Partisan politics

[flaja]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Is that so? *chuckles* It's entirely possible that the origin of the rule lay in the right to duel and that has somehow survived on the statute books. I don't know though. The two sides of the house are separated by a gap of two sword lengths :P

My understanding is that if an MP says something that another MP finds personally insulting the offended can invite the offender to repeat what was said someplace outside of the Parliament building.

Congress doesn’t have anything comparable to floor plan of the House of Commons so no sword rule is applicable. Personal insults and fisticuffs were quite common in the Houses of Congress in the years leading up to the Civil War and a Representatives from South Carolina once nearly beat the Senator from Massachusetts to death with a walking cane in retaliation for something the Senator had said about one of the Representative’s relatives.