel’s former chairman, a move that was condemned by Democrats. CNN reviewed.

He speaker he had also promised to remove Swalwell and Schiff if the Republicans regained a majority in the House.

The heated partisan conflict over committee assignments began in 2021, when Democrats and a small number of Republicans voted to remove Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their panels, Axios reports.

Republicans said at the time that the move set a new precedent and vowed revenge.

What did the Democrats say?

Before the vote, Omar delivered a defiant speech: “My leadership and voice will not diminish if I am not on this committee for a term. My voice will get louder and louder,” he said.

• “So whether I take your vote or not, I’m here to stay, and I’m here to be a voice against harm around the world and advocate for a better world,” the congresswoman said.

• House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Republicans of seeking “political revenge.”

• “I will move immediately to place Rep. Omar on the House Budget Committee, where she will defend Democratic values ​​against right-wing extremism,” Jeffries tweeted after the vote in the House.

For her part, New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned the vote, saying it was an attack on women of color in Congress.

“Don’t tell me it’s about consistency, don’t tell me it’s about censoring anti-Semitic comments when you have a member of the Republican causus who has spoken out about ‘Jewish space lasers’ and they assigned her to one of the highest in this body. . This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Omar was elected to Congress in 2018 and is one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to the United States Congress.

His tenure on the influential committee began in 2019 and was marked by controversy due to his statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The congresswoman has already apologized for her statements.