House to vote on kicking Rep. McIver off committee
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Rep. LaMonica Mciver speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on June 25, 2025. Photo: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The House is set to vote on a Republican measure that would censure Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and remove her from the House Homeland Security Committee.
Why it matters: McIver was indicted last month and pleaded not guilty to three counts of interfering with law enforcement officers over a physical altercation with ICE officers in May.
- Justice Department prosecutors have accused McIver of elbowing and grabbing an ICE agent outside the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.
- McIver has denied the allegations and said she was the one assaulted during a chaotic scuffle in which Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested.
Driving the news: Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Wednesday introduced what is known as a privileged motion to force a vote on his McIver censure resolution.
- Under House rules, Republican leadership has to put the measure up for a vote within days of the House's return in September unless Higgins withdraws it.
- The three-page measure alleges McIver's actions "do not reflect creditably on the House" and that her continued service on the Homeland Security Committee "would represent a significant conflict of interest."
- The measure does not target McIver's membership on the Small Business Committee.
What they're saying: Higgins told Axios in an interview at the Capitol that he waited until just before the House's five-week August recess to see if Democrats would remove McIver from the committee themselves.
- House Republicans' rules mandate that their indicted members must surrender all their committee assignments, but Democrats' rules only force them to give up committee leadership positions.
- Still, Higgins said, McIver "should not be participating on the committee that has oversight and voting authority over the branch of federal government that she's been indicted for committing crimes against."
The other side: "Clay Higgins is a bigot who wants to be back in the news," McIver said in a statement provided to Axios through a spokesperson.
- "This resolution aims to kick me off the committee that presides over the Department of Homeland Security and shame me for doing the oversight work that is my job," she added. "Good luck, Clay."
- Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), who was with McIver at Delaney Hall, said her colleague is being "singled out" for "conducting Congressional oversight of an ICE detention facility which was so poorly maintained that an external wall collapsed and four detainees escaped."
- Both McIver and Watson Coleman alleged that the measure is an attempt to distract from Republicans' internal blowup over the Epstein files.
What to watch: It is not clear how Republican leadership will respond, with a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declining to weigh in.
- Higgins signaled he did not seek permission from leadership for his motion beyond giving them a heads up shortly before he made it.
Axios' Kate Santaliz contributed reporting for this story.
