Thanks for all of the updates, Gran! đ
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greeneđşđ¸
@RepMTG
Read my letter to my Republican colleagues explaining my decision to file a motion to vacate Speaker Johnson (đ§ľ)
Dear Colleague,
Before we left for Easter break, I filed a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson after he passed the second minibus, H.Res.1102, which funded the Department of Defense; Financial Services and General Government; the Department of Homeland Security; the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; the Legislative Branch; and the Department of State and Foreign Operations.
This minibus, or rather, Part 2 of a two-part appropriations omnibus, broke our conference rules and the promises we made to our voters. We elected Mike Johnson in late October after three-and-a-half difficult weeks trying to decide on a new Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson sent us all a letter
making his promises to us as to what type of Speaker he would be and outlining his plans going forward. Specifically, he put forth seven tenets that would guide our conference under his speakership, which are quoted below:
1. Restore trust by ensuring total transparency, open processes, and regular order.
2. Advance a comprehensive policy agenda supported by Conference consensus.
3. Promote individual Members, and thus the whole team, by working to understand and emphasize each Memberâs unique strengths, district dynamics and challenges, and individual goals and objectives.
4. Engage Members in productive working groups to formulate solutions in key policy areas and enhance our internal communications and team building.
5. Effectively message to persuasively inform the Republican base and the American people of our policy agenda, why we are pursuing it, and how it will ensure liberty, opportunity, and security for all Americans.
6. Build and utilize external coalitions in the conservative ecosphere, including think tanks, policy groups, and other allied organizations that can contribute to our efforts.
7. Develop and grow our majority by building upon our resources and expanding the base to successfully advance our conservative vision and agenda.
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Mike Johnson has unfortunately not lived up to a single one of his self-imposed tenets. Allowing us one day, rather than 72 hours, to review a 1000-plus page bill to which no amendments could be offered was not âensuring total transparency, open processes, and regular order.â Relying on majority Democrat support to pass a two-part omnibus was not âadvancing a policy agenda supported by Conference consensus.â Working behind closed doors with Democrats to produce appropriations texts, NDAA text, and other legislative items was not âworking to understand and emphasize each Memberâs unique strengths,â and it certainly was not âengaging Membersâ to work together on consensus legislation. Expelling George Santos, who has not been convicted of any crime, and watching Members retire left and right was not “developing and growing our majority.” Fully funding abortion, the trans agenda, the climate agenda, foreign wars, and Biden’s border crisis is not “ensuring liberty, opportunity, and security for all Americans.”
Soon after he was elected Speaker, Mike passed a CR to prevent a government shutdown (November 14, 2023) which was understandable after being thrown into the Speakership and trying to get his feet under him and hire up new staff. Then we all tried to move forward to heal our fractured and severely damaged conference. Up until Kevin McCarthy was ousted, our GOP conference had passed seven appropriations bills, which were some of the strongest conservative bills passed in decades. Instead of picking up where we left off, with only five more appropriations bills to pass, Mike Johnson did not continue this important process. He instead led us to another CR on January 18, 2024, and got it passed with the support of 207 Democrats and only 107 Republicans, compared to 106 Republicans who voted against it. This time, Mike Johnson passed what he called a âladderedâ CR, establishing two government shutdown dates, making government funding even more convoluted.
After this was passed, once again, instead of moving the remaining five appropriations bills to the floor, Speaker Johnson made no effort to finish our appropriations process, even though this is our constitutional duty. Months later, Mike Johnson passed a third CR, this time calling it a “process CR,” as if that made continuing Nancy Pelosi’s budget yet again any different from the previous CRs. Concurrently, the Senate was not passing their appropriations bills, giving us the upper hand in terms of both messaging and legislative leverage. Then, with little to no communication with our conference, Mike passed the first minibus on March 6, and passed the second minibus two weeks later, on March 22.
