IT’S OFFICIAL: GOP SPEAKERSHIP DEPENDS ON DEMOCRATS. Late Wednesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) surprised her colleagues by going forward with a threat to file a motion to vacate — that is, a measure to remove Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as speaker of the House. Johnson and Greene had negotiated for a couple of days, and it appeared that Greene might hold off, at least for a while. And then, on Wednesday, she pulled the trigger.
Removing Johnson would, of course, set off chaos in the House to rival or perhaps exceed the mess made last October when a few rebellious Republicans successfully plotted to remove then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Back then, there was no Plan B, and there is no Plan B today.
As it turned out, Greene failed, winning only 43 votes to the 359 who voted to keep Johnson in place. The vote was widely interpreted as a smackdown to Greene and her style of politics. That’s one way to look at it. But the more important lesson of the vote was just how much the crippled Republican House majority, a majority crippled by its own divisions, now depends on Democrats to govern the House.
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Breaking down the vote by party, 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats voted against the measure to remove Johnson. (They voted to table Greene’s motion.) But 32 Democrats and 11 Republicans voted to move the motion forward. Filling out the rest, seven Democrats voted present, while 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans did not vote.
The number to look at is the 11 Republicans. That is more than enough for a rogue faction to remove Johnson in any future vote if Democrats do not step in to save Johnson.
In last year’s vote to remove McCarthy, just eight Republicans voted to get rid of the speaker. They succeeded because 208 Democrats joined them, for a total of 216 votes to oust the speaker. Back then, as today, the process began with a vote on whether to table the motion to remove McCarthy. Eleven Republicans voted against tabling the motion, precisely the same number as voted against tabling the motion to remove Johnson.
The lesson is that, given the House GOP’s tiny majority, if just a few breakaway Republicans want to oust the speaker — and 11 is plenty — they can succeed if Democrats go along with them. Last year, Democrats were happy to get rid of McCarthy and throw the House into chaos. This time, with Johnson, they chose not to blow things up. Next time, there’s no way to know.
Democrats did not vote to remove Johnson today because he had just helped pass a top Biden administration priority, the massive aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. But in the future, when Greene or some other GOP rebel moves against Johnson, the situation could be much different. Johnson will be in a precarious position until the 2024 general election.
Then, if Republicans lose control of the House — and who can argue that they have earned another term in charge? — there will be no GOP speaker. In that case, perhaps Republicans could spend their time contemplating their errors and dedicating themselves to doing better in the future. Even if Republicans win, it seems unlikely Johnson would remain speaker. But at least Republicans can hope that if they win, their next speaker will not have to depend on Democrats to stay in his job.
