House censures GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards over ‘inappropriate conduct’ with female staffers

A bipartisan ethics probe found Edwards, R-N.C., showered the aides with lavish gifts, invited them to intimate dinners and trips and wrote them poetry. He denied any wrongdoing.

WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., after a monthslong ethics investigation found that he “engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers.”

The vote was 413-2, with the only no votes coming from Edwards himself and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. A simple majority was needed to pass the censure resolution.

The resolution is a formal rebuke of Edwards, who is in his second term, but does not force him out of office. After the vote, Edwards was required to stand in the well of the House chamber, before his colleagues, as Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., read the resolution aloud.

Edwards, 65, had unequivocally rejected the Ethics Committee’s findings, but he did end his re-election campaign after the committee recommended censuring him. A panel of GOP leaders in North Carolina later picked GOP state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom to replace him on the November ballot.

The bipartisan House Ethics Committee issued a 25-page report last month detailing multiple incidents of bizarre behavior, “poor judgment and unbecoming conduct” by Edwards.