Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced yesterday that she will force a vote on a measure to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) next week.
Greene, joined by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) at an early morning press conference, announced that she would begin the process to bring her motion to vacate Johnson’s chair to the floor on Monday in order to give members time to decide their vote.
“Next week, I am gonna be calling this motion to vacate. Absolutely calling it,” she said.
“I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may.”
Massie said he encouraged members to take the weekend to consider how they want to vote, and encouraged Johnson to follow in the footsteps of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and resign.
Greene said, “I voted for Mike Johnson, because his voting record before he became speaker was conservative,” she said. “He voted against funding Ukraine. He was solidly pro-life. He voted to secure the border. He voted to fight against Democrats, fight against the witch hunt against President Trump.”
But since taking the speakership, Greene said, he has “become a man that none of us recognize.”
An additional member who backs the motion to vacate, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), was unable to attend the press conference.
Johnson responded in a brief, single sentence statement, where he said: “This motion is wrong for the Republican conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country.”
Greene and Massie cited three primary offenses by Johnson that led them to support the move to force him out: Johnson’s backing of a $1.2 trillion funding package passed with predominantly Democratic votes, his vote to kill a requirement for a warrant on a controversial spying authority, and, most recently, his passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package without border provisions.
Many conservatives in the House Republican conference have said that, despite these frustrations, they won’t support Greene’s motion to table. That includes several of those who voted to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told The Epoch Times that he feared some members of his caucus were susceptible to bribes to support House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as speaker, and thus that he wouldn’t back the motion.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told The Epoch Times he would vote to table the motion. Unlike in his vote to remove McCarthy, Burchett says he’s not sure a Republican speaker would come out of the chaos this time around.
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) repeated this sentiment, saying that he’s more open to forgiving Johnson’s failures because “It’s very different than a year ago,” when Republicans had a larger majority.
The final trigger for Greene came after Democratic leadership announced in a statement on Tuesday that Democrats would vote to kill Greene’s motion to vacate.
“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” Democrat leadership wrote. “We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate the chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”
Not all Democrats plan to follow their leaders’ footsteps, however.
“If you’re asking me, ‘Do I believe Democrats should help Mike Johnson?’ I do not,” Rep. Gerry Connelly (D-Va.) told The Epoch Times. “Nothing personal. But he’s not my candidate. He is very right-wing. I don’t know why I'd support that.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) agreed.
“Mike Johnson is absolutely against everything that I believe in,” Ramirez told The Epoch Times. “There’s no way that I would vote for someone like him to be able to stay to stay in his seat.”
When Greene brings the motion to the floor, leadership will be required to hold a vote on it within two days.
At that point, a member will bring a motion to table the measure, which is all but guaranteed to succeed, averting a formal vote on the issue altogether.
—Joseph Lord
HOUSE PASSES ANTI-SEMITISM BILL
The House made American Jewish history as it overwhelmingly passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would protect Jews—especially Jewish college and university students— under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Title VI prohibits entities that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, country of origin and color.
It would also codify into law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as the standard for the federal government, including the Department of Education, in investigating instances of anti-Semitism. Dozens of countries, including the United States, have adopted the IHRA definition.
Anti-Semitism, according to the IHRA working definition, is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The legislation comes amid a torrent of anti-Semitism in the United States including on college and university campuses, where anti-Semitic pro-Palestinian students have set up encampments and have intimidated and threatened Jewish and pro-Israel students. These schools include Columbia University, Fordham University, George Washington University, Harvard, Northwestern, and UCLA.
The bill comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced efforts by the House to crack down on anti-Semitism on college and university campuses. This will include investigations and hearings by multiple committees.
Ahead of the vote, there appeared to be uncertainty as to whether it could pass. This included concern over the IHRA definition, which some lawmakers felt was too vague or too susceptible to misuse.
Many said they were concerned that criticism of the state of Israel, or its government, would be considered anti-Semitic under the new rule, though IHRA’s website states that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”
Ahead of the House vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffires (R-N.Y.), who ultimately voted for the bill, called for a comprehensive bill to combat anti-Semitism, which has been introduced, to be brought before the House floor. This bill, the Countering Anti-Semitism Act, would include the establishment of a White House anti-Semitism czar to deal with domestic hatred toward Jews— something the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act would not do.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. However, Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced last month a companion version that has bipartisan support.
Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including Democrat Majority for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition, support the legislation.
—Jackson Richman and Stacy Robinson
SENATE ADVANCES FAA REAUTHORIZATION
The Senate moved closer to reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for another five years.
The motion to invoke cloture on the bipartisan $105 billion bill was anything but turbulent as the vote was 89–10.
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and John Kennedy (R-La.) voted against invoking cloture on the legislation.
The most notable issue with the measure is increasing the number of long-distance flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), which the federal government has jurisdiction over.
The bill would allow for there to be five additional long-distance flight routes from the airport, which is just outside the nation’s capital.
Proponents, especially lawmakers from the western United States, say this would allow for easier and better options to fly westward instead of making multiple or too many stops.
However, opponents, which include lawmakers from Virginia and Maryland, say that this would cause a burden on the airport, which is in Virginia, that they say does not have the capacity for additional flights. Additionally, they say, noise pollution is a problem.
The FAA reauthorization bill includes reforms and safety and modernization measures dealing with the FAA’s airspace operations.
This comes as there have been a string of aviation-related incidents—such as the door on an Alaska Airlines plane coming off earlier this year and multiple near-collisions of planes on several major airport runways in April.
It also includes $738 million for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) until the 2028 fiscal year.
The NTSB has been in the headlines recently, dealing with the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
The bill comes after months of negotiations between the Senate Commerce and House Transportation and Infrastructure committees.
It is one of the last major pieces of legislation for Congress to pass before the November election, with both parties vying for control of the House and Senate in 2025.
Lawmakers scrapped Cruz’s proposal to allow members of Congress, Cabinet members, and judges facing credible threats to get security escorts and special screenings at airports.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who opposed Cruz’s security escort idea, said in a statement: “Congress should be focusing on improving TSA and keeping our skies more secure, not burdening its workforce and potentially diminishing security.”
—Jackson Richman and Jacob Burg
BOOKMARKS
The Arizona state Senate approved a bill to repeal an 1864 law that imposes a near-total abortion ban, The Epoch Times’ Samantha Flom reported. The Arizona House narrowly passed the repeal on April 24 as three Republicans joined with Democrats to approve the measure.
Yesterday, the state Senate followed suit in a 16–14 vote—but not before several disappointed senators had the opportunity to air their grievances.
A New York state appeals court denied a request from former President Donald Trump to have his so-called “hush-money” judge removed, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported. President Trump’s lawyers had pushed for a stay in the case and the recusal of Judge Juan Merchan, but both of these requests were denied.
Trump has accepted the Libertarian Party’s invitation to address its national convention later this month, an opportunity for the former president to win over third-party voters, The Epoch Times’ Bill Pan reported. Trump said, “We have many libertarian views.”
The House Judiciary Committee is investigating a top prosecutor on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Trump for his past work as a senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official during the Biden administration, The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek reported.
The probe comes amid allegations that the Trump prosecution is politically driven.