WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been removed from a pair of House committees, with 11 Republican members joining the Democratic caucus on Thursday in removing Greene from the committees.
The final vote was 230-199.
Earlier on Thursday, Greened said she regreted some of her “words of the past” ahead of the House vote on whether she should be removed from her assigned committees or not.
She did not, however, explicitly apologize for any racist or violent rhetoric.
Democrats have been calling for Greene to be removed from her committees or expelled from the House altogether after several of her comments came to light over the past few weeks.
In the past, the Georgia representative has embraced far-right conspiracy theories, like suggestions that school shootings were staged. She’s also endorsed calls for violence against Democrats.
In an effort to avoid being stripped from her committees, Greene took to the House floor to give a speech. During her remarks, Greene explained that she came across QAnon a few years ago and became interested in posts related to the group. She said those posts blended fact with fiction.
"I was allowed to believe things that weren't true,” said Greene. “And I would ask questions, questions about them and talk about them. And that is absolutely what I regret, because if it weren't for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn't be standing here today. And you couldn't point a finger and accused me of anything wrong."
The embattled lawmaker touched on school shootings.
“School shootings are absolutely real. And every child that has lost, those families mourn it,” said Greene.
She also affirmed that she believes that the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 happened.
“I also want to tell you 9/11 absolutely happened,” said Greene. “I remember that day crying all day long and watching it on the news. And that's a tragedy for anyone to say it didn't happen. And so that I definitely want to tell you, I do not believe that it's fake.”
The resolution approved on Thursday, H. Res. 72, ousted the lawmaker from the House’s Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Education and Labor, which she was assigned to by GOP leadership.
Democrats first asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to take Greene off her committees. Although he said in a statement that he condemns Greene’s comments, he refused to remove her and spoke out against Thursday’s vote.
McCarthy went on to accuse the Democrats of “choosing to raise the temperature.”
“I understand that Marjorie’s comments have caused deep wounds to many and as a result, I offered Majority Leader Hoyer a path to lower the temperature and address these concerns. Instead of coming together to do that, the Democrats are choosing to raise the temperature by taking the unprecedented step to further their partisan power grab regarding the committee assignments of the other party,” he wrote.
So, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is bringing the resolution up for a vote Thursday.
House rules say expelling a lawmaker from the chamber requires a two-thirds vote, but stripping a member of their committee assignments requires a simple majority.
Some Republicans have argued that stripping Greene of her committee assignments would set a dangerous precedent, because it would effectively allow the majority party to dictate which lawmakers in the other party can serve on committees. Others argue congressmen and women shouldn’t be punished for what they’ve done before they were elected.
The GOP seems to be fractured. The vote on Greene comes a day after Republicans rejected attempts to oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her top leadership post. The Wyoming lawmaker was one of the few in her party to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Many view these votes as moments that are shaping the Republican party in the aftermath of Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. The question is – will the GOP continue to be the party of Trump or will new leadership arise?
