The Republican-controlled House voted this morning to wash away the massive fail caused by Reps. Pete Sessions’ (R-TX) and Mike Fitzpatrick’s (R-PA) decision to skip Wednesday’s swearing-in ceremony in favor of taking the oath to a television set at a Capitol complex event for Fitzpatrick.
By a vote of 257 to 159, the House voted in a special rule written for Sessions and Fitzpatrick to essentially rewrite Congressional history so the votes they cast as unsworn members-elect Wednesday and Thursday never happened.
“Be it Resolved, that the votes recorded for Representative-elect Sessions and Representative-elect Fitzpatrick on rollcalls 3 through 8 be deleted and the vote-totals for each of those rollcalls be adjusted accordingly, both in the Journal and in the Congressional Record,” the resolution reads.
Read the full text of the two-page resolution here.
Clearing out the history books of Sessions’ and Fitzpatrick’s brief tenure as unconstitutional members of Congress will allow the House to move forward with the Republicans’ top priority: repealing the landmark health care bill passed when the last Congress was controlled by the Democrats. The votes Sessions cast on the House Rules Committee after failing to be sworn in properly had threatened to slow down the repeal process, but now things should be back on track.
The resolution’s passage may not be the final chapter in the story, however. Accusations are starting to bubble up that the event Sessions attended for Fitzpatrick was an illegal fundraiser for the Pennsylvania member. The event was in the Capitol complex, where fundraisers or “political activity” is strictly forbidden. More on that part of the story to come.
