Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to relax the dress code on the chamber’s floor is being met with backlash from Republicans and leaving a Democratic senator on the defensive.

Schumer has directed the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms to no longer enforce the dress code. Previously, men and women had been required to wear business attire on the Senate floor. That amounted to suit jackets and ties for men and dresses that covered their shoulders or pantsuits for women. 

“Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor," Schumer said in a statement to multiple media outlets. "I will continue to wear a suit.”

The majority leader stressed that the dress code, while enforced, was an informal one.

He did not provide a reason for making the change.

Republicans quickly blasted the move.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said, “It stinks,” per NBC News.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, joked to reporters that she planned to “wear a bikini” on the Senate floor.

“I think there is a certain dignity that we should be maintaining in the Senate, and to do away with the dress code, to me, debases the institution,” Collins said.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis told Fox News, “I've never seen civility enhanced or a sense of decorum enhanced by dressing like a slob.”

Much of Republicans’ criticism was directed toward Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who is known for wearing hooded sweatshirts and shorts, even in the halls of Congress. 

Fetterman and other senators had used a loophole in the dress code by voting with one foot in the adjoining cloakroom.

“Aren't there more important things we should be talking about rather than if I dress like a slob?” Fetterman said in an interview Monday night with MSNBC. 

For every gripe about him, Fetterman has had a comeback.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Dress code is one of society’s standards that set etiquette and respect for our institutions. Stop lowering the bar!” 

Fetterman clapped back by noting that Greene displayed sexually explicit photos of Hunter Biden during a House committee hearing in July, a move that drew rebukes from Democrats.

“Thankfully, the nation's lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings,” Fetterman wrote on X. 

In response to a Fox News article about people blaming him for lowering the Senate’s standards, Fetterman wrote, “I figure if I take up vaping and grabbing the hog during a live musical, they'll make me a folk hero,” a reference to an incident last week in which Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and her date were kicked out of a Denver theater.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican candidate for president, said Monday that not having “the decency to put on proper attire, I think it’s disrespectful to the body.”

“The fact that the Senate changed the rules to accommodate that, I think speaks very poorly to how they consider that,” DeSantis said. “Look, we need to be lifting up our standards in this country, not dumbing down our standards in this country.”

That prompted Fetterman to quip on X: “I dress like he campaigns.”

And when data analyst and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver joked he was starting a new political party for people who don’t care about how Fetterman dresses or Boebert behaves in a theater, the Democratic senator wrote: “I dress like you predict.”

Some Democrats attacked Republicans for making an issue of the dress code while a deadline looms at the end of the month for Congress to avoid a government shutdown.

“America needs you to do better than this,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., posted on X.

It’s not clear if Fetterman factored into Schumer’s decision to relax the dress policy. The Pennsylvania senator told Fox News he thinks the change is a “good thing,” but that he plans to use it sparingly.

Axios reported the old dress code still applies to Senate staff members.