Momentum grows to remove Johnson over potential change to ouster rule
Momentum is growing quickly behind the effort to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from power if he moves to alter the motion to vacate rule as part of a package of foreign aid that's expected to pass through the House this weekend.
Johnson is reportedly flirting with a proposal to raise the threshold for forcing a vote on a motion to vacate, which can currently be called by a single lawmaker. That would reverse an agreement that former GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) cut with conservatives in January of last year as a condition of gaining their support for his Speakership.
Johnson, for his part, denied Thursday that he is considering such a modification. But during an interview with CNN on Wednesday, the Speaker said the ouster mechanism “has been abused in recent times,” adding “maybe, at some point, we change that.”
The denial has done little to mollify the conservatives, who huddled with Johnson for a long and tense discussion on the chamber floor on Thursday — a meeting that featured plenty of yelling. Afterwards, some of the conservatives said they’re ready to support a motion to vacate if Johnson endorses the rule change surrounding that very process.
“It’s a red line for me, for sure,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) told reporters after the gathering broke up.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the effort to oust McCarthy from the Speakership in October, would not commit to supporting Johnson’s removal over the rule change, but suggested that it could be the last straw for him.
“I think a motion to vacate is something that could put the conference in peril, and Ms. Boebert and I were working to avoid that,” Gaetz said. “Our goal is to avoid a motion to vacate. But we are not going to surrender that accountability tool, particularly in a time when we are seeing America’s interests subjugated to foreign interests abroad.”
The increased chatter around Johnson’s potential removal comes as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) continues to dangle her motion to vacate over the Speaker’s head. Greene has not said when she plans to trigger a vote on her resolution.
The Georgia Republican stopped just short Thursday of saying a rule change would prompt her to force a vote on her resolution, but she suggested it would entice many more Republicans to support her gambit and put Johnson on even thinner ice than he already is.
“If Mike Johnson goes in there and attaches to the rule — and the Rules Committee is meeting right now, so we'll see when that vote takes place — if he attaches a rule to change the motion to vacate and then uses Democrat votes on the Rules Committee, he's going to prove exactly what I've been saying correct,” Greene told reporters on the Capitol steps.
“He is the Democrat Speaker. I don't think that's ever happened in history before. And that's going to be the message that will definitely change everything.”
Nick Robertson and Al Weaver contributed.