When House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ordered an investigation into the Manhattan district attorney’s ongoing criminal probe of former President Donald Trump, he broke with House practices and norms.

And the three committee chairmen McCarthy tasked with investigating may be stepping outside of federal jurisdiction by attempting to investigate a county prosecutor.

As a scholar of the legislative branch, I study how its practices and procedures have changed over time. This move is just one in a growing list of norm-breaking events that have colored how the House, during the 118th Congress, conducts business.

When McCarthy gave government-owned footage of the Jan. 6th insurrection to a single media outlet, he broke a long-standing congressional norm of releasing government information to media outlets broadly.

When multiple, unrepentent Republican representatives heckled Democratic President Joe Biden during his February 2023 State of the Union address, they broke behavioral norms for the occasion. The last person who heckled a sitting president during the State of the Union was Rep. Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, in 2009 when President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress. Wilson apologized.

Even before this session of Congress began in January 2023, Republicans members of the House broke a norm by forcing 15 ballots over four days before voting to make McCarthy speaker. The last Speaker vote that required multiple ballots was in 1923 when it took nine.

But when McCarthy denied seats on the House Intelligence Committee to Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, who once chaired the committee, and Eric Swalwell, both of California, he went much further. Historically, both parties have tended to avoid politicizing national security. Removing members with the kind of institutional knowledge Schiff and Swalwell possess could have serious consequences for the effective operation of the committee.

The House also voted to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, another Democrat, from the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

In the House, Republican and Democratic leadership are traditionally in control of which members they submit for committee assignments. Despite this norm, McCarthy refused to allow Schiff or Swalwell a seat on the Intelligence Committee after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put their names forward.

Accusing Reps. Swalwell and Schiff of misusing the panel during the previous two Congresses, McCarthy said he was denying the two representatives seats on the committee for national security reasons. And he forced a floor vote to oust Omar for her antisemitic comments, even though she apologized.

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