House leaders may safeguard Johnson’s position from dissenters in upcoming rules ballot
House Republican leaders are considering ways to defend Speaker Mike Johnson’s position amid a rebellion threat in a rules vote, primarily due to his support for foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Efforts are underway to potentially increase the threshold required to remove the speaker, as some hard-line Republicans aim to unseat him. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been leading the charge to oust Johnson.
House Republican leaders could move to protect Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) position from a rebellion in a rules vote.
Johnson’s position is facing its greatest threat yet as more hard-line Republicans move to unseat him for pushing to foreign aid bill following Iran’s assault on Israel”>pass foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. House Republican leadership is exploring the addition of language in the debate for the foreign aid bill that would raise the threshold required to vacate the speakership.
Currently, any Republican can trigger a vote to remove Johnson. With Republicans holding a tiny majority, only a few Republicans need to join the assured unanimous vote of Democrats to vacate the speakership.
Johnson hasn’t decided on whether to back the effort to increase the threshold needed for removal, though he’s being pressured to do so by “scores” of lawmakers, according to Punchbowl News. Though the move would possibly secure his position, it would undoubtedly be seen by Republican hard-liners as a betrayal and turn more House Republicans against him.
So far, efforts to oust Johnson have been led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has grown increasingly bold in her attacks. However, Johnson has also grown bolder in his position.
“If I operated out of fear over a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job,” Johnson said at a Capitol Hill news conference on Wednesday. “I could make a selfish decision and do something that’s different, but I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing. … I’m willing to take personal risk for that because we have to do the right thing and history will judge us.”
On Wednesday, Johnson put forward his plan to pass foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as other defense measures, after months of gridlock. The plan is to combine all four bills into a single rules bill before bringing them to the floor for individual votes. After that, the bills passed will be combined into a single piece of legislation to be voted on in the Senate, according to several lawmakers.
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The bills include $61 billion for Ukraine and $26 billion for Israel.
The same day, Greene introduced an amendment to the bill that would require the conscription into the Ukrainian military of any House members who voted in favor of the bill to provide military aid to Ukraine.
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