Politics|Democrats Announce That They Will Rescue Johnson if He Faces Ouster Vote
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Democrats Announce That They Will Rescue Johnson if He Faces Ouster Vote
Party leaders said their members would join an effort to table any attempt to remove the Republican speaker after he allowed House passage of military aid to Ukraine.
Speaker Mike Johnson has faced the prospect of his ouster since moving to pass aid to Ukraine through the House earlier this month.Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesHouse Democrats said on Tuesday that they would join with the G.O.P. to kill an effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson if far-right House Republicans forced a vote to remove him from his post after he allowed a foreign aid package including assistance to Ukraine to be approved.
In a joint statement after a closed-door party meeting, the three top Democrats said they would side with Republicans supportive of Mr. Johnson and vote to table any motion to vacate him from the speaker’s chair, blocking it from coming up.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, has filed such a measure and threatened to call a snap vote on it, a threat she renewed on Tuesday after Democrats made clear their intentions.
“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement. “If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”
The statement was issued by Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader; Representative Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat; and Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the chairman of the Democratic caucus.
Mr. Jeffries had indicated earlier that Democrats were likely to come to Mr. Johnson’s aid if he put the foreign aid package on the floor and allowed a bipartisan coalition to support it despite opposition from many on the far right. When Republicans took steps to push Kevin McCarthy from the speakership last year, Democrats joined in the vote to remove him, resulting in Mr. McCarthy’s ouster.
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