House passes rule making it harder to oust speaker

According to Fox News, the House of Representatives has taken on new rules that make it harder to trigger a vote to oust a speaker in the future.

House lawmakers voted 215-209 along party lines to set the chamber's rules for the 119th Congress.

One of the big changes was the decision to raise the threshold for calling a "motion to vacate the chair," which sets off a House-wide vote to depose the sitting speaker.

Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, had agreed to lower the threshold to just one person in order to convince holdouts to support him to clinch the speaker's gavel in January 2023 at the start of the 118th Congress.

Not only is the 119th Congress raising that number from one to nine, it is further amending the rule and making it so all nine members calling for a vote must come from the sitting majority party.

Democrats were NOT happy about the decision.

"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," Rep. Jim McGovern, a Republican from Massachusetts said.

He continued, "This makes it clear that they have no intention of working together to find common ground. Instead of electing a Speaker of the House, they have decided to elect a Speaker of the Republican Conference -- held hostage by their most extreme members."

After McCarthy was ousted by eight House Republicans and all House Democrats, Mike Johnson picked up the remainder of the term.

For the rest of the 118th Congress, "the one-vote threshold hung over Johnson like the sword of Damocles for over a year," according to Fox News.

Do you agree with the Republicans who made this change?

Or do you support the Democrats who oppose it?

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