Lawmakers spent much of 2025 seeking to reprimand each other – here’s a look back at what sparked such outrage
It’s been a year for the history books in the House of Representatives. Lawmakers broke the record for longest floor speech and longest vote, and presided over the lengthiest government shutdown.
They also spent plenty of time seeking to reprimand each other by passing censures, as the House’s formal mechanism for discipline is known. A search on Congress.gov reveals at least 17 attempts since the start of the year to condemn another lawmaker, in the form of a censure or a less formal disapproval resolution.
If a censure resolution is approved by a majority of the chamber, the targeted lawmaker must stand before the House dais as the speaker informs them that they have been punished for their bad behavior. That’s as far as the consequences go – they keep their seat and their right to vote, but perhaps not their reputation.
Though almost none of these passed, the flurry grew so intense that by the end of the year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed changing the rules to make it more difficult for censures to succeed. “How about we stop the circular firing squad in the House?” asked Republican Don Bacon, one of the bill’s sponsors.
