Newsweek
Fact Check: Can House Democrats Bring Motion to Vacate House Speaker?
Story by Tom Norton • 8h ago
After a protracted battle between House Republicans, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has finally begun settling in as Speaker following a series of concessions to a faction on the right of his party.
Ad - Up Next "C-SPAN asks Kevin McCarthy to keep cameras in House full time"
C-SPAN asks Kevin McCarthy to keep cameras in House full time
McCarthy, whose ascension above the dais was halted for several days by representatives from the GOP's Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), has spent his first week in the role introducing committee and rule changes following his deal with party colleagues.
One important concession included reducing the threshold for triggering a vote to remove the Speaker at any given time. However, social media posts now suggest that this new change might make him vulnerable not just to fellow Republicans, but even to the minority opposition.
The Claim
A post published on Reddit on January 11, 2022, which received more than 45,000 engagements, highlighted that under new House rule changes, a Democratic representative could initiate a "recall vote" for House Speaker.
The post included a tweet about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), claiming she opposed the "compromise to allow one House Member to bring a Motion to Vacate to remove the Speaker because even one Democrat can do it, and she heard Democratic Rep. Al Green is getting ready to do it already."
The Facts
It's true that under rules changes made for the 118th Congress, it will now only take one member to motion for the Speaker to vacate their seat.
The privilege was introduced under early House rules set out in Jefferson's Manual, a book of parliamentary procedure written by Founding Father and former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson, stating: "A Speaker may be removed at the will of the House."
Jefferson's Manual didn't stipulate the number of members required to begin a motion. This remained the case until 2018, when changes enacted by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lifted the threshold requiring "that a resolution causing a vacancy in the Office of the Speaker will be privileged if offered by the direction of a major party caucus or conference."
The motion to vacate has rarely been used. But the changing of its wording back to what existed before 2018 may remind McCarthy of the House's tools of accountability.
And it's not just the Republican House members that pose such a threat. As pointed out on social media, the re-wording of the 118th House Rules does not prohibit a minority party from bringing such a motion.
The likelihood of any such motion succeeding is another matter, but, in principle, under the current wording, the Democrats could begin a motion to vacate (without any restrictive threshold) and then with a simple majority (requiring some Republican rebels) remove McCarthy.
As Dr. David Andersen, assistant professor of United States Politics at Durham University, told Newsweek, the new rules put McCarthy in an "awful position," leaving it a possibility that Democrats would only need five Republicans to pass a motion to vacate.
"The really interesting scenario is whether five Republicans will get so frustrated with McCarthy that they would do the unthinkable—work with Democrats to oust the Speaker," Andersen said.
"If just five Republicans in the House join together with a united Democratic caucus, the Speaker will be ousted and nothing can be done until a new Speaker is elected.
"Given that 20 Republicans worked to deny McCarthy the seat, once the GOP starts attempting to legislate—and more importantly, once certain members start competing for media attention—this possibility will become very interesting to watch.
"McCarthy can't change the rules now that they have been passed so this is something that he will have to live with for the next two years.
"Honestly, the one person rule doesn't matter too much other than for grandstanding by individual legislators. It is the risk of a 5-member GOP defection that is more interesting."
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks after US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives on the 15th ballot at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 7, 2023. Clips from Jeffries' speech went viral on social media. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/GETTY© OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/GETTY
How long it might take for such an alliance to form is another matter.
For now, McCarthy appears to be meeting some of the wishes of the Freedom Caucus, with Gaetz saying that he had nearly run out of "stuff to ask for" from the Speaker during the negotiations.
This suggests McCarthy may face less pressure from his party, at least in the short term.
Furthermore, the vote for Speaker took so long to pass—a situation described as "embarrassing" to CNN by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT)—that it may be some time before any Republicans would side with Democrats, in fear of the political repercussions.
But Boebert told Fox News: "I'm proud that we took a few extra days to make sure that we get this right. It may look like chaos and dysfunction, but I'm a mom of four boys that's a part of my everyday life.
"And really last week was the most productive week I have experienced in Congress."
Given the disruptive power motion to vacate could wield, why hasn't it been used more?
A 2015 fact check by Ballotpedia found that the rule has only been used in 1910, to remove Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon, and in 2015 against Republican Speaker John Boehner (although in Boehner's case, he retired before the motion could even reach a vote).
As mentioned, a motion brought by the Democrats, unless orchestrated with support from a sufficient number of Republicans, would be unlikely to succeed. As for Republicans, McCarthy still has the majority of support from GOP House members.
In theory, there may be little to stop a series of motions to vacate (particularly now the privilege is fresh in the mind of House members), perhaps as a way to frustrate the GOP's legislative efforts.
Notably, there is little indication at the moment that this strategy is being explored by the Democrats, including Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who was mentioned in the original comment.
A representative of Green told Newsweek by email that the congressman "has no such plans and has never discussed any aspect of such plans with anyone," adding that this publication's inquiry "is the first time Congressman Al Green has ever heard of this."
Still, if that were to change, such a move could trigger the introduction of rules or changes to better protect the Speaker (including altering or reversing rules on the motion to vacate). This might make it harder for Democrats to change the Speaker (should they wish to) and weaken the hand of McCarthy's opponents.
Nonetheless, as Iwan Morgan, Emeritus Professor of United States History at the Institute of the Americas at University College London, told Newsweek, McCarthy now faces a balancing act between keeping the right of his party happy and his House effective.
"We are sailing into uncharted waters. The reversion to former institutional rules takes place amid unprecedented partisanship and bitter intra-party divisions within the GOP," Morgan said. "No one knows for sure what may happen, but we can speculate.
"McCarthy is between a rock and a hard place. Whatever procedural maneuvers he comes up with, the bigger picture remains the same in terms of the dilemma he faces. He has to keep his far-right Republicans on side, but this may cost him any hope of cutting deals with the opposition Democrats to keep government going.
"GOP right-wingers tend to target the deficit and the public debt when they face a Democratic president (less so when one of their own is in the White House) and may demand huge spending cuts. If McCarthy bowed to their demands, the Democrats would come out swinging.
"Such cuts would have little hope of getting through the Senate, of course, and would face a presidential veto if they did. So, we may get into a position of government shutdowns early in the Congressional year.
"We could be back into Clinton-era standoffs over the budget as in 1995-96, but then it was the GOP Congress vs. a Democratic president. This is a much more complex political situation and therefore harder to resolve."
Newsweek has contacted the House Conference Chair, House Republicans, House Democrats and Kevin McCarthy for comment.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
Above is from: Fact Check: Can House Democrats Bring Motion to Vacate House Speaker? (msn.com)
