By voting to remove Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committees, House Democrats are breaking new ground in partisan congressional battles. They aren’t going to like where it ends up.
There’s no doubt that Greene should have been removed from her committee seats. Her 9/11 trutherism and support of the QAnon conspiracy theory were clear well before she was elected. She has yet to renounce her collection of conspiracy theories and absurd comments publicly, which include deeming the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, a “false flag” and space lasers controlled by the Rothschilds causing wildfires in California.
Greene should have been removed from her committees, but she should have been removed by Republicans. By using their power as the House majority to remove Greene themselves, House Democrats have established a new precedent for partisan back-and-forth that is going to come back to bite them in the coming years.
House Republicans have already signaled that Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar would be the Democrat at the top of the list for similar treatment once they retake the majority. Omar’s repeated anti-Semitic comments make her removal from committees a no-brainer, especially considering that, unlike Greene, Omar’s comments were made during her time in office.
Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib is another Democrat with a history of anti-Semitic comments that Republicans have said should disqualify her from committees. California Rep. Eric Swalwell could see his seat on the House Intelligence Committee disappear given his relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. His California colleague Rep. Maxine Waters, who is the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, called for harassing Trump administration officials in public, which Republicans are pointing out ahead of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Republicans were right to strip former Iowa Rep. Steve King of his committee assignments, and they should have done it with Greene. But that is Republicans disciplining their own. House Democrats couldn’t just live with having Republicans over a political barrel on this issue, and the GOP will almost certainly respond to their overreach in kind.
Much like the repeated escalations by Senate Democrats on judicial nominations, this move will open up a whole new plane for partisan battles that Democrats will come to regret. With what is expected to be a favorable election cycle for the GOP in 2022, that regret may come sooner rather than later.
