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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene argued via social media yesterday that the House GOP majority is “a complete failure.” The Georgia Republican added soon after that she’s “done“ with House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Naturally, this led to questions about what, exactly, the right-wing congresswoman intended to do about her position. Evidently, we didn’t have to wait too long for an answer. NBC News reported:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has filed a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, three sources with knowledge of the move told NBC News, doing so just as the House voted to avoid a government shutdown.
Before we get to what happens now, let’s briefly review how we arrived at this point.
Last fall, when a group of far-right GOP members took steps to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Greene maintained steadfast loyalty to the California Republican and refused to join the rebels.
A couple of months ago, amidst chatter that there were “knives out“ for House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republicans such as Rep. Chip Roy of Texas floated the possibility of targeting the Louisianan with another motion to vacate the chair. Greene initially balked.
“I would say that Chip Roy haphazardly throwing in a motion to vacate is probably about the dumbest thing that could happen,” the Georgian told The Hill, “because I think the last motion to vacate was pretty stupid, and has thrown our conference into utter chaos.” The congresswoman added, “I’m kind of sick of the chaos.”
A week later, Greene went in the opposite direction and said she’d support a motion to vacate if Johnson allowed House members to approve aid to Ukraine.
Around the same time, Johnson told reporters, “I don’t think I’m in any jeopardy of being vacated.”
Two months later, the House speaker’s hold on his gavel is, in fact, in jeopardy.
So what happens now? In the short term, nothing. When Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida filed his motion against McCarthy, he did so as a privileged resolution, which forced a prompt vote. Greene, however, has chosen a different path: Because her resolution isn’t privileged, we won’t see a vote for at least two weeks — members are taking a scheduled break — and it’s possible that we’ll never see a vote. (In the recent past, then-Republican Rep. Mark Meadows filed a motion to vacate against then-Speaker John Boehner, but the North Carolinian never followed through.)
“I’m not saying that it won’t happen in two weeks or it won’t happen in a month or who knows when," Greene told reporters. "But I am saying the clock has started. It’s time for our conference to choose a new speaker."
As for whether Johnson might ultimately meet McCarthy’s fate, there’s an enormous amount of uncertainty. Given the tiny GOP majority in the chamber, if Democrats were to vote against Johnson, as they did with McCarthy, it would only take a small handful of Republicans to kick the House speaker out of his office.
It’s not difficult to imagine those votes materializing — especially given the ferocity of the House Freedom Caucus’ criticisms of Johnson — but whether Democrats intend go along with such an effort remains an open question.
While the fight takes shape, let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Resignations in the GOP-led chamber have reached a generational high. Legislative progress has slowed to a pace unseen in nearly a century. Lawmakers are struggling mightily to complete basic tasks. Johnson organized a retreat focused on unifying his conference, and most of his members didn’t show up. A recent Punchbowl News report concluded, “This is the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective majority we’ve seen in decades covering Congress.”
It’s against this backdrop that one of the House’s most notorious extremists has launched an effort to oust her party’s speaker — six months after other radical GOP members successfully ousted his predecessor.
I wrote a book a few years ago about Republicans abandoning their role as a governing party. It’s good to see so many GOP officials take steps to prove the thesis true.