The United States House of Representatives on Thursday voted 230-199 in favor of removing GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from her committee assignments. 

What You Need To Know

  • The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted 230-199 in favor of removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her assignments on the Budget panel and the Education and Labor Committee

  • The landmark vote came in the wake of numerous controversial statements Greene made before her time in Congress, several of which were unearthed or re-circulated online in the past several weeks

  • Earlier in the day, Greene said that she regrets some “words of the past,” but she did not explicitly apologize for her racist and violent rhetoric

  • Greene’s position on the education committee was of particular concern to House Democrats, as the lawmaker previously expressed support for conspiracy theories that claimed mass school shootings were hoaxes

Reps. Adam Kinzinger (IL-16), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11) and John Katko (NY-24) were among the 11 Republicans to vote in favor of the resolution.

The approved resolution, which was originally put forward by Florida Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, effectively removes Greene from her previously assigned positions on the Budget panel and the Education and Labor Committee.

The landmark vote came in the wake of numerous controversial statements Greene made before her time in Congress, several of which were unearthed or re-circulated online in the past several weeks. 

Greene’s position on the education committee was of particular concern to House Democrats, as the lawmaker previously expressed support for conspiracy theories that claimed mass school shootings — such as the ones that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida or Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut — were hoaxes. 

One widely circulated video from 2019 shows Greene harassing Parkland survivor David Hogg at the U.S. Capitol, accusing him of “trying to take away my Second Amendment rights.”

“He has nothing to say because he’s paid to do this,” Greene said after Hogg ignored her. “He’s a coward. He can’t say one word.”

She made similar remarks after a gunman opened fire from a Las Vegas hotel room in 2017, killing 58 people at an outdoor music festival, which she suggested was a secret plot to build support for gun control legislation.

“I don’t believe (gunman Stephen Paddock) pulled this off all by himself, and I know most of you don’t either,” Greene said in a video. “What’s the best way to control the people? You have to take away their guns.”

Greene also once suggested in an online video that Pelosi could be executed for treason.

“She’s a traitor to our country, she’s guilty of treason,” Greene says in the video, which CNN first reported. “And it’s, uh, it’s a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.”

She also “liked” a January 2019 Facebook post that called for “a bullet to the head” of Pelosi.

The decision to remove Green from her committee assignments highlighted the growing divide in the Republican party, with GOP lawmakers struggling over whether to embrace the relics of Donald Trump’s norm-busting divisiveness or stick with the party’s more traditional, policy-oriented conservative values.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) decried the vote from the House floor on Thursday afternoon, saying his offers to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to “lower the temperature” were ignored. 

“You may regret this a lot sooner than you think,” McCarthy said ahead of the vote, echoing a quote from Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) from 2013 about Democrats subverting the filibuster. “In the end, this resolution is merely a distraction from the real issues.”

Earlier in the day, Greene said that she regrets some “words of the past,” but she did not explicitly apologize for her racist and violent rhetoric.

Alternating between contrition and defiance, the newly elected Georgia Republican asserted in a House speech that she was “a very regular American” who posted conspiracy theories from QAnon and other sources before she began campaigning for Congress, but that those views did not represent her own.

She also looked to shift blame while falsely equating her own endorsement of violence against Democrats with those in the party who supported racial justice protests over the summer, which sometimes turned violent.

She pronounced the media “just as guilty as QAnon of presenting truth and lies.” QAnon’s core theory embraces the lie that Democrats are tied to a global sex trafficking ring that also involves Satanism and cannibalism.

"This is what I ran for Congress on," she said on the House floor. "I never once said during my entire campaign QAnon. I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today during my campaign. I never said any of these things since I have been elected for Congress. These were words of the past. And these things do not represent me. They do not represent my district. And they do not represent my values."

“School shootings are absolutely real," Greene added, claiming: "I truly believe that children at school should never be left unprotected."

With her removal from committee assignments, Green joins a small group of representatives who have been kicked off of committee assignments for something other than alleged criminal activity. 

Most recently, former Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was stripped of all his committee assignments by his own party’s House leadership after expressing support for white supremacists in 2019. National GOP groups shunned King in the party’s Iowa primary and he was defeated, but he steadfastly maintained that he was adhering to his constituents' beliefs more than most of the rest of his party.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.