Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar walks to the chamber March 7 as the House was preparing to vote on a resolution to speak out against, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, "anti-Semitism, anti-Islamophobia, anti-white supremacy and all the forms that it takes." | AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Congress House repudiates bigotry after Omar comments split Dems The uproar over Ilhan Omar's controversial comments distracted Democrats, who wanted to focus on election reform.

The House overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning hate speech Thursday, indirectly rebuking Rep. Ilhan Omar’s controversial comments about Israel and ending a days-long political drama that had consumed the Democratic Caucus on the eve of a major legislative victory.

The debate over how to respond to Omar’s remarks, which have been criticized as anti-Semitic by some colleagues, had sharply divided the caucus, distracting Democrats from a week intended to be dedicated to their sweeping package of election reforms.


One day before that vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top deputies had been forced to personally intervene in the drafting of a symbolic resolution, rather than teeing up the most significant bill of their majority so far.

The measure passed 407-23, just hours after the final text had been released. Every Democrat voted for the resolution, with all ‘no’ votes coming from Republicans; one lawmaker, Rep. Steve King, (R-Iowa), voted present.

The seven-page resolution is expanded from the initial four-page draft that circulated Monday night, which angered allies of Omar because it focused solely on anti-Semitism and not other forms of religious hate speech including Islamophobia. The final resolution, which doesn't mention Omar by name, condemns anti-Semitism, bigotry against Muslims and denounces racism against minorities in general.

COUNTDOWN TO 2020 The race for 2020 starts now. Stay in the know. Follow our presidential election coverage. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“We are against bigotry, we are against prejudice, we’re against hate, against whomever that is directed," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters before the resolution was unveiled.

The fate of the resolution had been uncertain for much of Thursday, as Hoyer and other top Democrats worked with all corners of their caucus to find an acceptable path forward to rebuke Omar's contentious comments, without appearing to target her personally.

Just hours before the vote, the internal political furor broke into the public as numerous Jewish lawmakers condemned their leadership's decision to broaden the language to encompass all hate, rather than focus squarely on Omar's anti-Semitic remarks.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said on the floor that he wanted a resolution devoted solely to Omar's remarks to send a direct message against anti-Semitism.



"The way the representative from Minnesota spoke, we need to single it out and say, we will not tolerate it," Engel said. "I wish we had had a separate resolution about anti-Semitism. I think we deserved it. I think it was wrong not to have it."

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), who had remained largely silent on the issue for days, delivered an emotional floor speech calling for a specific measure that would condemn Omar’s language.

“Why aren’t we able to singularly condemn anti-Semitism? Why can’t we call it anti-Semitism and show that we’ve learned the lessons of history?” Deutch said. “Anti-Semitism is worthy of being taken seriously on its own, it’s worthy of being singularly called out."

Lawmakers saw the final draft, which came from Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Cedric Richmond (D-La.), for the first time Thursday afternoon, Raskin is a prominent member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Richmond is the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, two groups that have defended Omar this week and pushed back on attempts by other lawmakers to single Omar out for punishment.

But just before the vote, the resolution hit another snag as lawmakers from minority groups, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lobbied Democratic leaders for broader language to address their own communities.

Debate was delayed by roughly an hour as Democrats worked to broaden their condemnation of hate speech to include groups like Native Americans, the LGBTQ community and immigrants.

Pelosi and her leadership team are eager to move past the raging debate over Omar's comments — a suggestion that pro-Israel advocates have “allegiance” to a foreign country — after a tense intraparty fight over how to respond.

Pelosi said earlier the resolution would not mention Omar by name, as some Jewish lawmakers had privately demanded, and will broadly address several forms of hate speech, including anti-Semitism.

"It’s not about her. It’s about these forms of hatred," Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference Thursday.

Pelosi wouldn't say if Omar should apologize for the comments, saying it is up to the freshman Democrat "to explain" what she said if she chooses to do so.

"I do not believe that she understood the full weight of the words," Pelosi said. "I don’t believe it was intended in any anti-Semitic way. But the fact is, if that’s how it was interpreted, we have to remove all doubt.”

The latest draft of the resolution came after Pelosi, Hoyer and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn held an emergency meeting Wednesday night with some senior Jewish lawmakers including Engel, in an effort to reach an agreement on wording that members on both sides of the debate could support.

Some of Omar’s closest allies, including members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus, had refused to support a resolution aimed at Omar's specific comments on Israel. Democratic leaders later agreed to broaden the resolution to condemn all forms of hate speech — a nod to last week’s incident involving an anti-Muslim poster featured at a West Virginia GOP event that appeared to link Omar with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Democratic leaders are hoping a vote on the resolution Thursday will ease tensions within the caucus and allow them to turn their focus to the expansive anti-corruption and voting reform bill that will come up for a vote Friday. The measure, H.R. 1, represents a key plank of their successful campaign to take back the House last year.

The controversy surrounding Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, has exposed rifts within the Democratic caucus along generational and ideological lines. And it‘s clear the conflict was still roiling the caucus Thursday as Democratic leaders prepared to move toward a vote.

Several Jewish lawmakers argued that the new language dilutes the initial message of rejecting anti-Semitism, which they say was much-deserved after Omar was forced to apologize for previous comments.

Tensions flared again Thursday after Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in an interview with The Hill that Omar’s own experiences fleeing violence in Somalia were “more personal” than those of Jews who are generations removed from the Holocaust.

“I’m serious about that. There are people who tell me, ‘Well, my parents are Holocaust survivors.’ ‘My parents did this.’ It’s more personal with her,” Clyburn said. “I’ve talked to her, and I can tell you she is living through a lot of pain.”

Clyburn's office later sought to clarify the comments.

“Every student of history, which I consider myself to be, recognizes the Holocaust as a unique atrocity which resulted in the deaths of six million Jews. It should never be minimized; I never have, and I never will," Clyburn wrote in a statement. "To recognize and honor the experiences of one member of our Caucus does not mean that we ignore or dishonor the experiences of another.”

Democrats are furious that the internal drama has sucked up so much oxygen on Capitol Hill and overshadowed their upcoming floor vote on one of the signature legislative priorities of the party.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) lashed out at a group of reporters on Thursday morning, growing visibly upset as she criticized the media for not focusing on Democratic accomplishments.

“And what do you guys want to talk about? You want to talk about divide in the caucus,” said Schakowsky, raising her voice. “I just think that it is shameful that it is being exploited, not just by the Republicans, but also by the press.”