This was really a two-part omnibus, split into two minibuses, crammed down our throats, passed under suspension of the rules, breaking the 72-hour rule, giving us one day to read over a thousand pages, and tying our hands behind our backs by not allowing us to make any amendments. Rules? What rules? Remember the precious rules? Apparently, they no longer matter to Mike Johnson, even though he promised to abide by them and enforce them. Speaker Johnson’s omnibus did nothing to stop Biden’s deadly border invasionâit fully funded it. It did nothing to stop the energy-killing Green New Deal climate agendaâit fully funded it. It did nothing to stop the weaponized DOJ and FBIâit fully funded it. It did nothing to stop the trans agenda on kidsâit fully funded it. It did nothing to stop abortionâit fully funded FULL-TERM abortion clinics, and so much more. Here are some of the things funded by Mikeâs omnibus:
⢠$280,000 for Climate Change Abatement Research (p. 174, DOE Joint Explanatory
Statement [JES])
⢠$2.5 million for Energy Resilience for Disadvantaged Communities (p. 251, THUD JES)
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⢠$1 million for EV Infrastructure in Chicago (p. 61, THUD JES)
⢠$400,000 for an LGBT care center for minors (p. 129, LHHS JES)
⢠$400,000 for a group with a âGender Affirming Clothing Programâ for kids (p. 146, LHHS JES)
⢠$400,000 for an LGBT group that provides undergarments to transgender people that hide breasts and genitalia (p. 172, LHHS JES)
⢠$1.8 million for a hospital in Rhode Island that provides abortions up to 22 weeks (p. 145, LHHS JES)
⢠$650,000 for a hospital in New Hampshire that provides late-term abortions (p. 118, LHHS JES)
⢠$200 million for FBI headquarters (p. 230, Omnibus Part 2)
As a matter of fact, there is little daylight between Nancy Pelosi’s omnibus in the 117th Congress and Mike Johnson’s omnibus in the 118th Congress, in spite of Americans giving Republicans the
majority in order to stop the Democratsâ âAmerica Lastâ destructive agenda.
Some people are claiming weak excuses like, “this is just how you have to govern in a divided government.” However, in the 1990s, Republicans won the House under Democrat President Bill Clinton and a Democrat-controlled Senate. Under Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, the
Republican-controlled House fought for their agenda and was able to balance the budget, get conservative wins, and do the job that Republican voters sent them to do. This led to actually paying down the debt over several years by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Even with our razor-thin Republican majority, we could have at least secured the border, with it being the number one issue in the country and being the issue that is causing Biden to lose in poll after poll. This came on the heels of Laken Riley being brutally murdered, women and children being raped by illegal alien monsters, and our own Border Patrol and Texas National Guard being run over by hordes of military-aged illegals. Great legislation like H.R. 2 and the Laken Riley Act are only messaging bills unless we fight to enforce them in our government funding bills.
We could have also taken out funding for abortion and the trans agenda on kids if our own Speaker would have allowed us to offer amendments. We could have achieved other worthy victories if we had only put up a fight against Democrats.
Instead, Mike Johnson worked with Chuck Schumer rather than with us, and gave Joe Biden and the Democrats everything they wantedâno different from how a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries would have done. Speaker Johnson fully funded Special Counsel Jack Smith’s witch hunt and 91 indictments
against President Trump, our Republican Presidential nominee. If convicted, this would be a deathsentence for President Trump. A death sentence for President Trump is precisely what the Democrats
want. They want him dead, and our power of appropriations could have stopped it, but Speaker Johnson didn’t even try.
The weaponized DOJ is arresting a new January 6th election protestor every single day. Biden’s DOJ is putting nonviolent election protestors in jail for years. People who peacefully walked in the Capitol
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through open doors and then walked out are being thrown in jail for years. These are veterans, mothers, fathers, grandparentsâand none of them did anything like Antifa or BLM rioters did in 2020, but they are being grossly mistreated by Biden’s DOJ. Many of you clearly don’t care about these people, but most of your own voters do because they are disgusted and afraid of a politically
weaponized government against its own people.
