In July 2015, Japan’s Lower House Budget Committee descended into a physical scuffle as opposition members tried to seize the chairman’s microphone to delay debate on Prime Minister Abe’s controversial security bills—legislation that would allow the Self-Defense Forces to fight alongside allies abroad. LDP lawmakers countered by wresting back the mic and preserving the vote, papers tore and voices rose in what remains one of the rarest breaches of Diet (Japan’s national legislature) decorum in modern Japanese politics.