It started with a racist tweet. It ended on Wednesday with the House recessing — though that will hardly be the actual end of the ordeal.
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford tried to bring a censure resolution to the House on Wednesday against Rep. Clay Higgins after Higgins posted on X — and deleted — a tweet that was offensive and false on several levels.
“Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters... but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP,” Higgins wrote.
“All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th,” he wrote, referring to Inauguration Day.
Some Black lawmakers — including Black Republican Byron Donalds — spoke to Higgins on the House floor Wednesday about his tweet, according to members. But when votes ended and Higgins left the floor, most CBC members stayed behind.
The House floor drama started almost immediately. Horsford asked for unanimous consent to speak for one minute. Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia half-heartedly objected — a preview of the contentiousness that was about to follow. But Clyde decided to withdraw his objection and let Horsford speak. And when the Nevada Democrat did, he was direct about how offensive he and his CBC colleagues found Higgins’ tweet.
Flanked by about 40 other Democrats — most of them CBC members — Horsford described Higgins as having brought “discredit and disgrace to the House of Representatives.”
“These words, on an official post, do not reflect credibly on the House,” Horsford said in his speech. “In fact, they are inciting hate. They are inciting fear, and because of that, it is time for this body to stand with one voice and to ensure that there’s accountability.”
Horsford repeatedly tried to get a vote on censuring Higgins over potentially breaking a House rule about members’ behavior reflecting credibly on the House. But Horsford’s parliamentary inquiry wasn’t technically in order. And even though he tried to get a vote in the House over censuring Higgins — or even referring the matter to the House Committee on Ethics — the CBC chair wasn’t able to get what he wanted.
As Horsford kept trying to restate his motion in a legislatively correct way, Republicans started growing impatient.
Clyde eventually yelled out, “Time is up!” And Majority Leader Steve Scalise objected to one of Horsford’s unanimous consent requests. “First of all, the tweet has been deleted already,” Scalise said.
Eventually, the House recessed while the presiding chair, Rep. Jay Obernolte, sorted out the legislative particulars about shaming Higgins.
Horsford also sorted some things out. And when the House came back, he was able to offer his censure resolution. Once again, however, because of some technical rules requiring the censure resolution to come from the Majority or Minority Leader, Horsford’s resolution didn’t get a vote.
In two legislative days, Horsford can bring up a question of privilege to be scheduled for consideration about the resolution, but none of that will necessarily force a vote on censuring Higgins.
Horsford told reporters he planned on bringing up the question in November. He added that he “didn’t ask” for Jeffries’ blessing before bringing up the motion. He instead just told House Democratic leadership that he was going to bring it up.
“[Higgins] didn’t, in my view, show any remorse,” Horsford said. “That is why I asked him to remove the post. He actually told me, no, he would not, and then that’s when we started the action on the floor.”
Still, members were already naming and shaming Higgins for his post.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries used Higgins’ tweet to question whether he’s qualified to serve on the taskforce investigating the attempted assassination on Donald Trump. He called Higgins “irresponsible.”
“It’s questionable as to why someone so irresponsible like Clay Higgins could be put on a serious task force that is investigating the work of the Secret Service in terms of protecting candidates for the presidency and current office holders,” Jeffries told reporters. “Perhaps that’s something that House Republican leadership should reevaluate.”
When asked if Democrats would call for Higgins to be booted off the taskforce and whether he should be subjected to an Ethics Committee investigation, Jeffries was noncommittal. “That remains to be seen,” he said.
Others lawmakers were just purely enraged.
“Disgusting, horrible,” Rep. Robin Kelly told NOTUS. “It incites hate and we have enough of that.”
Rep. Jennifer McClellan called Higgins’ post “completely unacceptable.”
And the ‘Tri-Caucus’ — which comprises the Congressional Black, Hispanic and Asian Pacific American Caucuses — released a statement calling Higgins’ tweet “false, hateful and dangerous.”
“These lies target some of the most vulnerable among us — individuals and families fleeing violence, instability, and humanitarian crises in search of a better life,” the statement read. “To demonize and dehumanize them with baseless accusations puts their lives at risk and is an affront to everything we stand for as a nation.”
Even Republican Rep. Mike Lawler posted disapprovingly on X about Higgins’ tweet.
“The Haitian people are good and honorable people, who contribute greatly to our country,” Lawler said. “As a Representative of one of the largest Haitian diaspora in the country, I know this first hand. No one should attack or disparage them. Let’s do better.”
Whether Higgins actually intends to “do better” remains to be seen.
Rep. Becca Balint told NOTUS that, when members first approached Higgins on the floor, the Louisiana Republican initially said he was not taking down the post and accused the lawmakers of “threatening” him.
“At some point on the floor, he deleted it,” Balint said. But she claimed he only did it after a member of Haitian descent, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, confronted him.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s account of Higgins deleting the tweet was a bit different. The speaker said colleagues who found the post offensive approached Higgins on the floor. Higgins apparently left the conversation and went to the back of the chamber.
“He prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down,” Johnson said. “That’s what you want a gentleman to do. I’m sure he probably regrets some language he used. But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here.”
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Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.
Nuha Dolby, Claire Heddles and Calen Razor, who are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows, contributed to this report.