Franken’s toast, says Rep. Rice

South Shore Rep. Kathleen Rice has called for the removal from Congress of Sentator Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers. She’s the first member of Congress to do so.

Rice, a Democrat, also ripped into her party’s leader in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, for Pelosi’s laissez faire approach to Conyers.

“People are seeing us circle the wagons and protect our own,” Rice told Wolff Blitzer on CNN’s Situation Room on Monday. “Whether it’s Donald Trump not coming out against Roy Moore and supporting him to the extent that he is, or if it’s Nancy Pelosi protecting John Conyers and saying that she leaves it up to him to make the right decision. I think that’s ridiculous.”

When Blitzer asked Rice if Franken’s apology was “enough to merit him staying in the U.S. Congress,” she replied, “I don’t think so.”

“I think if you ask any person on the street, do you think the action that CBS took with Charlie Rose was appropriate, or Louis CK or anyone else in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, they would say yes,” Rice said. “They took the right action. Why can’t we do the same thing in Washington?”

“It seems like the private sector has it right and us in Congress don’t,” she said.

“For all of these women who have made these credible accusations, Wolff, there were professional repercussions for every single one of those women who were harassed,” Rice continued. “There should be professional repercussions for every single harasser. … There’s no reason for the public to trust us if we can’t even call people out and say, you have betrayed the public trust and there has to be a consequence.”

She said that most people feel that the removal from Congress of Franken and Conyers “would be an appropriate consequence for these elected officials.”