A bipartisan group of roughly three dozen House members, led by Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Don Bacon (R-Neb.), have introduced a resolution to change House rules and require that a censure must be approved by 60 percent of members voting, not just a simple majority. That is the way, they argue, to ensure a more bipartisan and fair outcome. I would agree but with the caveat that such a super-majority vote should only be required if the censure resolution has not first been considered in some manner by the Ethics Committee.
The ethics process in the House has been carefully and tightly drawn to provide members with the closest thing to procedural due process as citizens now enjoy under our judicial system. That ethics regime has been circumvented more lately, mostly to score political points off the other party rather than to protect the House’s reputation from further damage due to prolonged delays in a final verdict.
