House votes to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments after uproar
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, from her committee assignments amid backlash over comments she’s made in the past.
The House voted 230-199 to remove Greene from her committee assignments in a vote that largely fell along party lines. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in favor of the action, according to C-Span.
The vote comes after the House Rules Committee on Wednesday advanced a resolution introduced by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, to remove Greene from her posts on the Budget committee and the Education and Labor committee, citing the “conduct she has exhibited.”
Republicans voting for the resolution included Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan, Nicole Malliotakis of New York, Carlos Gimenez of Florida, Chris Jacobs of New York, Young Kim of California, Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, Chris Smith of New Jersey and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, CNN reported.
Greene has come under fire over past comments and her support of dangerous conspiracy theories.
Recently resurfaced posts show Greene agreeing with people who falsely claimed that the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed, was faked, CNN reports. Her comments have since been removed from Facebook.
Video has also resurfaced showing her berating student activist David Hogg, who survived the shooting.
The Parkland chapter of the organization March For Our Lives, which was started by people who survived the shooting, has called on Greene to resign following the comments.
“The shooting at our school was real,” the organization tweeted. “Real kids died and our community is still grieving today. You should be ashamed of yourself and resign from congress. Conspiracy theorists don’t deserve a seat in the people’s house.”
Greene has repeatedly promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory about “the deep state,” which is popular among “a range of right-wing extremists and even some public supporters of President Trump,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Media Matters, a liberal watchdog organization, recently unearthed posts in which Greene falsely suggested a deadly California wildfire in 2018 was started by a laser beam from space.
Greene also repeatedly expressed support for executing prominent Democrats in 2018 and 2019 before she was elected to Congress, according to a CNN review of her Facebook posts.
Pushback from Republicans
The congresswoman reportedly apologized for promoting the conspiracy theories during a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday, according to The Washington Post.
The Thursday vote comes after Democrats urged House Republicans to voluntarily remove Greene from the committees she was on, CNN reports. But Republicans did not take action to do so.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy released a statement Wednesday condemning Greene’s actions but calling the Democrats’ resolution a “partisan power grab.”
“Her past comments now have much greater meaning,” the statement said. “Marjorie recognized this in our conversation. I hold her to her word, as well as her actions going forward.”
But Rep. Jim McGovern, chairman of the House Rules Committee, said removing her “shouldn’t even be controversial,” NPR reports.
“If that’s the precedent, that people are calling for the assassination of other members of this body, if that’s a disqualifier for serving on a committee, I’m all for it. I’m fine with it and I can live with that,” McGovern said, according to NPR.
Greene is not the only member of Congress to face removal from her post. During the GOP meeting on Wednesday, House Republicans debated removing Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming who voted in favor of impeaching former President Donald Trump, from her No. 3 position in the House.
Lawmakers ultimately voted 145-to-61 against Cheney’s removal, The New York Times reports.
This story was originally published February 4, 2021 at 3:54 PM with the headline "House votes to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments after uproar."
