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Marjorie Taylor Greene initiated the process to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson as the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill to avoid a government shutdown despite the objections of conservatives like the Georgia Republican who support former president Donald Trump.
Ms Greene filed a motion to vacate the speaker as the House was still voting on the spending agreement.
A two-thirds majority was reached to pass the spending package – 286 voted in favour and 134 voted against.
“This is a betrayal of Republican voters,” Ms Greene told reporters on Friday. “The bill … forced Republicans to choose between funding to pay our soldiers and in doing so, funding late-term abortion – this bill was basically a dream and a wish list for Democrats and for the White House.”
The spending agreement will now head to the US Senate, where it is expected to easily pass with bipartisan support either before or shortly after the government shuts down at 12.01am on Saturday.
President Joe Biden has said he would sign the legislation immediately once it reaches his desk. The bill will keep the government open until the end of Fiscal Year 2024, which ends on 30 September.
Ms Greene said the process “was completely led by [Democratic Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer, not our Republican Speaker of the House, not our conference, and we weren’t even allowed to put amendments to the floor to have a chance to make changes to the bill”.
“I filed the motion to vacate today, but it’s more of a warning than a pink slip,” she added. “It’s time for us to go through the process, take our time and find a new speaker of the House that will stand with Republicans and our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.”
Republican Arizona Representative Juan Ciscomani told The Independent that the filing of the motion to vacate was “very unfortunate”.
He added that he “didn’t support” the motion to vacate former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last autumn. “This is a bad idea again.”
Mr Johnson argued in a statement that “House Republicans achieved conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts while significantly strengthening national defense”.
“The process was also an important step in breaking the omnibus muscle memory and represents the best achievable outcome in a divided government,” he added.
As the House voted on Friday, Texas Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett told The Independent that it was “about damn time” that the funding agreement was passed.
Asked about the months of struggles to fund the government, Republican Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher said, “Divided government is hard, and we still got a lot of work left to do. So we’ll see what happens”.
He added that he wasn’t concerned about the motion to vacate the speaker.
New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler told reporters that “the American people agree with us on the issues. What they don’t agree with is the idiocy and the chaos that is totally unnecessary and does nothing to actually solve the problem”.
“The people that are so upset about this bill today should have thought … long and hard before they removed Kevin McCarthy as speaker,” he added.
“I’ve won twice in two-to-one Democratic districts because I’ve taken a common sense bipartisan approach, and that’s what I’ll continue to do. I call it as I see it … and this stunt by Marjorie is idiotic,” he told The Independent.
Michigan Republican Rep Lisa McClain said it was “about time” that the spending agreement was passed, adding that she was concerned about the motion to vacate the speaker.
“To what end? We’ve got to move forward … I don’t know what this accomplishes,” she said.
Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin told the press that “their party lives on insurrection and division and polarization and so it doesn’t surprise me that they’re again cannibalizing themselves”.
“This is the Donald Trump playbook that has overtaken the Republican Party and for people interested in democracy, freedom and effective governance, the Democratic Party has a plan,” he told The Independent.
The spending bill is part of an agreement by House and Senate leadership as well as the leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Earlier this month, Congress passed six spending bills and a stopgap spending bill to allow for negotiations to continue for some of the more contentious pieces of legislation.
Conservatives objected to the fact that the legislation did not make steep enough spending cuts and the House Freedom Caucus had called for Mr Johnson to put in place more measures to restrict immigration at the US-Mexico border.
Conversely, progressives objected to cuts in funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called “unconscionable”.
At the same time, the legislation also includes 12,000 special immigrant visas for Afghans who assisted US servicemembers during the war in Afghanistan.
The so-called minibus spending bill contains six of the twelve spending bills including legislation to fund the State Department; the Pentagon; the Department of Homeland Security; Congress; the Department of Health and Human Services; the Department of Education; financial services and the general government.
Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said in a statement after the vote that “Democrats have once again defeated the worst impulses of this Maga Majority. We have prevented Republican extremists from inflicting the chaos of a needless government shutdown while safeguarding vital programs from devastating cuts”.
“This compromise doesn’t have everything we need, and it isn’t what a Democratic House Majority would deliver. But it excludes harmful attacks on reproductive freedom and the LGBTQIA+ community,” she added.
