Historic rebuke for defiant Bruce

House issues first censure ever over lawmaker's kick

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 25, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

Text size  

• 3 Comments
• Email
• Print

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky

Rep. Douglas Bruce listens as a resolution to censure him is read Thursday. By a vote of 62-1, his colleagues chastised him for kicking a Rocky photographer on the floor of the House.

Rep. Douglas Bruce's efforts to cast himself as a victim hounded by the press, including invoking the image of movie legend Jimmy Stewart, didn't spare him the first censure in the legislature's 131- year history.

The Colorado House voted 62-1 Thursday to censure Bruce for kicking a Rocky Mountain News photographer on the House floor last week.

The censure resolution rebuked the Colorado Springs Republican for violating House decorum and "ordinary standards of decency" by using physical force against Javier Manzano as the photographer crouched before the standing Bruce during the ceremonial morning prayer.

By striking the photographer, Bruce also violated the constitutionally protected "right of public access to the proceedings of the House of Representatives," the censure stated.

"We need to lead by example," said Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, co-chairman of the committee that recommended censure. "Violence cannot be tolerated in this house."

Bruce remained unrepentant, blaming Manzano for provoking his "nudge" by refusing to heed the rookie lawmaker's demand not to photograph him during the prayer.

"This resolution is the real overreaction to the nudge of an unruly photographer who broke his promise that he would not interrupt my participation in the prayer," Bruce said.

"I made a mistake," Bruce said. "I trusted a journalist and I won't do that again."

Bruce compared himself to Stewart in the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, about a crusader who became a member of Congress.

Mr. Smith "is set up and provoked by the press even before being sworn in," recounted Bruce, who himself was sworn in two hours after booting Manzano.

Mr. Smith "responds by punching several reporters," Bruce said, contrasting that response to his mere "poke" to Manzano's knee.

While Mr. Smith "prevails only by collapsing during a filibuster defending his honor," Bruce told his colleagues not to worry.

"I'm not going to collapse here and I'm not going to filibuster," he said.

Rep. Al White, R-Hayden, rejected his Republican colleague's cinematic comparison.

"Rep. Bruce, you're not Jimmy Stewart and this is not a 1939 movie," White said. "This is today. Your actions were wrong."

White agreed with Bruce that censure might not be the "appropriate action."

"The appropriate action, I believe, would be for you to recognize your misdeed, to acknowledge that you made it and to apologize to the person upon which you inflicted that kick," White said.

"You have not done that. You have continued to fail to recognize that you created a misdeed," White added, "As a result, this body is now sitting in judgment of your actions because you have not recognized your own guilt and culpability."

Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, was the lone vote against censure. House rules barred Bruce from voting on the resolution.

"I come down here not to defend Rep. Douglas Bruce, because what he did, in my opinion, was wrong," Lundberg told colleagues. "It was an exercise in very poor judgment and it did compromise the decorum and the integrity of this House."

But Lundberg cautioned against "rushing down the road of censure," saying a lesser rebuke better suited the incident.

Censure is the harshest penalty a lawmaker can face - short of ouster or jail for contempt.

Censure committee co-chairman Rep. Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, said the bipartisan panel took its work seriously and acted fairly.

Weissmann, who implied the committee gave Bruce every chance to atone for the kick, has said a swift apology by the lawmaker would have quelled the uproar over his misconduct.

Bruce later asked that his seven-page rebuttal letter be printed in the House Journal.

"I think it should be part of the record so that decades from now, people will see what really happened," Bruce said.

However, House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, urged a "no" vote on entering it in the journal, saying Bruce's letter "includes a laundry list of items of which some might be rumors, some might be truth."

Bruce lost that round, too.

Six degrees of Douglas Bruce to Jimmy Stewart

1 Jimmy Stewart was in The Shootist with Ron Howard

2 Howard knows Jim Carrey from directing him in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

3 Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman starred together in Bruce Almighty

4 Morgan Freeman met KOA radio personality Reggie McDaniel

5 Reggie McDaniel knows KOA talk show host Mike Rosen

6 Mike Rosen knows Douglas Bruce

• January 25, 2008

  7:35 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  mrs_ollie writes:

  Good! His actions were highly unprofessional. Didn't we learn in Kindergarten to keep our hands and feet to ourselves?

• January 25, 2008

  12:22 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Bob299 writes:

  "Rep. Bruce, you're not Jimmy Stewart and this is not a 1939 movie," White said. "This is today. Your actions were wrong."

• February 8, 2008

  10:42 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Liz1388 writes:

  I want a t-shirt with this guy's photo on it.

  GOP MOTTO: DISGRACE BEFORE APOLOGY

Featured

• Broncos Game Action

  

  Click for more game action photos from Invesco field.

• 2008 Race for the Cure

  

  The 16th Annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

• Rocky Multimedia

  

  The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on today's events.

• A dream fulfilled

  

  A Rocky Mountain News and MediaStorm production

• Presidential Elections

  

  See how Colorado counties have voted through the years.

• County election profiles

  

  A look at how residents in each Colorado county may vote.

• A Dozen on Denver

  

  Connie Willis is the featured author this week in 'A Dozen on Denver'

• Rocky Truth Patrol

  

  Reporters Laura Frank and Katie Kerwin McCrimmon hunt for truth in politics.

• Peak Picks

  

  Submit your fall foliage photos to our contest and vote on other submissions.