All House Democrats and 11 GOP representatives voted on Thursday to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of her two committee assignments. Greene has come under fire for having believed in various conspiracy theories prior to her run for Congress.
Earlier on Thursday, Greene told her House colleagues that she grew to distrust mainstream media sources and stumbled into QAnon and other conspiracy theories. Greene said she no longer believes such theories because she found some of the information to be untrue. But Greene's appeals fell on too many deaf ears.
In a mostly party-line vote, the House decided to remove the freshman congresswoman from the House Budget Committee and the Committee on Education and Labor. Democrats said they were forced to take the unprecedented action of stripping Greene from her committee assignments because GOP leaders had failed to penalize the congresswoman for her past beliefs.
(Via Fox News)
But Republicans largely panned the House vote to remove Greene from committees because they didn't want Democrats interfering with GOP matters and setting a new precedent for penalizing members for statements and postings they made prior to entering Congress.
"This resolution sets a dangerous new standard that will only deepen divisions within this House," said GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who condemned Greene's comments.
"This is nothing more than an abuse of power by a party drunk with power," added Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C.
McCarthy blasted Democrats for exercising new veto authority over GOP committee assignments while they "ignore the infractions" of their own members, referencing Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., keeping their committee assignments over GOP objections.
The 11 GOP representatives who voted with House Democrats include Rep. Young Kim of California, Florida Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez, and Maria Elvira Salazar; Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan, Chris Smith of New Jersey; New York Reps. Chris Jacobs, John Katko and Nicole Malliotakis, and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.
