WASHINGTON _ Republican Rep. Jason Smith called Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas and apologized Thursday for blurting out "Go back to Puerto Rico!" while Cardenas was waiting to speak on the House floor.
Cardenas, a descendant of Mexican immigrants, accepted the Missouri Republican's apology, he said in a statement to Roll Call.
"I told him I look forward to having a nice and respectful conversation when we return to D.C. on Tuesday. He agreed that we should get to know each other better," Cardenas said. "I appreciate his call and our future relationship."
Smith's remark was not racially motivated, his communications director, Joey Brown, said in an email.
"Congressman Smith's comment was directed at all the Democrats who were vacationing down in Puerto Rico last weekend during the government shutdown, not towards any individual member," Brown said.
Dozens of House and Senate Democrats were in Puerto Rico last weekend for a trip organized by Bold PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that is led by Cardenas, some of whom stayed for a separate Latino Victory political summit.
Democrats in the chamber at first could not identify who had shouted the comment that rang out from where roughly 50 Republicans had gathered on their side of the House chamber. They stayed after the final vote series on Thursday to challenge the fairness of a voice vote Democrats had taken just minutes before on a continuing resolution to fund the government through Feb. 28.
Democrats eventually agreed to invalidate the voice vote and hold a roll call vote on the measure next Tuesday.
When Smith shouted his comment, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and the roughly 20 other Democrats remaining in the chamber shot out of their seats demanding to know who said it.
Cardenas walked over to the Republican side of the aisle to confront the GOP lawmakers, but none stepped forward to admit they had shouted the remark.
"It came from the other side of the chamber. ... We don't know who it is," Jackson Lee said at the time, declining to speculate on who might have been responsible.
"I would hope maybe privately the individual would go to Mr. Cardenas and appropriately apologize," Jackson Lee said.
The C-SPAN cameras were still rolling when the commotion over the Puerto Rico comment broke out. But it would be nearly impossible to definitively identify from the footage who shouted the remark because multiple Republican members were murmuring or shouting at the time and the comment came from someone who was not at a microphone or the podium.
In a short speech before the vote to wrap up legislative business for the week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer asked that members avoid making comments with "undertones of prejudice or racism or any kind of 'ism' that would diminish the character ... of any of our fellow members."
Cardenas said he was "shocked" at first because he often heard such comments when he was a kid growing up in Los Angeles' Pacoima section.
The call with Smith seemed to smooth things over for now.
"There is a saying that I was taught by my parents," Cardenas said. " 'De todo lo malo, siempre sale algo bueno,' which in English means, 'From everything bad, something good will come of it.' "
