Why you can’t call the president’s racist tweets racist on the House floor

The rule Republicans tried enforcing to silence Pelosi is actually centuries old, written by a slave-owning founder and distilled from centuries of British parliamentary procedure. It’s part of the Jefferson Manual of Parliamentary Practice, a book of decorum and procedure for legislative proceedings crafted by Thomas Jefferson back when he oversaw the Senate as vice president. The House uses an updated, annotated version of that manual, and it includes this rule that Jefferson took from English parliamentary rules: “In Parliament, to speak irreverently or seditiously against the King is against order.”

The idea is that you can’t disparage the president on the House floor—it would violate decorum and slow things down. “It is very material that order, decency, and regularity be preserved in a dignified public body,” Jefferson wrote in his manual. The U.S. Congress has, over time, interpreted that rule to mean that “personal abuse, innuendo, or ridicule” of the president is prohibited. Precedential rulings in the House have long held calling the president a “liar,” “amoral,” or a “crook” are also against House rules.