WASHINGTON – The House soundly killed an effort to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., from his leadership post in another defeat to the lower chamber’s most conservative lawmakers.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., forced the House to vote on a “motion to vacate,” a procedural tool that if passed, would have forcibly removed Johnson, from the speakership.
But the vast majority of House Republicans and Democrats joined together on Wednesday to dismiss Greene’s motion through what’s known as a motion to table by a vote of 359-43, drowning out the conservative renegades who have often thrown the lower chamber into chaos in pursuit of their goals.
A group of 32 Democrats and 11 Republicans voted against tabling Greene’s motion.
Speaking to reporters after the vote, Johnson thanked his colleagues “for the vote of confidence” and pledged to continue to do his job.“In this moment this country desperately needs a functioning Congress,” he said. “And that’s what an overwhelming majority of the Republican members of this body chose today.”
Greene initiated her push to oust Johnson in March, but withheld calling up a vote for over a month, sowing doubt among lawmakers over how serious the Georgia Republican’s threats were.
Democrats joined the majority of Republicans to defeat Greene’s effort after Johnson passed a long-awaited foreign aid package that sent $95 billion to key U.S. allies, including Ukraine. Democrats commended the speaker for not bowing to his hard-right flank, which has grown increasingly hostile toward any continued U.S. assistance to the war-torn nation.
“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” House Democratic leader said in a statement last week.
Some Democrats still moved to advance Greene’s motion, having reservations about saving the speaker over his key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Democratic lawmakers also took aim at Johnson’s conservative credentials such as his anti-abortion views.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., the No. 3 ranking House Democrat, framed the vote last week as an effort against Greene, rather than one saving Johnson, saying “We want to turn the page and we want to move on.”
Following the vote, former President Donald Trump complimented Greene in a post on Truth Social, but added that he believes Republicans were “not in a position” to be voting on an effort to remove the GOP speaker of the House.
“If we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything! Mike Johnson is a good man who is trying very hard,” Trump shared.
The vote was a stark contrast from last year when a set of different conservative rebels moved to oust Johnson’s predecessor, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. That time, Democrats unanimously voted to remove McCarthy, who drew much more scorn from them compared to Johnson.
But even though the hard right has had wide-ranging grievances against the speaker, there was little appetite among other conservatives to oust Johnson in an election year, with some members preferring to litigate a speaker fight in the next Congress.
Democrats control the Senate and the White House, which means bills have required bipartisan support in recent years if lawmakers want to get anything done. However, Greene and her fellow conservatives have railed against Johnson for working with Democrats to pass critical legislation, including funding the government and reauthorizing a foreign surveillance program.
Ultraconservatives have repeatedly criticized Johnson as the speaker of the “uniparty,” a pejorative term used to criticize bipartisanship. The vote on Wednesday, where Democrats swooped in to rescue Johnson only further hardened their anger.
“They failed us. They funded the uniparty agenda. They funded the status quo that Washington D.C. just wants to keep going and going,” Greene said at a press conference last week announcing her intentions to move forward to remove Johnson.
While Johnson is likely to stay on as speaker after beating back Greene’s effort, nothing is stopping Greene from trying to oust Johnson again. Current House rules allow just one member to file a motion to vacate.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House kills push from Marjorie Taylor Greene to oust Mike Johnson