The fate of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in limbo following her Tuesday evening meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as Republicans grapple with how to avoid a floor vote on her status on committees before Democrats force them to.
McCarthy’s pickle about what to do with the firebrand Georgia representative comes after more than a week of vocal outrage from members of Congress over Greene’s past comments in support of conspiracy theories such as QAnon and 9/11 trutherism and social media posts that some took as threatening violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Democrats will start moving on Wednesday to oust Greene from committees themselves with a House Rules Committee vote on the matter and promising to follow through with forcing a vote on Greene as soon as Thursday if Republicans do not deal with the matter within their own conference. Some Democrats have called to expel her from Congress over the comments. Greene sits on the House Education & Labor Committee as well as the House Budget Committee.
McCarthy and Greene started meeting at around in the evening on Tuesday and only emerged from his office to vote on the House floor. They did not answer questions about the meeting, with McCarthy at one point literally jogging away from reporters.
Just after 8 p.m., members of the House Republican Steering Committee, the conference committee that can control Republican committee assignments, entered McCarthy’s office for a last-minute meeting. They emerged, though, without any resolution on the matter.
McCarthy reportedly told the Steering Committee members that he would try to broker a deal with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: remove Greene from the Education & Labor Committee in order to prevent a vote on the House floor to remove her from both that one and the Budget Committee.
Hoyer, though, is not happy with that idea, according to reports of his call with the Democratic caucus on Wednesday morning, but had not yet talked to McCarthy about the proposal.
“I imagine I’ll be on the phone with [McCarthy],” Hoyer told the press pool late Wednesday morning. “I haven’t talked to him, so we’ll see what he says.”
Democrats have little reason to accept the deal, with the only concern being a potential tit-for-tat of Republicans removing controversial Democrats from committees if they come into the majority.
That puts the ball back in Republicans’ court if they wish to avoid being forced to take a roll-call vote.
House Republicans will hold a caucus meeting on Wednesday evening and are expected to address not only Greene’s place on committees but objections from some members to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney holding the No. 3 spot among House Republicans — a combination of events that one GOP aide called an “inflection point” for the party. House Republican lawmakers are in the awkward position of potentially reprimanding a conservative establishment member of their conference while ignoring issues created by a more extreme member.
Many Republicans are reluctant to take action against Greene or publicly condemn her, though, because some of her most outrageous statements were made before she was a member of Congress and, in some cases, before she was a candidate. Her comments were made public during the campaign, and she was elected anyway. The precedent of digging up old comments unsettles the members of Congress.
That makes her different from former Iowa Rep. Steve King, who was stripped of his committee assignments after he seemed to wonder when “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” became offensive terms. He later lost the primary to be renominated for reelection to his seat after his comments sparked several challengers.
Republican members also turn their focus back on to controversial statements made by Democrats, saying that if Greene is removed from committees, they should be, too. Rep. Brian Babin offered a resolution Tuesday to remove Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee over her past remarks, a symbolic gesture that would not pass the Democratic-controlled House.
“Since taking back the House majority in 2019, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat conference have led the most radical agenda in our nation’s history, stopping at nothing to overthrow and undermine the Trump presidency and to demonize fellow Republicans in Congress,” Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said in a statement on Tuesday. “They seek to silence and discontinue conservative voices, while expanding their progressive, anti-American schemes. The Left is aided by their allies in the mainstream media, who issue hours and binders of propaganda from their ivory towers.”
