Republicans take no action against Cheney or
extremist Greene after vote
Republicans met to consider fate of two prominent
congresswoman in a divided party
Lauren
Gambino in Washington
@laurenegambino
Thu 4 Feb
2021 03.40 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/03/republican-party-liz-cheney-marjorie-taylor-greene
House
Republicans faced a reckoning on Wednesday as leaders in the US House of
Representatives confronted calls to punish two prominent congresswomen who
represent clashing visions for a party struggling to chart a path forward since
Donald Trump left the White House.
Liz Cheney,
the third-most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives, easily beat
back an effort by far-right conservatives to oust her from her leadership post
as payback for her vote last month to impeach Donald Trump.
At the same
time, the Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, declined to take
any action against the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has a
record of embracing extremist views and conspiracy theories, and who tomorrow
will face a vote that could strip her of her committee assignments.
“It’s just
an example: this Republican party is a very big tent,” McCarthy told reporters
after the tense, hours-long meeting on Wednesday night, which culminated in a
secret ballot vote to retain Cheney. “Everybody is invited in.”
According
to several accounts of the marathon House Republican meeting, billed as a
“family discussion”, dozens of Republicans took turns admonishing Cheney for
her impeachment vote. By contrast, Greene, a devotee of the antisemitic
conspiracy theory QAnon, who, prior to her election, indicated support for
executing Democratic politicians, received a standing ovation from some members
after a brief speech, in which she apologized for her past remarks.
Despite her
apparent contrition, Greene has remained unapologetic in public.
Many
Republicans were furious with Cheney not only for her vote, but for her
unsparing denunciation of Trump, which Democrats have repeatedly cited to make
their case for convicting the former president ahead of his Senate trial next
week.
Cheney,
according to reports, explained her decision to release a statement on the eve
of the House impeachment vote last month but did not apologize for it. During
the meeting, McCarthy said he rose to Cheney’s defense, pleading with his party
to unify against Democrats rather than each other.
“Liz has a
right to vote her conscience,” he told reporters during a break.
Though the
Republican leaders insisted they emerged from the meeting “stronger” and more
unified, their next test was just hours away. During a floor vote on Thursday,
Republicans will be forced to decided whether to punish or defend the Georgia
lawmaker, who holds significant sway among the party’s base and maintains the
enthusiastic support of the former president.
Earlier on
Wednesday, the House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, announced that Democrats
would proceed with a resolution to remove Greene from her two congressional
panels the following day.
The
decision came after McCarthy spoke to Hoyer by phone on Wednesday morning in an
effort to stave off a politically difficult floor vote.
On the call,
McCarthy said he proposed removing Greene from one but not both of her
committee seats. Hoyer rejected the offer, saying Democrats were left with “no
alternative” but to press ahead with their resolution – a rare move by the
majority to target a member of the opposing party.
“I have
been in the Congress for 40 years,” he said. “I can’t remember – and I’ve
thought about it – any situation that I believe is analogous to what Ms Greene
has done before – and after – her being elected to the Congress of the United
States.”
Before the
GOP meeting on Wednesday, McCarthy issued a statement that condemned Greene’s
past remarks “unequivocally” but accused Democrats of a “partisan power grab”
in their drive to sanction a member of the opposing party.
Drawing a
distinction between comments she made as a private citizen, the Republican
leader acknowledged that Greene’s comments had “caused deep wounds” and said
suggested she had committed to holding herself to a higher standard now that
she was an elected official.
His stance
effectively ruled out the possibility that Republicans might punish Greene
before the House vote on Thursday.
“In the
end,” McCarthy wrote, “this resolution continues to distract Congress.”
During a
meeting of the House rules committee, the Democratic chairman, Jim McGovern,
said failing to take action against Greene would send an “awful message”.
“If this is
not the bottom, I don’t know what the hell is,” he added.
It remains
unclear how many Republicans will support the resolution on Thursday. Several
Republicans have attempted to bypass the issue of Greene’s conduct, arguing
instead that members should not face punishment for actions taken before they
were elected, and that allowing one party to discipline a member of another
party sets a dangerous precedent.
