WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans will be forced to go on the record, defending or rebuking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has drawn bipartisan condemnation over her embrace of far-right conspiracy theories, as well as her past endorsement of violence against Democrats.
The politically agonizing vote expected Thursday, which will determine whether the Georgia Republican is stripped of her committee assignments, underscores tension over the best political path forward that has riven the party since Donald Trump lost the White House.
Democrats issued an ultimatum earlier in the week, telling House Republicans to strip Greene of her committee assignments – or they would. Bipartisan pressure built after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Greene’s “loony lies” a “cancer” for the party.
But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday ruled out taking action. Instead, he accused Democrats of a “partisan power grab” for targeting Greene, who once suggested that a Jewish-owned financial firm may have been involved in a plot to spark California wildfires using a space laser.
“If this is not the bottom, I don’t know what the hell is,” House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said before a resolution was sent to the House floor to strip Greene of her posts.