It happened again. Unclear is whether anyone is actually surprised.
Speaker Mike Johnson is at risk of being ousted after hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate on Friday in the middle of a House vote on a $1.2 trillion package to keep the government open.
It’s the same political dynamic that removed the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, just five months ago when far-right conservatives revolted over his compromise with Democrats to prevent a federal shutdown. But this one faces steeper odds with less GOP support ....
.... “Speaker Johnson always listens to the concerns of members but is focused on governing,” spokesman Raj Shah said. “He will continue to push conservative legislation that secures our border, strengthens our national defense and demonstrates how we’ll grow our majority.”
Under the rules, any member can make the motion privileged, which would require leaders to schedule a vote within two legislative days. But it can also simply sit until lawmakers return next month.
Greene, of Georgia, said she was issuing a “warning” to Johnson but did not indicate a timetable for her next move.
“We’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker,” she said on the Capitol steps.
(Associated Press↱)
It’s the same political dynamic that removed the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, just five months ago when far-right conservatives revolted over his compromise with Democrats to prevent a federal shutdown. But this one faces steeper odds with less GOP support ....
.... “Speaker Johnson always listens to the concerns of members but is focused on governing,” spokesman Raj Shah said. “He will continue to push conservative legislation that secures our border, strengthens our national defense and demonstrates how we’ll grow our majority.”
Under the rules, any member can make the motion privileged, which would require leaders to schedule a vote within two legislative days. But it can also simply sit until lawmakers return next month.
Greene, of Georgia, said she was issuing a “warning” to Johnson but did not indicate a timetable for her next move.
“We’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker,” she said on the Capitol steps.
(Associated Press↱)
Five months.
Now, what has happened? Well, after five months, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA14) has filed to overturn Speaker Johnson. For those too young to remember, or even older conservatives who would pretend to have forgotten, Republicans are the ones who used to complain that government doesn't work. And what we've learned, over the course of decades, is this Reaganite cause is in fact its own sort of cause: It was not a warning of government inefficiency, but a promise of what conservatives intended.
Meanwhile, sure, it's all procedure, and all, and those sorts of technicalities count, but it does seem MTG is making this into a sort of governance by extortion: She can't win what she wants any other way, so she threatens and waits to see what sort of leverage that generates.
And, remember, it's not that she's trying to get anything accomplished; MTG is trying to disrupt basic government function.
Stay tuned.
(What counts as going nowhere? That could be where this goes.)
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Notes:
Mascaro, Lisa, Farnoush Amiri, and Stephen Groves. "Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson". Associated Press. 22 March 2024. APNews.com. 22 March 2024. https://bit.ly/4amKBRW
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