Partisan tensions were so high on the first day of the government shutdown that a House Democrat forced the chamber to vote on the question of whether a GOP poster depicting Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer violated House decorum rules.

The poster pictured Schumer with a comment he made in 2013 saying that a government shutdown “is the politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of paralysis.” Republicans were using it as a prop as they gave floor speeches seeking to cast blame on Senate Democrats for the “Schumer shutdown.”

At the bottom of the poster was a link to the GOP website www.SchumerShutdown.com.

The decorum question, raised by Colorado Democrat Ed Perlmutter, surrounds a House rule stating that remarks in debate may include references to the Senate or its members but those references must be confined to the question under debate, avoiding personality.

Arkansas GOP Rep. Steve Womack, who was sitting in the chair when the question was raised, ruled the poster did not violate decorum. Perlmutter appealed the ruling of the chair, but Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole moved to table his motion.