Democrats Defeat Republican-Backed Resolution to Censure Maxine Waters

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Last updated on April 22nd, 2021 at 10:15 pm

By a narrow margin, House Democrats defeated a Republican-backed resolution to censure Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) for her remarks ahead of the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. The House voted to table the resolution, which had been brought by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy(R-Calif.), 216 to 210 along party lines.

“I love my colleagues and they love me. I don’t want to do anything to hurt them or hurt their chances for reelection,” Waters said after the votes had been counted. “I will make sure that they are comfortable with my kind of advocacy so that we can all be sure that we can do the right thing.”

The controversy arose when Waters addressed protesters following the police shooting of Daunte Wright in Minneapolis, Minnesota as the nation waited for Chauvin’s trial to conclude.

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Waters had said that if Chauvin was not found guilty, “we’ve got to stay on the street, and we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”

“We’ve got to get justice in this country, and we cannot allow these killings to continue,” Waters said at the time.

Waters dismissed criticism from Republicans who accused her of inciting violence and called for her expulsion from Congress,

“This is a time for [Republicans] to keep telling our constituents that [Democrats] are the enemy and they do that time and time again,” she told The Grio in an interview published yesterday. “But that does not deter me from speaking truth to power. I am not intimidated. I am not afraid, and I do what needs to be done.”

“I talk about confronting the justice system, confronting the policing that’s going on, I’m talking about speaking up. I’m talking about legislation. I’m talking about elected officials doing what needs to be done to control their budgets and to pass legislation,” she clarified. “I am not worried that they’re going to continue to distort what I say. This is who they are and this is how they act. And I’m not going to be bullied by them.”