House Republicans announced new rules that would make it nine times harder to remove the Speaker of the House from its seat as the GOP gets ready to vote on its new speaker.
According to a report from CNN, the House Freedom Caucus and governing-focused GOP Main Street Caucus have agreed to allow changes to the motion to vacate, which would raise the threshold to trigger a motion to force a vote to remove the Speaker of the House from one member to nine.
Although the motion to vacate is rarely used, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted from his chair in 2023 in a motion filed by now-attorney general Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). Seven other Republicans backed the motion, ultimately leading to now-Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) filling his seat.
Then, only months later, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to remove Johnson from his seat. However, it failed.
A CNN report noted that if Johnson successfully raised the threshold, it would eliminate a crucial problem for him in the next Congress.
The conservative House Freedom Caucus and governing-focused GOP Main Street Caucus had been in talks — along with Speaker Mike Johnson – about changes to the motion to vacate, according to three Republicans involved in the discussions. An internal party rule change would defuse the procedural weapon used to remove Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, from power. In exchange, GOP lawmakers would not push for changes that would punish members for voting against rule.
If Johnson can successfully raise the threshold, it would eliminate a key problem for him in the next Congress, where CNN projected on Wednesday that Republicans will have a majority in the House. The GOP conference would need to approve the deal on Thursday.
Member of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), said the agreement would “eliminate the controversial issues” to “deliver on” Trump’s agenda.
“We had an opportunity to set the motion to vacate at a higher than number one; that motion to vacate will be set at nine in return for getting rid of some amendments that probably would have divided this conference. Andy did a good job of explaining to Main Street leadership why those amendments would have divided the Republican conference,” Johnson said.