March-May 2024 Speaker's Motion Thread

(The Guardian) Fisa reauthorization passes in House
The House’s vote to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Service Act has passed.

Following days of Republican infighting that has put House Republican speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership in a precarious position, FISA passed with a vote of 273 yays and 147 nays in the Republican-led chamber. The vote marks a win for Johnson who has come under fire from hard-right Republicans including Georgia’s representative Marjorie Taylor Greene over his support for FISA. Greene, who is opposed to FISA, has repeatedly threatened to oust Johnson as he has “not lived up to a single one of his self-imposed tenets.”

With the vote’s passage, the reauthorization of FISA, specifically its amendments to section 702, allows for intelligence officials to expand their warrantless surveillance on electronic communications between Americans and foreigners abroad.

Despite intelligence officials including FBI director Christopher Wray arguing that a warrant requirement would “blind ourselves to intelligence in our holdings,” civil rights organizations such as the ACLU has criticized the legislation. “Given our nation’s history of abusing its surveillance authorities, and the secrecy surrounding the program, we should be concerned that section 702 is and will be used to disproportionately target disfavored groups, whether minority communities, political activists, or even journalists,” it said.

The bill is now en route to the Senate.

(The Guardian) House conservatives who had blocked the Fisa bill earlier this week amid a push from Donald Trump allowed it to move forward on Friday after striking a deal with the speaker, Mike Johnson.

Under the agreement, the new version of the bill would be a two-year reauthorization of section 702 of Fisa, cut down from the original proposed five years.

This would mean that if Trump won the presidential election this year, the legislation would be up in time for Trump to overhaul Fisa laws next time around.

The far-right Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, speaking to CNN earlier today, said: We just bought President Trump an at bat. The previous version of this bill would have kicked reauthorization beyond the Trump presidency. Now President Trump gets an at bat to fix the system that victimized him more than any other American.

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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or Fisa, which gives the government expansive powers to view emails, calls and texts, has long been divisive and resulted in allegations from civil liberties groups that it violates privacy rights.

Section 702 has faced opposition before, but it became especially fraught in the past year after court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly used it almost 300,000 times – targeting racial justice protesters, January 6 suspects and others. That overreach emboldened resistance to the law, especially among far-right Republicans who view intelligence services like the FBI as their opponent.

Debate over Section 702 pitted Republicans who alleged that the law was a tool for spying on American citizens against others in the GOP who sided with intelligence officials and deemed it a necessary measure to stop foreign terrorist groups.

One proposed amendment called for requiring authorities to secure a warrant before using section 702 to view US citizens’ communications, an idea that intelligence officials oppose as limiting their ability to act quickly.

Another sticking point in the debate was whether law enforcement should be prohibited from buying information on American citizens from data broker firms, which amass and sell personal data on tens of millions of people, including phone numbers and email addresses.

(The Guardian) At a press conference on Tuesday, House speaker Mike Johnson remained defiant that he would not resign and accused his critics of undermining Republicans’ legislative priorities. “I am not resigning, and it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said.

It is not helpful to the cause. It is not helpful to the country. It does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda.

Congressman Thomas Massie’s announcement comes one day after Johnson unveiled a plan to advance a series of foreign aid bills through the House, following months of inaction on the issue. In February, the Senate passed a $95bn foreign aid package, which included funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian efforts.

Johnson proposed splitting up the package into four separate bills with some notable changes, such as cutting the humanitarian aid included in the Senate proposal and sending money to Ukraine as a loan. The speaker plans to hold separate votes on the bills and then combine them into one package to simplify the voting process for the Senate, which will need to reapprove the proposal.

The plan won some tepid praise from many members of the House Republican conference, but the plan to bundle the bills into one larger funding package sparked frustration among hard-right Republicans. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had already indicated she might force a vote on the motion to vacate over the issue of Ukraine funding, said she would not support Johnson’s plan and echoed Massie’s suggestion that the speaker should resign.

(The Guardian) House Democratic leaders announce opposition to attempt to remove Johnson as speaker
The top House Democrats, including minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, say they will oppose any attempt by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and other rightwing Republicans to remove Mike Johnson as the chamber’s speaker.

Last month, Greene filed a motion to oust fellow Republican Johnson from his position as speaker of the House, citing his collaboration with Democrats to pass a government spending bill. In the weeks since, Johnson again worked with the House minority to approve legislation authorizing military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and reauthorize a controversial surveillance law. Greene, meanwhile, has picked up only two other co-sponsors to her motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, and it was unclear if she would continue with her campaign.

“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,” writes Jeffries along with Democratic whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar. “We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”

Their position was a reversal from October, when all Democrats joined with eight Republican insurgents to vote for Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker – leading to Johnson’s ascension after weeks of GOP infighting.

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The pledge by House Democratic leaders to save Mike Johnson’s speakerships caps a week of whiplash for the conservative, who won plaudits on the left for allowing a vote on Ukraine aid, then pivoted to insinuating that anti-Israel protests on college campuses were “backed” by Hamas. The Guardian’s David Smith has a recap of the wild few days Johnson has had:

Democrat Nancy Pelosi cited his “integrity” and described him as “courageous”. Republican Michael McCaul called him a “profile in courage”. CNN hailed him as “an unlikely Churchill”.

Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, began the week showered in plaudits for leading the House in approving $95bn in urgently needed wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies.

It was widely noted that Johnson had done his homework, changed his mind, prayed for guidance and risked his job by facing down far-right extremists in his own party including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had threatened to oust him if he helped Ukraine. But the chorus of praise-singers echoed past renditions when the likes of William Barr, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney were valorised for doing the bare minimum by denouncing the serial liar and election denier Donald Trump. (Barr, incidentally, now says he will support Trump in November.) That is how low the bar is now set.

(The Guardian) Marjorie Taylor Greene to announce next move after Democrats intervene to protect speaker Mike Johnson
We’re kicking the day off with a press conference from far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who yesterday suffered a serious setback in her campaign to remove Mike Johnson as speaker of the House. The chamber’s top Democrats announced that they would oppose Greene’s effort, a reversal from just a few months ago, when the party was more than happy to lend its votes to the GOP insurgency that booted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s chair. But even before Democrats moved to protect Johnson – a staunch conservative who has lately worked with the minority party to pass bills dealing with foreign aid, government spending and a controversial surveillance law – Greene only had two known co-signers of her motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, which isn’t much. She yesterday accused Johnson of making a “slimy back room deal” for Democratic support, and hinted she might put her motion up for a vote anyway. The speaker, meanwhile, has said little about the drama.

Greene’s press conference is scheduled for 9am ET outside the Capitol, and the Georgia lawmaker will be joined by Thomas Massie, one of her two colleagues supporting the effort.

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Far-right lawmakers accuse Johnson of belonging to 'uniparty'
In the below tweet, Thomas Massie, one of two other House representatives known to be backing Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate, accuses speaker Mike Johnson of belonging to the “uniparty”.

Uniparty is a term that has become popular on the far right to describe Republicans working with Democrats – the allegation being that the two parties are essentially the same. Lawmakers like Massie would prefer that Johnson hold fast and reject compromises with Democrats, like the foreign aid bill that funded Ukraine’s defense, or the government funding legislation enacted in March that Greene seized on to begin her push to remove Johnson as speaker.

Of course, there would have been consequences to holding up those two bills that could have harmed the GOP overall. If the government funding bills did not pass, Washington would have shut down, while if Ukraine did not receive more support, Russia could have made further battlefield gains. That could blow back on Republicans, particularly lawmakers in vulnerable seats – a group that does not include Greene or Massie.

Massie goes on to accuse Johnson of receiving the endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader.