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House to vote to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees

Grace Segers
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Washington — The House is set to vote on a measure stripping controversial GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments, as House Democrats seek to punish the Republican lawmaker for a litany of incendiary comments and force GOP members to either condemn or defend her.

In social media posts and videos made before she was elected to Congress, Greene, a freshman from Georgia, embraced a slew of far-right conspiracy theories, including questioning whether deadly school shootings had been staged. A supporter of the fantastical QAnon conspiracy theory, she also shared videos with anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiment, and expressed support for violence against Democratic leaders in Congress.

House Democrats seized on the newly surfaced posts and videos to demand that Republican leaders strip Greene of her seats on the House Budget Committee and the Education and Labor Committee. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to do so, prompting Democratic leaders to pursue a resolution on the House floor to remove her. 

With the vote set for Thursday afternoon, Democrats will force rank-and-file Republican members to go on the record about whether they believe Greene should maintain her positions on the committees. Democrats have slammed her seat on the Education and Labor Committee in particular, given Greene's previous promotion of conspiracy theories related to the Parkland and Newtown school shootings.

McCarthy said in a statement on Wednesday that he "unequivocally" condemned Greene's past statements, but portrayed Democrats' move to have her removed from the committees as a power grab. Other Republicans have likewise condemned Greene's comments but warned Democrats against setting a precedent in which the majority party dictates the minority party's committee assignments.

At a lengthy meeting of the Republican conference on Wednesday evening, Greene expressed remorse for her previous comments and apologized for her past support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. She has not disavowed those views publicly.

At the same meeting, Representative Liz Cheney fended off an effort to have her removed from her House GOP leadership role over her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the attack on the Capitol. However, 61 GOP members voted to expel her from leadership, suggesting deep divisions within the Republican caucus over the party's direction moving forward.

House Democrats advanced the resolution calling for Greene's ouster from the committees during a meeting of the House Rules Committee earlier Wednesday, setting up a vote Thursday afternoon in the full House.

The refusal of House GOP leaders to exercise their authority to remove Greene from her committee assignments stands in contrast to their handling of a similar situation in 2019, when the party's steering committee chose to remove then-Congressman Steve King from his committees over comments defending white supremacy.

Congressional Democrats have sought to tie House Republicans to Greene's extremist positions. In a statement on Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office referred to McCarthy as "Q-CA," labeling him the QAnon congressman from California.

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