The House overwhelmingly voted to censure North Carolina GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards on Tuesday over his unusual friendships and gifts to former female staffers.

The motion to censure the lawmaker passed in a 413-2 vote, with just Edwards and South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman voting against the resolution. 

The vote comes after the House Ethics' Committee found in a report that Edwards violated the “spirit” of the chamber’s rules against sexual harassment by engaging in inappropriate conduct with young female staffers and recommended he face a formal censure.

The committee also noted that it found "no evidence that Representative Edwards engaged in sexual activity with or explicitly propositioned any individual under his employ," and Edwards pleaded for his colleagues to consider the House Ethics' Committee's findings thoroughly before voting on whether to censure him. 

"I respect the House vote. I do not accept the conclusion that it produced," Edwards said in a post on X on Tuesday. "Sexual harassment is serious. It should be treated seriously. But that seriousness is precisely why we should not redefine ordinary acts of friendship, generosity, encouragement, or compassion as something they were not."

The conduct included writing poems for a staffer and crying during a slideshow at her going away office party; telling a staffer he left early from an event because she brought a date; and paying for a singer to go to a staffer’s birthday party to sing Ed Sheeran’s "Hills of Aberfeldy" and saying it was “from a special someone.”

Edwards stated that none of his actions toward two young female staffers actually constituted sexual misconduct and characterized the interactions as an "affectionate friendship."

“An affectionate friendship is not a sexual proposition," Edwards said in the plea. "A gift is not sexual misconduct. A compliment is not sexual misconduct. Poetry is not sexual misconduct. Socializing with a colleague is not sexual misconduct. Caring deeply about someone with whom you have worked and come to know for years is not sexual misconduct."

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.