Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced on Wednesday that she intends to invoke a motion to vacate the chair next week in an effort to remove Rep. Mike Johnson from the Speaker of the House’s chair. ABC News reports that her gambit “seems doomed to fail” because the “House Democratic leadership announced that if a motion to vacate Johnson is brought to the House floor for a vote, they would vote to table the effort — effectively saving the speaker from ouster.”
“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” the leaders wrote in a statement.
This means Democrats have now put it on the record that they would save Johnson if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote.
A natural question arises. Did Johnson make a secret deal with the Democrats? Speaker Johnson flat out denies that this is the case.
Johnson said “no” when asked if he spoke to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about receiving Democratic support if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote — and if that conversation happened before allowing votes on a $95 billion foreign aid package, a move that earned him bipartisan praise.
“I’ve not requested assistance from anyone … I’m not focused on that at all. I focused on getting the job done and getting the legislation passed,” Johnson said.
“No, there’s no deals at all,” he added.
This is pretty hard to believe. But before I get to that, let’s look forward here a bit. Greene will make the motion next week, initiating the process. It’s a privileged vote, which means it will happen right away. We already know that Greene will be joined by Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona. There’s been a little shuffling of the numbers in the last week in the House of Representatives. On April 24, Republican Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin resigned, but on the same day Democrat Donald Payne Jr. of New Jersey died. Then, on Tuesday, Democratic Tim Kennedy of New York won a special election to fill a vacant Buffalo-based seat. As things stand, the Republicans have a 217-213 advantage with five vacancies. On a strictly partisan vote, with three Republicans voting with the Democrats, Johnson would lose his job 216-214.
Needless to say, on votes for the Speakership, there is usually no crossing of the aisle, but in this case the Democrats are offering to do something slightly different which is to vote not to have a vote at all by “tabling” Greene’s motion. I don’t think this is anything more than window dressing, because voting to save Johnson is still voting to save Johnson, and Greene has said as much.
“Mike Johnson is officially the Democrat Speaker of the House. Here is their official endorsement of his Speakership,” Rep. Greene said in a statement on X, citing the statement from House Democratic leadership.
Greene said he should “resign” or “switch parties.”
“If the Democrats want to elect him Speaker (and some Republicans want to support the Democrats’ chosen Speaker), I’ll give them the chance to do it. I’m a big believer in recorded votes because putting Congress on record allows every American to see the truth and provides transparency to our votes. Americans deserve to see the Uniparty on full display. I’m about to give them their coming out party!” Greene wrote on X.
Greene is telling the truth here, which is rare for her. Johnson has already been functioning as the leader of a mostly Democratic functional majority. He has relied on Democratic votes to pass spending bills as well as aid to Ukraine, renewal of FISA surveillance powers, and more. Once the Democrats help sustain a tabling motion, this bipartisan majority will be formalized.
So, again, the question arises, what do the Democrats get in return? Have they already received the benefit, for example, with the aid to Ukraine? Or are there other benefits to come? And, if so, will they remain secret?
Of course, one benefit is that by owning the Speakership, they put Johnson is a long-term untenable position as the leader of the House Republicans. This is because at any time a Democrat can offer a motion to vacate, or the Democrats can withhold their support the next time a Republican initiates the process. In an election year with Donald Trump on the ballot, we should see a Republican Speaker behave with maximum partisanship and red-hot bomb-throwing rhetoric. But this will be hard to do while serving at the Democrats’ pleasure.
I do understand why the Democrats were desperate to get Ukraine funding passed, with Russia making advances on the battlefield, and I know they don’t want to see the government paralyzed with a vacant Speakership, so I get why they haven’t played a much hardball as I would like. But I think they’ll see the Republicans’ unravel rather quickly seeing their leader held by the short and curlies by the opposition in a presidential election year.
I knew and predicted that a bipartisan Speaker would emerge before the end of this Congress. I did not predict it would be Johnson. I thought he would retire rather than suffer this indignity, but I guess he’ll try to soldier on.
It’s just that I don’t think it will be sustainable. Either the Democrats or the Republicans, or both, will tire of this arrangement fairly quickly. And if Johnson limps to Election Day without resigning or being removed, it will still be a debilitating situation for the GOP.
I’m kind of like you. I would like, at least from a sating-my-emotions POV, some more obvious and deeply visceral evidence of Democratic hardball. I know that’s not always possible, and Dems have gotten a number of things already that, if things were even nominally positive for the House GOP, would have never seen the light of day on the House floor. Yet, here we are, and those things were passed. This House train is barreling at full speed, down a hill, with no brakes, and there is a bridge out ahead. Yes, it is only a matter of time. The great thing is, the GOP will eventually act out of desperation, simply because they’re left with nothing more than imitating gorillas beating their chests. They will get nothing beneficial out of it, except a self serving demonstration of false bravado. The Dems, on the other hand, will pull the trigger when the calculus is to their maximal benefit. That’s a good position in which to find oneself as we sprint into the election cycle.
I feel like the Democrats in the House have the ball and can tell Republicans they’re going home at any time with this setup. It may not feel hardball to help out Johnson, but they can introduce more contention within the House Republican caucus, especially if it comes time to table the motion or let it go to a vote…could be a valuable tactic to have Republicans further attacking Republicans.