Speaker Paul Ryan Plans To Punish House Democrats For Sit-In Over Gun Violence

According to Politico, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders are looking into ways to publicly reprimand the Democratic Congressional members who participated in a sit-in on the House floor. The sit-in, which took place in late-June shortly after the Orlando shooting massacre that took the lives of 50, was launched by civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and lasted more than 24 hours.

Ryan and other GOPers want to prevent anything like this from happening again when Congress returns from recess next week. Therefore, they are looking at their best options to shame the Dems for shaming them over their intransigence on even the most basic and widely-supported gun control measures.

One option that’s been floated is a resolution broadly stating a sentiment that such tactics shouldn’t be allowed and will be sanctioned somehow going forward. Others are hoping Republicans will publicly rebuke certain Democrats they say “intimidated” nonpartisan House staff during the late-June incident.

The latter response was used to admonish Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) after he yelled, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during a 2009 joint session of Congress. But this situation involves multiple lawmakers, so the same tack may not work.

One Republican source familiar with the ongoing discussions said their intent is to maintain decorum in the future and “protect the permanent employees of the House, who the Democrats treated with contempt.” GOP leaders want to make clear that such actions are “not acceptable” and won’t be tolerated.

GOP leaders are claiming that House staffers were bullied and harassed by the Democrats participating in the protest. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the dude who was supposed to be Speaker before he chickened out because he faced pushback from the Tea Party, told Politico that one of the Congressional Democrats knocked something out of a staffer’s hands during the sit-in for trying to restore order.

Politico noted that they haven’t been able to independently verify the account and McCarthy noted that they are still looking for video footage.

All I know is that it won’t go over too well if House Republicans manage to come to terms on punishing those across the aisle for embarrassing them, but sit pat on further gun control measures, Zika virus funding, or a boatload of other bills that should be passed or at least discussed.