“House Democrats on Thursday took the extraordinary step of voting to strip committee assignments from a member of the opposite party, saying Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had forfeited her right to those seats by endorsing conspiracy theories, racist dogma and violence against Democratic politicians.” — The Hill
It’s about more than just discipline, though. Committee hearings are a prime opportunity for House members to strut in public. Kicking her off the committees deprives her of a soapbox for her rants.
The discipline wasn’t imposed solely by Democrats; 11 Republicans joined all 219 Democrats in voting “aye.” However, the House Republicans largely circled their wagons around the vitriolic extremist who just joined their ranks, with 199 of them voting “nay,” signaling that the GOP isn’t ready to resume being a party of civic responsibility after spending 4 years with Trump in the gutter of American politics.
In floor debate, Democrats focused on Greene’s reprehensible behavior, while Republicans tried to sidestep her personal conduct and make it an issue of institutional procedure by complaining the majority party was infringing on the minority party’s prerogative to parcel out its share of committee seats to its members.
While that’s a legitimate issue, it also seeks to dodge the misconduct issue altogether by changing topics to evade addressing it. The Democrats were right to brush that argument aside and keep the focus on Greene’s conduct.
Two particular actions by Greene especially provoked Democrats. One was her stalking of school shooting survivor David Hogg, who has become a gun-control advocate (which is why Greene harassed him), which in conjunction with her claims that school shootings were staged “false flag” events, made her assignment to the Education Committee toxic in their eyes. Democrats were concerned it would give her a platform to espouse those claims. This probably could have been resolved by assigning her to a different committee, but Minority Leader McCarthy was unwilling to do that, adding further credence to the argument that Republicans were acting provocatively and in bad faith.
Advocating the killing of Democrats in Congress, including Speaker Pelosi, is on a different plane altogether; made all the more harrowing by an apparent attempt just a month ago by crazed Trump supporters to do just that. Do I need to explain why the Democrats had to do come down hard on that, or look hopelessly weak? Or why McCarthy’s wrist-slap of a private talking-to wasn’t going to cut it? But even larger than those considerations, what’s really at stake is maintaining Congress as a civilized forum in which to thrash out the larger public’s political differences, and keeping that body from descending into political violence. Do we want to be like Turkey’s parliament (see video below)?
The Constitution, probably for that reason, gives Congress rather than voters the final say over who is seated in that body. The Democrats didn’t have the votes to expel Greene, which requires a two-thirds majority (i.e., they would’ve needed 70 GOP votes), or they would have, so they did what they had the votes to do, which was expelling her from committees.
The Republicans’ very weak condemnation of Greene’s behavior, and refusal to impose meaningful consequences for it, is disheartening. Despite Trump’s departure from office, partisan division remains bitter and deep, and by all appearances, it will take a long time to tame the demonic forces he unleashed. Greene, an unabashed and ardent Trump supporter, is a symptom and symbol of the dry rot destroying the Republican Party.
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She ran unopposed. Need rational opposition to run against her.
She didn’t run unopposed. She had 8 GOP primary opponents and a Democratic opponent in November. The voters had ample opportunity to choose someone else. Electing her reflects very poorly on the people living in that district.