Is there a precedent for a congress-person being stripped of their committee posts and just … not serving on any of them?
Steve King (R-IA) remained in the House for a while after being stripped of his committee assignments, but then was primaried and lost.
The Washington Post has a list of Congresspeople who’ve been kicked off committees. For those of you who find the Post article is paywalled, it looks like there have been 9 members since 2005. Most of them were under some form of criminal investigation or indictment, but it seems that three were purged in 2012 either for disagreeing with House leadership or being Tea Party members, depending on whose story you believe.
I don’t believe there’s a requirement to serve on any committees but why would you run for Congress and then not place yourself in positions to have influence if you had the option?
(Obviously, if one is removed from committees that option no longer exists.)
The way committee assignments have worked is that that the party leaders in each chamber agree on how many Republicans and Democrats will serve on each committee. Then each party’s leadership decides which of their specific members will fill those slots.
In all past cases of a member being removed from a committee, it has been the party leader who has either asked him/her to step down or kicked him/her off the committee. This is the first time that the House as a whole is voting to remove a member from a committee against the party leader’s wishes.
From the Votemaster:
If Greene were to be removed from her committees, it wouldn’t be the first time this happened, but it is rare. In 2001, Democrat Jim Traficant voted for Dennis Hastert (R) for speaker and he was stripped of his committee assignments. In 2006, William Jefferson (D) was kicked off the House Ways and Means Committee after the FBI found $90,000 in bribes he had accepted in the form of cold hard cash—hidden in his freezer. In 2007, Larry Craig (R) was caught playing footsie with a cop in a mens’ room at the MSP airport and voluntarily gave up his committee assignments and didn’t seek reelection in 2008. In 2018, Chris Collins (R) and Duncan Hunter (R) were stripped of committee assignments—after they were indicted for financial crimes. In 2019, Steve King (R) was stripped of his committee assignments for saying white supremacy isn’t so bad.
Don’t forget, Larry Craig was the lead singer for the wildly popular barbershop quartet, The Singing Senators, which also featured Trent Lott.
You can still pick up their only CD Let Freedom Sing on Amazon, but hurry, there’s only one copy left.
It 's a steal at just $902.81, plus $3.99 shipping.