IN WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stepped up her efforts to get House Speaker Mike Johnson fired from his job as head of the lower house.
House Republicans got a five-page letter from a Georgia Republican on Tuesday, explaining why the Georgia Republican thinks Louisiana’s first-ever House speaker has not done a good job of leading the chamber’s small Republican majority.
Greene wrote, “I will not stand for our elected Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to work for the Democrats and the Biden administration and help them carry out their policies that are ruining our country.” Our very small majority is in chaos because he isn’t helping the GOP conference that elected him.
Greene mostly blames Johnson of Benton for working with Democrats to get important policies like funding the government that the House had to agree to passed. She said that Johnson, a religious conservative, had given in on important issues and given money to the Democratic agenda. For example, she said, Johnson had given money to LGBTQ programs and $1.8 million to a hospital in Rhode Island that performs abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy and $650,000 to a hospital in New Hampshire that performs abortions later in pregnancy.
“It didn’t stop the Green New Deal climate agenda, which would have killed energy; it did fund it fully.” “It only gave the weaponized DOJ and FBI money; it didn’t stop them,” Greene wrote.
She and other conservatives blame Johnson for not getting greater spending cuts in a measure to fund the government that cost $1.2 trillion and was hated by conservatives. To keep the government from shutting down, the deal was approved with votes from Democrats.
Johnson was able to get two thousand-page bills for funding many agencies instead of one bill for each agency. He rushed that document to the floor without giving it the agreed-upon 72-hour review time. He then used a parliamentary procedure to make sure there were enough Democratic votes to pass it. Conservatives don’t like any of those strategies, but they made sure that President Joe Biden could sign the budget bill into law before the government shut down.
“The bill was crammed down our throats, passed under suspension of the rules, breaking the 72-hour rule, giving us one day to read over a thousand pages, and tying our hands behind our backs by not letting us make any amendments,” Greene said. Johnson broke GOP House rules. How about rules? What are the rules? Do you remember the important rules? It looks like Mike Johnson no longer cares about them, even though he said he would follow them and carry them out.
Johnson has said that because the GOP only has a small majority in the House and the Democrats run the Senate and the White House, the best thing for Republicans to do is to negotiate for small wins instead of waiting for a “Hail Mary” pass to get everything they want.
His office hasn’t said anything about Greene’s message yet.
Greene also doesn’t like how Johnson tried to make Republicans more open to more money for Ukraine’s war against Russia. A lot of Republicans, including Donald Trump, who is likely to be the next president, are against giving Ukraine more help.
The fiery Georgian told the speaker not to call for a vote in the House on the $95 million bipartisan security plan that was passed by the Senate and would give Ukraine more money. Johnson has stopped the Senate bill from going to the House floor so far.
Greene said that she would use her March 22 motion to remove Johnson as speaker if Johnson let a bill to fund Ukraine pass with backing from Democrats. There will be 48 hours for the House to vote on Johnson’s future after she makes her “motion to vacate” public.
If Democrats don’t step in to help him, which some have said they will if he sends a money-giving document to Ukraine, it would only take two or three Republicans to remove Johnson from office. But Johnson might not be able to stay in charge of the GOP for long if he needs Democratic votes to save himself.
Some Republicans in the House are worried about the choices Johnson is making. But Greene’s movement hasn’t caught on with the House majority, whose bills haven’t been signed into law very often and who have spent most of their time fighting, impeachments, and bad press. For example, Johnson was chosen to the job in October, three weeks after eight Republicans worked together to get Kevin McCarthy, R-California, fired as speaker.
