Congressman Gerry Connolly took to the House floor today to urge his colleagues to vote against the unprecedented partisan contempt citation against Attorney General Eric Holder.  A vote in the House is scheduled for Thursday.

“The majority’s irresponsible and unprecedented contempt vote is just another sad chapter in our recent institutional decline,” Connolly said.  “I implore my colleagues to give careful consideration as to whether we truly want the 112^th Congress to become the first in the history of the United States to hold a sitting cabinet member in contempt of Congress.”

Connolly, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee which passed the contempt citation on a party-line vote, said, “Further negotiations with the Department of Justice and Attorney General Holder are clearly available if we want a solution.  I urge my colleagues to join me in restoring honor and dignity to the House of Representatives by opposing the nuclear option -- the contempt citation.”