By LISA MASCARO, FARNOUSH AMIRI and STEPHEN GROVES
WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson is at risk of being ousted after hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate Friday, his leadership abruptly challenged in the middle of a House vote on a $1.2 trillion package to keep the government open.
It’s the same political dynamic that removed the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, just five months ago when far-right conservatives revolted over his compromise with Democrats to prevent a federal shutdown. But this one faces steeper odds, with less public GOP support, at the moment.
As the House left town for a two-week spring recess, with no imminent vote scheduled on removing the speaker, the punishing threat hangs over Johnson, of Louisiana, as the far-right flank once again seizes on the tactic, a disruptive tool used to make demands and leverage their own priorities.
“We’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker,” the Georgia congresswoman said on the Capitol steps.
Greene, a leading ally of the Republicans’ presumed 2024 presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, declined to put a timetable on her next move, but said she was issuing a “warning” to Johnson for the weeks ahead.
Whether the Republicans march forward with plans to be rid of another House speaker, the upshot is clear: The House GOP is operating as a majority in name only, the speaker unable to deliver Republican votes, particularly on the core issue of government funding, and forced into what used to be acceptable compromises with Democrats.
Time and again, it is Democrats in this session of Congress who have delivered the tally needed to carry on with the basics of governing — as seen in Friday’s 286-134 vote to prevent a midnight shutdown. More than half the House Republicans voted no.
While conservative Republicans routinely demand steep spending cuts, willing to shut down government to make changes, their own…
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