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SACRAMENTO — Republican legislators are decrying what they call a free-speech violation after Sen. Janet Nguyen, an Orange County Republican, was forcibly removed from the Senate floor Thursday morning during an attempt to criticize the late California Sen. Tom Hayden.

The unusual scene, captured on video, shows the Vietnamese-American lawmaker being led from the floor by Capitol security officers.

Nguyen, who fled communist Vietnam with her family and arrived in the U.S. in the early 1980s when she was a young child, is critical of Hayden’s anti-Vietnam War activism. Hayden, who died in October, is a polarizing figure in the Vietnamese-American community, as is his former wife, actress Jane Fonda, who was widely accused during the Vietnam War of giving “aid and comfort” to the North Vietnamese enemy.

Hayden was memorialized in the Assembly earlier in the week. So Nguyen rose Tuesday to criticize his radical legacy, speaking first in Vietnamese and then in English. She was told repeatedly by presiding Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, that she was out of order.

Nguyen’s microphone was turned off, but she continued talking. Lara later ordered sergeant-at-arms officers to escort her out of the room.

Outraged, the Senate GOP Caucus began circulating video footage and repurposing the popular hashtag #shepersisted — created after U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, was recently silenced while trying to read a letter from Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, on the Senate floor. The letter, written in 1986, was highly critical of Sen. Jeff Sessions, now President Donald Trump’s attorney general.

Here is a portion of @SenJanetNguyen free speech being silenced as she was removed from the Senate Chambers.For full https://t.co/gGr8qLHef6 pic.twitter.com/1hmRjp6S8M — CA Senate GOP Caucus (@SenateRepCaucus) February 23, 2017

“I’m enraged at the violation to free speech, our Constitution and the precedent this sets,” Senate Republican leader Jean Fuller, told the Sacramento Bee. “I do not believe a Democratic staffer should be able to tell one of the elected members that they are not allowed to use their freedom of speech rights to represent their people. All of her comments were legitimately representing the people in her district.”

Fuller is asking the Senate Rules Committee to look into what happened.

Asked about the incident during an unrelated news conference on Thursday, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León said he was “unsettled across the board” about what happened.

In a statement released later in the day, the Senate leader said the removal of a senator should be “an absolute last resort” and that he would be conducting an internal review of the incident.

“To be very clear, every senator has the right to speak for their constituents, including Senator Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee who represents an incredibly diverse community,” he wrote. “At the same time, to maintain order so every senator can be heard, we all observe a clear set of parliamentary rules, which were explained beforehand to Senator Nguyen and her staff who asked to speak on a specific issue.

“… This is the people’s house, and we have an obligation to our constituents and our democratic process to maintain an environment that respects one another, civil discourse, and promotes the spirit of free expression on which our government is founded.”