And even more appallingly, our pro-life Christian conservative Republican Speaker Mike Johnson fully funded the DOJ as it is prosecuting nonviolent peaceful pro-life protestors who sang, prayed, and offered women help and alternatives to abortions. These pro-life protestors are facing 11 years in jail, and Speaker Johnson funded their prosecutions by fully funding the DOJ, again not allowing us to offer any amendments.
Like many of you, I ran for Congress to save our country from the destructive path it was on, but the primary reason I ran was because I was fed up with Republicans constantly promising what they would do to stop the Democrats, yet never following through on those promises. Actions are the only thing that matter, and words are meaningless without following through on them. The American people understand this, and they are not stupid. People work hard every day, solving problems, facing real life consequencesâsome climb out of debt, many go bankruptâand they get through life with nobody bailing them out. Yet somehow in Washington none of the same rules apply, and the American people are fed up with the hypocrisy.
I am too and I completely agree with the people.
That is why I will not tolerate our elected Republican Speaker Mike Johnson serving the Democrats and the Biden administration and helping them achieve their policies that are destroying our country. He is throwing our own razor-thin majority into chaos by not serving his own GOP conference that
elected him. Nothing says shooting within our own tent like a Republican Speaker of the House who makes his rank-and-file Members vote to fund full-term abortion in order to pay our military soldiers.
And no, electing a new Republican Speaker will not give the majority to the Democrats. That only happens if more Republicans retire early, or Republicans actually vote for Hakeem Jeffries. It’s not complicated, it’s simple math.
I am a team player. I support our conference and our majority. Unlike most Republicans, I have paid all of my NRCC dues and hundreds of thousands more. I want to keep the majority. I want to win it next time. I want the gavel that gives us full control of the House, its committees, subpoena power,
the ability to pass bills and stop bills, and appropriationsâthe power of the purse. I want President Trump to win and deliver a Republican-controlled White House and Republican-controlled Senate. I
know how important all of this is.
As our country approaches $35 trillion in debt, we add approximately $40 billion in debt every night as we sleep. In ten years, CBO projects our country to be $55 trillion in debt. This has driven inflation that has caused Americansâ grocery bills to rise by 40% since 2019 and is crushing our
constituents. Our border is overrun by unknown people coming into our country from over 160 countries from all over the world. Over ten million illegals have crossed our border since Biden took
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office. We all know the extreme national security risk we now face with an unknown number of terrorists and criminals inside our communities.
Now, as we come back into session, we will be voting on funding Ukraine with another $60 billion dollars. The last time we voted on Ukraine funding was September 28, 2023, and the majority of Republicans voted against giving Ukraine $300 million by 117-101 votes. Mike Johnson was one of
the NO votes. Recent polling shows that 70% of Americans want a peace deal in Ukraine, not to send them more of their hard-earned tax-dollars. Yet Mike Johnson is publicly saying funding Ukraine is
now his top priority when less than 7 months ago he was against it. The American people disagreeâthey believe our border is the only border worth fighting a war over, and I agree with them. Mike is also planning to bring a bill to reauthorize FISA to the House floor. We cannot allow the Biden regime to continue spying on hundreds of thousands of Americans illegally, and I hope Speaker
Johnson ensures any bill to reauthorize FISA includes a warrant requirement.
With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of Republican “leadership.” This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democratsâ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them
very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority. As a matter of fact, if we win the House this fall, it will only be because President Trump is on the ballot, not because we have earned it.
What is the future of our party and our country if Republicans continue to lay down and do nothing to stop the Democrats? No, the answer is not next time, or next appropriations, or next Congress.
There are no more excuses.
And if these actions by the leader of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican partyâwe are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction. I will neither
support nor take part in any of that, and neither will the people we represent.
Sincerely,
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Member of Congress
https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1777736229242470529