Democrats moving swiftly to remove Greene from committees

House Democratic leaders are moving quickly this week to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from several key committees in response to a string of violent and racist remarks she’s made in recent years.

The House Rules Committee on Wednesday will consider a resolution, sponsored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), to strip Greene of her seats on two committees — Budget as well as Education and Labor — citing unspecified “conduct she has exhibited.” 

The announcement comes after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) spoke with his counterpart, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), about the scandals surrounding Greene, a conservative firebrand just weeks into her first term.

A Hoyer aide declined to reveal details of the discussion, but Democrats have suggested for several days that they were prepared to reprimand Greene if GOP leaders declined to do so themselves. 

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene must be held accountable for her reprehensible statements, and I am discussing with Members the best course of action to do so,” Hoyer said in a statement Monday afternoon. The announcement from the Rules Committee suggests it has landed on the Wasserman Schultz resolution as the best course. 

A Hoyer aide confirmed that the majority leader has already spoken with McCarthy about Greene but declined to provide details of the discussion.

McCarthy is expected to meet with Greene this week to discuss her controversial conduct. An aide to McCarthy suggested no decisions about potential repercussions will be made before then.

“They need to meet in person,” said that spokesperson. “That’s really important.”

Democrats have not yet scheduled a floor vote on the Wasserman Schultz resolution, and party leaders are making clear that they hope McCarthy will act on his own, precluding the need for such a vote.  

“It is my hope and expectation that Republicans will do the right thing and hold Rep. Greene accountable, and we will not need to consider this resolution,” Hoyer said. “But we are prepared to do so if necessary.”

If the resolution does come to the floor, it will require only a simple majority to pass. 

Greene has stirred a hornet’s nest of controversy since her election in November, based largely on her past support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that former President Trump was the driving force preventing a covert band of satanic pedophiles from world domination.

Since then, the controversies surrounding Greene have only piled up, as reports emerged in recent weeks — primarily from Media Matters — that the Georgia firebrand has questioned the veracity of the 9/11 attacks, accused victims of school shootings of staging the “false flag” events to promote gun reform bills and endorsed acts of violence against prominent Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The rhetoric has taken on a new significance in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building by a pro-Trump mob attempting to block the formal transition of power from Trump to President Biden. Greene and McCarthy were both among the more than 100 House Republicans who voted after the attack to overturn the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. 

Democrats have pounced, introducing a series of disciplinary responses against Greene, ranging from censure to expulsion. Removing Greene from her committee posts lands somewhere in between.

Complicating the math for GOP leaders has been Trump himself, who remains enormously popular with Republican base voters, many of whom believe he won the election only to have it stolen by rampant fraud — a false narrative drummed up by Trump.

Greene has said she spoke with Trump this week and plans to meet the former president in Florida “soon” — a meeting the Trump camp has not confirmed. 

“Great news is, he supports me 100 percent,” Greene told One America News. 

McCarthy has some recent experience to draw upon. In 2019, he removed then-Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from his committee assignments after King defended white supremacy in an interview with The New York Times. Stripped of much of his power, King was defeated in the GOP primary last year.

Yet the act of the majority party dictating committee assignments for the minority is virtually unheard of — and is sure to spark plenty of controversy of its own.