Democrats could want some sort of power-sharing agreement in exchange for helping the speaker defang the so-called motion to vacate. That’s too steep a price for him.
Speaker Mike Johnson will likely escape Marjorie Taylor Greene’s first attempt to fire him. The threat of an ouster vote will still haunt him all year long.
Despite near-universal consensus in the House that allowing any one member to force a snap vote on booting a speaker is a recipe for chaos, lawmakers in both parties are increasingly acknowledging that they have almost no chance of changing that rule before January.
It’s not for a lack of interest — in fact, the idea was brought up in GOP meetings as recently as this week. But Johnson is boxed in from both sides. He can’t change the rules with only Republican votes because of the rebels on his right flank, who insisted that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy empower them by allowing a single lawmaker to force a vote of no confidence.
And Democrats, while they’re ready to save him from Greene’s (R-Ga.) first ejection attempt next week, are clear that their mercy won’t necessarily be permanent if the Georgia firebrand, or someone else, tries again. They also have little political incentive to give Johnson more permanent protection, unless he opens up broader negotiations about potential power sharing in the House. That price is too steep for the speaker to pay.
“I don’t know how you put that genie back in the box,” Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) said about changing the so-called motion to vacate the speakership, which he supports overhauling, this year.
It leaves Johnson almost powerless to officially defang one of the biggest threats to his leadership — even as he’s criticized the low threshold to vote on ousting a speaker as having “harmed this office” and the majority — and opens the door for more disgruntled colleagues to try to force a showdown with him in the months to come.
By Jordain Carney and Nicholas Wu
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