Rep. Raskin on Tlaib Using ‘from the River to the Sea’ Chant: ‘We Never Censored Someone for Their Political Expression’

EXCERPT:

RASKIN: “The question of Rashida Tlaib's speech of course came up in the context of an effort to censure her and the House of Representatives censures people for things like taking bribes, income tax evasion, going over the Senate and beating up a U.S. senator as Preston Brooks did with Charles Sumner before the Civil War. We've never censored someone for their political expression much less the political expression that they had as she did in a video I think that she played off campus. It wasn't even in the House itself. So, where would that lead us? And what I said on the floor was, you know, Speaker Mike Johnson thinks that gay people can be thrown in jail just for having a sex life and you know he defends the old sodomy laws. Should he be censured because he has a position that is so far outside of the mainstream? Where does that end? So I think the correct antidote in Congress to speech you disagree with is to get up and to make a speech and explain why you deplore it not to censure or, you know, suspend or expel the other person. It's not a disciplinary matter.”