Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Attempts to Oust Speaker Johnson
Molly O'Brien
May 27, 2024
On Wednesday, May 8, 2024, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia District 14 proceeded with her months-long threat to oust the current Speaker of the House, fellow Republican and Louisiana representative Mike Johnson from his position.
Representative Greene, one of former President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, called for a vote on a motion to vacate the speaker from the house floor late on May 8th.
The motion marks the second time in only a matter of months that the Republicans have tried to oust their own party’s speaker from the House. Congress ousted the then Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, last fall, with many Republicans voting for this action. This marked the first time in United States history that a House Speaker had been ousted from their position.
After Speaker McCarthy’s ousting, the House Republicans went into a drawn-out election process to find their new leader. It took over three weeks and multiple nominees before Speaker Johnson was selected and voted into office at the end of October.
In the House Chamber before the vote, Greene spoke out, saying “The form of the resolution is as follows: declaring the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant.” Greene received boos from many within her own party as she read out her resolution.
The current rules of the house allow any member, whether they are a Republican or a Democrat, to put forward a resolution to declare the House Speaker’s chair vacant, under a “motion to vacate” rule. If the House votes to approve the resolution, as they did this fall with former Speaker McCarthy, the vote has the power to oust the current speaker, Speaker Johnson from office.
Before the vote, Greene had the public support of only two other Republicans: Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The Democrats had pledged their support to help save Speaker Johnson.
Shortly after Greene’s remarks, she moved forward with her motion to vacate and triggered a ‘snap vote.’ The House voted 359-43 to table the motion. The majority of Democrats joined with the majority of the House Republicans to clear the motion. Only 11 Republicans voted for the ousting of their party’s speaker.
Greene has been threatening Speaker Johnson with his potential ousting since March of this year. Speaker Johnson has relied on many Democrats to push forward several bills throughout late March and early April. The Democrats assisted Speaker Johnson in putting through a 1.2 trillion dollar bill to avoid a partial government shutdown. Additionally, he also worked with House Democrats to advance a 60 million dollar foreign aid package for Ukraine that was signed into law last month. Both bills gained much support, but Greene stood firmly against both of them. Ever since Greene has made her opinions on Speaker Johnson clear: she wants him gone.
In an unspecified response to Greene, Speaker Johnson revealed his perspective on the controversy to media platform CBS.
“Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined 118th Congress," he said. "It's regrettable. It's not who we are as Americans, and we're better than this. We need to get beyond it.”