WASHINGTON �� 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 Republican poster depicting Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer violated House decorum rules.
The poster pictured Schumer, D-N.Y., 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 blame Senate Democrats for the "Schumer shutdown."
The decorum question, raised by Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., came under a House rule that says remarks in debate may include references to the Senate or its members but those references have to be confined to the question under debate, avoiding personality.
Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who was presiding when the question was raised, ruled that the poster did not violate decorum. Perlmutter appealed the Womack's ruling, but Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., moved to table his motion.
The House approved Cole's motion to table 224-173, with a few Democrats joining Republicans in rejecting the stunt.
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(Niels Lewsniewski and Amelia Frappolli contributed to this report.)
