South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice was formally censured by the state’s Republican Party on Saturday for voting to impeach former President Trump—a move he said proves his fellow Republicans are “cowering before Donald Trump.” “We made our disappointment clear the night of the impeachment vote. Trying to impeach a president with a week left in his term, is never legitimate and is nothing more than a political kick on the way out the door,” state party chairman Drew McKissick said in a statement explaining the decision.

While the rebuke is seen as mostly symbolic, it could spell trouble for Rice in his district, which was largely pro-Trump in the 2020 election. Rice, one of 10 House Republicans vote in favor of impeachment, stood by his decision and accused South Carolina GOPers of lacking a spine following Saturday’s vote. “I think the South Carolina Republican Party has forgotten its own creed that says, ‘I will cower before no man save my God.’ ... If the president who did what Donald Trump did that day and sent a mob to stall Congress and the result was an attack on the legislative branch of the United States government, that is a clear violation of the constitution. It’s absolutely a high crime or misdemeanor,” he told The Post and Courier.