House GOP Unveils Plan To Protect Speaker From Ouster Threat During New Congress

House Republicans will make it more difficult to oust the speaker for the 119th Congress, according to a rules package released Wednesday.

The Republicans’ proposed rules package prevents House Democrats from introducing a motion to vacate the speaker and raises the minimum number of Republicans required to prompt a vote on the speaker’s ouster to nine GOP members. The current rules for the 118th Congress allow any member of the House to trigger a vote to oust the speaker.

The proposed threshold of nine GOP members to trigger a vote to remove the speaker is notably one member higher than the eight House Republicans that voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October 2023. Four of these congressmen, Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Ken Buck of Colorado and Matt Rosendale of Montana, are not serving in the 119th Congress.

The House must vote on a speaker for the 119th Congress before the legislative body can consider any order of business, including consideration of the rules package unveiled Wednesday.

The House is scheduled to hold a speaker vote Friday with Speaker Mike Johnson seeking another term in the role. Given House Republicans’ unprecedented small margins, Johnson can afford to lose just one vote, assuming all GOP members are in attendance and every Democratic representative votes for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie has committed to voting for another GOP member besides Johnson and several House Republicans, including Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Harris of Maryland, Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Andy Biggs of Arizona are undecided on the speaker vote.

The rules package also sets up 12 bills for consideration, including legislation that would prohibit a ban on fracking, require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and to amend the definition of sex to be “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth” for title IX purposes.

Several conservative House Republicans criticized the rules package for triggering a vote on a bill to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) for efforts to “investigate, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies,” citing their beliefs that House GOP leadership has misplaced priorities for the start of the upcoming Congress.

“But how did a bill to protect Netanyahu make it into the House rules package to be voted on immediately after the Speaker vote,” Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, wrote on X Wednesday. “Where are our priorities?!”

The United States is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November. House Republicans have sharply criticized the ICC’s move to arrest Netanyahu over Israel’s war against Hamas and passed a resolution in June to impose sanctions on the court if it sought to prosecute the United States or its allies. The Senate, under Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership, did not take up the legislation.

House Democrats also slammed the proposed House rules for prohibiting Democratic members from introducing a motion to vacate the speaker, which could force House GOP leadership to solely depend upon Republicans to pass the rules package.

“Most alarmingly, Republicans are totally destroying the role of Speaker of the House by injecting partisan extremism into the rules,” Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, ranking member of the House Rules Committee, wrote in a statement Wednesday following the release of the rules package. “Their proposed changes would, for the first time in American history, shield the Speaker from accountability to the entire chamber by making it so that only Republicans can move to oust the speaker. This makes it clear that they have no intention of working together to find common ground.”

“The American people did not vote for whatever the hell this is—and you better believe that Democrats will not let Republicans turn the House of Representatives into a rubber stamp for their extremist policies,” McGovern added.

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