Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson survived an attempt to topple him on Wednesday, led by firebrand GOP Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
House Democrats overwhelmingly helped the speaker avoid being ousted. But so did Florida Republicans.
Greene, a Georgia Republican, pushed for nearly a month to boot Johnson for his failure to back conservative causes, including on federal spending and the war in Ukraine. Under current House rules, a single lawmaker can ignite the effort to remove the speaker.
Read: House Rejects Georgia Rep. MTG’s Attempt At Ousting House Speaker Johnson
Johnson rallied 163 Democrats to vote to retain him in the speaker’s chair. Just 32 Democrats wanted him gone. That was far different than last year’s bid when all Democrats joined eight Republicans to remove former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
On the other side, GOP lawmakers voted 196-11 to keep Johnson.
In Florida, 19 of the 20 Republicans voted in favor of allowing Johnson to keep his job.
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Clearwater did not vote.
The only vote from Florida to jettison Johnson came from radical left-wing Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Orlando.
Read: Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Erupts Following J6-Related Suicide Of Florida Man
On X, Greene posted a video of her making the motion to declare the speaker’s post vacant.
She was loudly booed by both sides.
“This is the uniparty for the American people watching,” she said.
In her speech, Johnson, said Greene, “has aided and abetted the Democrats and the Biden administration in destroying our country.”
“When given a choice between advancing Republican priorities or allying with the Democrats to preserve his own person power, Johnson regularly chooses to ally himself with Democrats,” she argued.
Greene offered examples of his aligning with leftists.
Greene noted that Johnson stood by as former New York Rep. George Santos was expelled from the House with unanimous Democratic support, becoming the first House member tossed out without having been convicted of a crime.
A Democrat later won Santos’ seat in a special election, and Santos still has not been convicted in court of any alleged wrongdoing, Greene noted.
Read: Florida Rep. Steube And Georgia Rep. Greene Rip Senate Foreign Aid Package “DOA”
In another example, Greene cited Johnson’s support for budget bills that funded “abortion, the trans agenda, the climate agenda, foreign wars, and [President Joe] Biden’s border crisis.”
She further pointed out that he backed other spending bills, such as the $61 billion approved for Ukraine, even as most Republicans bored against that. In that case, triumphant Democrats waved small Ukrainian flags on the floor of the House.
Along those lines, Greene noted that Johnson talked tough about not backing, or even allowing votes for, measures that went soft on immigration or for funding Ukraine, Israel, or Taiwan unless they included tougher security measures for America’s border.
Yet Johnson has done nothing to secure the border, she added, even after the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and multiple cases of rapes of American women by illegal immigrants.
Johnson, according to Greene, also blocked efforts to defund Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s pursuit of former President Donald Trump or the Justice Department’s effort to jail peaceful pro-life demonstrators.
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