While 254 members — a majority — voted in favor of the GOP version of the resolution, House rules require a two-thirds vote.
According to an Anti-Defamation League report, the Council of Conservative Citizens is a white-collar version of the Ku Klux Klan and “has cloaked itself in the mantle of mainstream conservatism to mask its underlying racist agenda.”
Essays in the council’s newsletter “speak of the ‘victimization’ of whites who are at the mercy of minorities and the liberal ‘elite,'” which is often used as a code word for Jews, the ADL said.
Council officials have denied that their group is racist or anti-Semitic; in a statement they called the House resolution “the product of left-wing partisans who seek to silence all conservative expression.”
Both Democratic and Republican leaders said they will try to resolve their differences and take up the issue at a later date.