Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s procedural delay tactic, which has increasingly become a regular part of House of Representatives business, could be blocked if some Democrats get their way.
The firebrand Georgia freshman congresswoman on Wednesday made her fourth motion to adjourn in three weeks as a delay tactic before the House passed the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan.” The unannounced roll call votes forced members of Congress to stop other business.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the motion does much more to delay floor business because each roll call vote is allotted an extended time of 45 minutes to encourage social distancing.
Though the motions have failed each time, the disruptive move so frustrates members that Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, chairman of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said he plans to propose a House rule change that will allow only members who are on House committees to call a motion to adjourn.
“I’m dead serious,” he told the Hill press pool.
That change would only apply to one member: Greene, who Democrats stripped of her committee assignments Feb. 4 in a mostly party-line vote following outrage about her past comments in support of conspiracy theories.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’S PROCEDURAL TACTICS SPLITTING HOUSE GOP FACTIONS
Cicilline hasn’t proposed the rule change, and it is unclear whether Democratic leadership will support it. California Rep. Pete Aguilar, vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that he first heard about Cicilline’s proposal in the press and that the caucus hasn’t discussed it.
Other House Democrats who spoke to the Washington Examiner were open to the idea, though. Another solution might be to limit the number of times in a congressional session that a single member could make a motion to adjourn.
Catholic University professor and politics department Chairman Matthew Green — that’s Green without the silent “e” like the Georgia congresswoman, with whom he has no known relation — warned that a quick rule change might be bad for Democrats.
“It’s Pelosi and the Democrats’ interest, frankly, to let this play itself out,” Green said. “Being so quick to change the rules actually indicates that the leaders of both parties have less power than you think over their own members.”
On Greene’s first motion to adjourn, all Republicans voted with her. The second time, two voted against the move; the third time, 18 Republicans voted against it.
The fourth time she tried the move, 40 House Republicans voted against Greene’s motion. She then sent out a press release with the names of all 40 Republicans, calling them members of the “Surrender Caucus.”
“It’s increasingly without strategy,” Republican Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted against the motion Wednesday, told the Washington Examiner.
While it is easier for Democrats to push back, the rule change proposal might not be as easy of a solution as it seems.
“If Republicans are defecting on these votes in greater numbers, it’s to everyone’s interest to let this process continue to the point that they lose by an embarrassing bipartisan margin,” Green, the professor, said.
In years past, Democrats were the ones who excessively used the motion to adjourn as a delay tactic, particularly when Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, was speaker, Green noted.
“When they were in the minority, they got pretty upset and frustrated with Gingrich and Republicans, and they started using these motions. But sometimes they would lose so badly,” Green said, “they just sort of stopped.”
Usually, the number of motions to adjourn is fewer than 10 per Congress, but peaks during “periods when the minority party was especially unhappy with the majority, usually when the governing party wasn’t following ‘regular order’ or was using a particularly unfair floor rule or procedure,” according to Green’s research.
“Members of the minority would offer multiple motions in a day to really slow things down,” Green said.
The Georgia congresswoman, for her part, referred to Cicilline as “Mussolini” when asked about his proposal, adding that she plans to continue making motions to adjourn. That prompted outrage from Cicilline, who noted that he is Italian and Jewish.
Greene can “get lost,” he said.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is also not showing signs of supporting putting an end to Greene’s motions to adjourn.
“Every member has a right to make the motion. People have disagreements on the strategy that’s the best used, but there’s a frustration on the floor,” McCarthy said Thursday.
