Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., made a surprising statement on Thursday morning, when she revealed on X that she believed Speaker Johnson, R-La., is attempting to change the single-member motion to vacate rule by hiding it in another Ukraine funding rule that is currently sitting in the Rules Committee.
Rep. Greene, who filed a motion to vacate Speaker Johnson’s chair in late March, wrote on X, “Speaker Johnson is trying to change the motion to vacate rule right now by slipping a new vacate rule into the Ukraine funding rule being debated right now on the Rules Committee.”
As it stands right now, only a single House member needs to file a motion to vacate, but it is possible that Speaker Johnson could be attempting to change that standing rule to make it harder for congressional members to immediately move to vacate the speakership.
Greene noted that the speaker could be “Changing it from 1 member to vacate to we have no idea because he’s again hiding it from the conference.”
The Georgia congresswoman’s initial motion to vacate was filed on March 22, following the passage of a $1.2 trillion spending bill that stopped the government from shutting down. The bill passed in the House with a vote of 286-134.
On Thursday, Rep. Greene spoke with reporters on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, stating, “Mike Johnson owes this conference a meeting, and if he wants to change the motion to vacate, he needs to come before the Republican conference that elected him and tell us of his intentions and tell us what this rule change to the motion to vacate is going to be.”
She added. “And I’ll tell you something, Kevin McCarthy, while he was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, he never made a move like this – behind closed doors and made deals with Democrats to change the motion to vacate.”
Greened stated that “we’re hearing that’s exactly what Mike Johnson is doing” and she called the reported move “unprecedented.”
Last week, Speaker Johnson gave a joint press conference with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. He stated that he had worked with the president to present an election integrity plan that would potentially help secure the 2024 election by mandating proof of citizenship in order to vote, per RSBN.
He also agreed to hold a series of public hearings in Congress that would provide members the ability to fact-find on issues of election integrity.