Ethics panel affirms Rep. Gohmert fine over metal detector
The House Ethics Committee upheld a $5,000 fine against Gohmert on Tuesday, March 30, 2021, after he was accused of failing to submit to a full security screening when entering the chamber's floor last month. A letter by the Ethics committee rejecting an appeal by Gohmert was the first such letter it has issued under the new rules, suggesting he would be the first to pay the fine. When an officer told him he needed to be checked with a wand, he walked onto the floor anyway โto engage in my turn to debate,โ Gohmert wrote. In a two-paragraph letter, the Ethics panel wrote, โA majority of the committee did not agree to the appeal,โ the standard required to dismiss the fine. The Ethics committee consists of five Democrats and five Republicans, and the letter did not provide details of the vote.
DC's long-simmering statehood push begins in Congress
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, testifies at the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, on D.C. statehood, Monday, March 22, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. โWe dare to believe that D.C. statehood is on the horizon,โ said the District's long-serving, nonvoting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who wrote the bill and said it has overwhelming support in the House. AdBowser spent much of Monday's four-hour hearing by the House oversight committee in a series of sometimes pointed exchanges with Republican committee members. AdBowser at the time quickly pointed out the ironies of Washington residents risking their lives to defend a Congress where they didnโt have a vote. โThere's not a single Republican in Congress, in the House or the Senate, that supports this bill.โ