Arizona’s U.S. House delegation split along party lines Tuesday on a resolution condemning President Donald Trump for racist tweets Sunday about four minority Democratic congresswomen.
The anti-climactic result only hinted at a day of heightened partisan rancor in which members openly accused their opponents of being anti-American or of supporting racism.
All five of the state's Democrats voted for the resolution; the other three Republicans opposed it.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., wasn't in Washington and didn't vote.
The resolution unsurprisingly passed on a party-line vote in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and put GOP members in the uncomfortable position of siding with Trump after he said the four Democrats should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."
The resolution passed 240-187 with every Democrat voting for it. Four Republicans joined them and Biggs, along with five other Republicans, didn't vote.
All other Republicans voted against it.
The Republican-controlled Senate isn’t expected to seek a similar rebuke of Trump’s remarks, which he has defended in the two days since.
Trump's tweets targeted Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Each are freshmen and outspoken critics of Trump. Three of them, except Omar, were born in the United States, a fact Trump seemed to ignore.
Arizona's House Democrats had signaled their support for pushing back on Trump beginning shortly after Trump's tweets on Sunday morning, with some, such as Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., openly calling the president a racist.
"America does not define patriotism by race or ethnicity — but by devotion to our Constitutional ideals. Equality, liberty, inclusion, and democracy. We are a nation of immigrants, and diversity has been and always will be our strength," Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., said in a tweet after the vote.
"I cosponsored and voted for today's resolution, which upholds those sentiments and condemns President Trump's racist comments. His continued divisive rhetoric does not reflect our values as Americans."
Republicans largely avoided discussing the matter and none of them explained their vote in the debate ahead of it or in public statements shortly afterward.
Democratic Reps. Gallego, Grijalva, Ann Kirkpatrick, Tom O'Halleran and Stanton voted for the measure.
Republican Reps. Paul Gosar, Debbie Lesko and David Schweikert voted against it.
Even before voting on the resolution, both sides traded bitter exchanges on the issue.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., outlined the reason for the resolution, saying Trump's words were "disgraceful and disgusting, and those comments are racist."
That sparked an effort by Republicans to have her words withdrawn because they violated rules against personal insults. That failed and led to a similar effort by Democrats involving the words of Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who was presiding over the chamber amid the bickering dramatically dropped the gavel on the dais and walked away.
"We don’t ever, ever want to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate, and that’s what this is," Cleaver said. "We want to just fight. I abandon the chair."
The four Republicans who voted with Democrats to pass the resolution are: Reps. Susan Brooks of Indiana, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Will Hurd of Texas and Fred Upton of Michigan.
The House's only independent, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who quit the GOP earlier this month, also voted for the resolution.