GOP, Democrats show rare unity in killing Marjorie Taylor Greene motion

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to protect House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) from a conservative coup d’état, with Republican leadership willing by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) He defeated an attempt to oust him from the top job on the grounds of Terminate agreements with Democrats on important legislation.

The House voted 359 to 43 to 7 to block consideration of the motion to remove Greene from office.

In an unusual move in a deeply divided House of Representatives, 163 Democrats, more than three-quarters of the caucus, voted to retain Mr. Johnson. And in a demonstration of Republican support for Johnson, only 11 conservative Republicans voted to send Greene’s motion to the floor. As Greene began reading the resolution, the chamber was filled with boos from both sides of the aisle.

This result was not surprising.

Democratic leaders announced last week that they would protect Johnson from Greene’s efforts to remove her from office. But this deals a major blow to the Georgia flame-monger, who has alienated much of the Republican conference (including many like-minded Johnson critics) and, perhaps more importantly, his own He objected to former President Trump’s position, which he contradicted. It’s a way to show support for Johnson amid the threat of Greene’s ouster.

Underscoring this division, President Trump on Wednesday praised Greene’s “spirit” but issued a statement minutes after the votes had already been cast, telling Republican lawmakers they would stand together against Democrats. He urged people to vote to reverse Greene’s decision.

“[I]If you show discord that will be portrayed as chaos, it will negatively affect everything! ” Trump wrote on his own Truth Social platform. “Mike Johnson is a good guy who tries very hard.”

The vote means Johnson, who won the gavel in October following the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), will remain in the top job for now ahead of the November election. means. Greene on Wednesday would not rule out a later vote on Johnson’s removal.

But the vote leaves him in the precarious position of chairman of the Republican Party, backed by Democrats, and could anger conservatives who already expect him not to lead the party in the next Congress. be.

Mr Johnson thanked his colleagues for their support in brief remarks shortly after Wednesday’s vote.

“I am grateful to my colleagues for their confidence in defeating this misguided effort,” he said. “That’s certainly what happened.”

“As I’ve said from the beginning and as I’ve made clear every day, I’m going to do my job. I’m going to do what I believe is right and that’s what I was elected to do. “The chips are where they fall,” he continued. “In my opinion, that’s leadership.”

The vote comes as Greene, along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who also supported Johnson’s removal from office, huddled with the speaker for hours in Greene’s office earlier this week, demanding a change in leadership approach. It was done after. They wanted assurances that Mr. Johnson would not bring any more bills to the floor that lacked the support of a majority of the Republican conference. They also wanted to extract a commitment from the chairman that he would not support further funding to Ukraine.

Green said Tuesday that the ball was in Johnson’s court to meet those demands. Wednesday’s actions to force a vote on his removal show he has rejected them.

“We tried to move the process forward with the chair and that was it yesterday when it became very clear that the chair was not going to actually implement these things,” she said. “We were like, why are we going to let this drag out for so long? So we decided to have a vote today.”

Greene first introduced her resignation over a month ago after Johnson backed a bill to fund the federal government through September. But she escalated her threat Wednesday afternoon by forcing her proposal to come to the floor for consideration, just as her fellow Georgia Republicans rescinded her threat. This came as a surprise to many members of both parties.

“Everything we were hearing was that this wasn’t going to happen,” said Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.). “To be honest, I’m a little shocked that it actually happened.”

However, the expiration date of the removal resolution was very short. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) immediately moved to introduce the bill, setting up a vote to reject it with overwhelming Democratic support.

These dynamics are very different from the successful vote to remove Mr. McCarthy in October, which was supported unanimously by Democrats. But Democrats say their votes do not support Mr. Johnson’s conservative record, including his commitment to banning abortion and denying gay rights, and Mr. Johnson’s willingness to end bipartisan agreement on big bills. He stressed that this reflected Mr. Johnson’s desire to deny Mr. Green’s victory.

“Our decision to prevent Marjorie Taylor Greene from further disrupting the House and the country is rooted in our determination to solve problems for ordinary Americans in a bipartisan way.” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York later. vote. “We need more common sense in Washington, D.C., and we need less chaos.”

The vote ended weeks of wrangling over when and if Ms. Greene would move to oust Mr. Johnson. The move began to oust Mr. Johnson, who had emerged as a kind of sit-down game in the Capitol.

Greene filed a motion to resign in March after Georgia Republicans opposed the House’s massive government funding bill. His anger became more pronounced after he supported a measure to reauthorize U.S. warrantless surveillance powers for Mr. Johnson. The situation reached a boiling point last month when he pushed hard for a foreign aid package that included billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine.

Those frustrations led Green to vow last week to force a vote to fire Johnson this week, putting a deadline on the long-awaited referendum after weeks of embarrassment.

But Greene, who returned to Washington this week, demanded a meeting with Johnson and crowded into his office for hours on Monday and Tuesday, leading many to believe she was loosening the reins on her public maneuverings. I believe that there are.

At the 11th hour, Greene made a series of demands on Johnson in a final bid to vacate. These included ensuring that only bills with the support of a majority of the Republican conference come to the floor, a practice known as the Hastert Rule, and pledging to: Do not pass additional aid to Ukraine. Defund the special counsel investigating former President Trump, including Jack Smith. If Congress does not complete regular spending procedures by September 30, it will impose a 1% across-the-board spending cut.

When the speaker didn’t budge on his demands, insisting the meeting with Greene was “not a negotiation,” the Georgia Republican said he was determined to move forward.

“If we keep Mike Johnson, we will never have a majority in the House,” she warned last week as she vowed to bring the motion to the floor.