Washington – The House will vote on a measure that deprives the controversial GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, as House Democrats want to punish the Republican legislature for a number of inflammatory comments and force IDP members to condemn or defend her.
In social media posts and videos she made before she was elected to Congress, Greene, a first-year student from Georgia, embraced a string of far-right conspiracy theories, including the question of whether lethal school shootings took place. A proponent of the fantastic QAnon conspiracy theory, she also shared videos with anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiment and expressed support for violence against democratic leaders in Congress.
House Democrats used the newly emerged postings and videos to demand that Republican leaders strip Greene of her seats in the House Budget Committee and the Education and Labor Committee. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to do so, prompting Democratic leaders to follow a decision on the House floor to remove her.
With the vote cast Thursday afternoon, Democrats will force Republican members to set the record on whether they believe Greene should maintain her position on the committees. Democrats especially tilted her seat on the Education and Labor Committee, given Greene’s previous advancement of conspiracy theories related to the Parkland and Newtown shootings.
In a speech on the House floor before the vote, Greene said that the terrorist attacks took place on 9/11, and that she believes children deserve protection from shooting incidents.
“These are words of the past and these things do not represent me, they do not represent my district, and they do not represent my values,” Greene said. However, she also equated the press with QAnon, saying that the media was just as divisive as the treacherous conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon supporters.
McCarthy said in a statement Wednesday that he “unequivocally” condemned Greene’s previous statements, but portrayed the Democrats’ attempt to remove her from the committees as a coup. Other Republicans also condemned Greene’s comments, but warned Democrats against the precedent set by the majority party for the mandate of the minority committee.
At a lengthy meeting of the Republican conference Wednesday night, Greene remorse expressed for two previous sources familiar with the meeting, for her previous comments and support for the QAnon conspiracy theory.
At the same meeting, Representative Liz Cheney fend off an attempt to have her removed from her House GOP leadership role over her vote to accuse former President Donald Trump of inciting the attack on the Capitol. 61 GOP members, however, voted to suspend her from leadership, indicating that there is deep division within the Republican caucus over the direction of the party.
House Democrats advanced the resolution asks Greene to sit out of the committees earlier Wednesday during the House Rules Committee meeting and cast a vote in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon.
The refusal of House IDP leaders to exercise their authority to remove Greene from her committee mandates contrasts with their handling of a similar situation in 2019, when the party’s steering committee was chose to delete then-Congressman Steve King of his committees on comments defending white supremacy.
Congress Democrats have sought to bind House Republics to Greene’s extremist positions. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in a statement on Wednesday named McCarthy as “Q-CA”, calling him the QAnon congressman from California.