By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Thursday on punishing a congresswoman who supported violence against Democrats, a showdown that forces her fellow Republicans to take a public stand on whether to show party unity and back Marjorie Taylor Greene despite her various incendiary remarks.
The House vote is on a Democratic-backed resolution that would strip Greene, a first-term lawmaker from Georgia who is an ally of former President Donald Trump, of two high-profile committee assignments. The vote in the Democratic-led chamber comes a day after House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy opted not to reprimand Greene.
Greene has voiced support for an array of unfounded conspiracy theories including the “QAnon” one that holds that elite Democrats are part of a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles and cannibals. According to CNN, before being elected Greene voiced support online for executing prominent Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Green also has embraced Trump’s false claim that he won last year’s election, claimed that deadly U.S. school shootings were staged events, suggested a space laser was used to deliberately start a California wildfire and questioned whether a plane struck the Pentagon in the 2001 attacks on the United States.
She took office last month.
The vote poses a test of unity for the 211 House Republicans in the 435-seat chamber. The House Republican caucus on Wednesday reached an uneasy truce that allowed Greene to go unpunished, and also turned back a bid to oust establishment Republican Liz Cheney from the party’s House leadership over her Jan. 13 vote to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection before a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.
There has been an acrimonious political atmosphere in Congress following that rampage, when some Trump supporters threatened to kill Democratic members of Congress, including Pelosi, as well as Republican former Vice President Mike Pence.
The attack and the ensuing impeachment of Trump has split House Republicans.
Greene, 46, on Wednesday apologized for her past comments at a private Republican caucus meeting, according to Republicans in the room. She also received a standing ovation from some House members, according to media reports.
Her Republican critics said they expect more.
“The issue isn’t apologizing to us … it’s going out into the public and saying that in the public sphere,” Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger told MSNBC on Thursday.
“We need courage. We need people that are willing to stand up in public and say what may be difficult to say … which is things like QAnon isn’t real or there’s no Jewish space lasers, and Marjorie Taylor Greene should publicly renounce that.”
Other Republicans have said that voters, not lawmakers, should decide whether to punish her for those remarks.
In a 145-61 vote on Wednesday, Republicans chose not to strip Cheney of her position as the No. 3 House Republican.
In 2019, Republican congressman Steve King was stripped of his House committee assignments after he questioned during a media interview why white supremacy is considered offensive. King is now out of office, having been defeated in a Republican primary election last year.
(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)
