Ethics committee will not recommend punishment for Warren Love
The ethics committee will not recommend punishment for a Missouri lawmaker that recently came under fire for comments on a Confederate monument vandalism was on Thursday afternoon.
The decision comes after a preliminary hearing for Warren Love on Thursday.
In August, the Republican representative from Osceola wrote in a Facebook post about the person or people who vandalized a monument at the Springfield National Cemetery saying, “I hope they are found and hung from a tall tree with a long rope.”
On Thursday, Love and his attorney defended his comments, saying they relate to punishment and not anything racial.
Love said he was using a colloquial statement to refer to punishment and that his apology was for those who took it of context and were offended.
Democratic representatives Gail McCann Beatty and Alan Green spoke as witnesses at the hearing, and said even if there was no racial meaning behind it, at the very least a state representative should not call for violence.
After the committee members grilled Love, McCann Beatty and Gree, the committee had some confusion over procedure and took a ten minute break to discuss it.
When it came back, clear on procedure, the committee’s first vote was to censure Love. With a 5-5 vote, the motion failed.
Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal received a censure after her Facebook comment in August that stated that President Donald Trump should be assassinated.
The committee then voted 6-4 to recommend a written reprimand, which would include him being removed from his committees.
Rep. Love did not accept that punishment, but according to the law, he was allowed to do that. He had previously said he would accept the punishment while under oath at the hearing, but stated later he didn’t understand the question and was not going to accept the punishment anyway.
Representative Gina Mitten from St. Louis moved that they have an investigative hearing but it failed.
The Speaker of the House, Todd Richardson, could still impose a punishment on Love.
For more on the initial incident, click here.
