Six Republicans voted present when Schiff was censured. Five of these Republicans are members on the Ethics committee.
Here are the names of the 6 Republicans in second paragraph:
If you read any article about Schiff's censure, you would see that Schiff is also going to be investigated by the Ethics committee.
Look here in the second paragraph:
https://rollcall.com/2023/06/21/revised-schiff-censure-advances-impeachment-votes-could-be-next/
Now, look here at the names on the Ethics committee for the Majority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Ethics
I think it would look like a conflict of interest if the members of the Ethics committee voted to censure Schiff and then later investigated him. They would look as though they already found Schiff guilty of crimes before the investigation began. By voting "Present" they kept any bias out of future investigations.
I got your point but this is really to much of “optics” and white gloves.
If you’re right - it looks like they play stupid now, as if they didn’t know what’s going on and then out of a sudden they will vote “corrupted” during the ethics committee and they will act to be surprised by the evidence and the final results as if they never thought he should be put in front of the committee in the first place at all.
If they want to put the guy in front of the committee they already have an opinion that he deserves it. At that point there’s nothing bad to express the opinion and vote.
That’s my view. You can prefer white gloves. I think people have had enough anyway.