As
Republicans struggle with how to confront rising extremism among their party’s
base, Democrats are seizing on the turmoil.
In a
scathing statement, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, assailed McCarthy for his
“cowardly refusal” to remove Greene from her committee assignments.
“McCarthy’s
failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene – an
antisemite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 Truther,” she wrote, identifying the
Republican leader’s party and state affiliation as “Q-CA”, rather than “R-CA”,
a reference QAnon.
Democrats
are far from alone in condemning the Georgia lawmaker. Earlier this week, the
Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, assailed Greene’s embrace of what he
termed “loony lies and conspiracy theories,” calling her views a “cancer for
the Republican party”.
But
McCarthy, a staunch ally of Trump who voted to overturn the election results in
two states based on spurious allegations of voter fraud in the hours after the
deadly insurrection at the US Capitol by Trump supporters on 6 January, has
been far more circumspect.
Greene was
elected in 2020 after Trump branded her a “future Republican star”. Savvy on
social media, the congressman continues to enjoy support from Trump, whom she
said would soon meet with at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he has
been holed up since leaving Washington on 20 January without attending election
victor Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The
resolution, introduced by Democrats, states that Greene should be removed from
her seats “in light of conduct she has exhibited”, a reference to her social
media posts that include support for an array of conspiracy theories.
Greene has
defended herself on Twitter, claiming that Democrats’ efforts to remove her
from the House labor and education committee are an attack on her identity as a
“White, Woman, Wife, Mother, Christian, Conservative, Business Owner”.
But her
appointment to the education committee was particularly problematic after it
was revealed that she had wrongly claimed the 2018 deadly school shooting in
Parkland, Florida, was a “false flag” event staged by those opposing lax gun
rights. She has also publicly harassed a survivor of that massacre in person.
Greene also
serves on the House budget committee.
It is
unusual but not unprecedented for party leaders to remove members from their
committee assignments. In 2019, McCarthy stripped Steve King, a Republican from
Iowa with a long public record of racist remarks, of his committee seats after
he gave an interview to the New York Times questioning why white supremacy was
offensive. King lost the Republican primary for his seat in 2020.
Cheney, the
daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney and a Republican representative
for the family’s home state of Wyoming, has faced sharp backlash from Trump’s
allies, including his son, Donald Trump Jr, who has encouraged a primary
challenge against her. Yet she has also received support from Republican
leaders, including McConnell, who called her a “leader with deep convictions
and the courage to act on them”.
In the end,
according to the South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, the vote “wasn’t even
close”.
The
showdown over the political fates of the two congresswomen underscore the deep
internal tensions within the Republican party as it grapples with the
aftershocks of Trump’s presidency.
The only
president in American history to be impeached twice, Trump maintains strong
support among the Republican faithful even after being de-platformed on social
media for whipping up supporters who led the deadly Capitol insurrection.
Yet in a
sign of how emboldened the radical right has become since Trump’s election,
Greene said she has raised more than $1.6m since calls began to mount for her
removal from the committee assignments.
In response
to Democrats’ push to hold Greene accountable, a band of conservative lawmakers
are attempting to turn the tables by pushing a long-short resolution that would
instead strip the Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of her committee
assignments over comments she made in 2019 that members in both parties
condemned as antisemitic.
In his
statement on Wednesday, McCarthy accused Democrats of refusing to police their
own, and included Omar among a trio of lawmakers he suggested should be
expelled from their committee seats.
Democrats
have risen to Omar’s defense, assailing Republicans for attempting to draw a
false equivalency and avoid the political risk of disciplining one of their
own. Before running for office, Greene repeatedly targeted Omar, attacking her
faith and suggesting Muslims do not belong in government.
“There’s no
comparison to be made, there’s no parallel situation,” Hoyer told reporters on
Wednesday, calling it an attempt to “rationalize terrible behavior”.
“It’s
getting really scary to serve with people with guns who dehumanize and target
you,” Omar said, imploring the House to hold Greene accountable. “I fear that
with no accountability, no recourse and calls to ‘move on’ will turn this toxic
environment into a deadly situation.”
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