Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s 14th Congressional District Representative, has caused so much controversy that some House Democrats, after stripping her of her committee assignments last week, wish to also see her expelled from Congress entirely.
Greene is commonly known as an unapologetic subscriber of QAnon conspiracy theories. These include the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School being staged (where she went a step further to call student survivor David Hogg a coward), September 11 being an inside job, and Former President Donald Trump being at war with Democrats and celebrities who abuse children. Additionally, she demonstrated her support of hanging Former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and gave a recorded speech detailing how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserved to be executed for treason. Politico revealed past clips of Greene being racist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic in her expressed beliefs that Black people are slaves to the Democratic Party and that they should be proud of a Confederate movement, Muslims have no place in the government, and that Jewish Democratic donor George Soros is a Nazi.
She has also had appalling responses to current events. Greene states her belief that white supremacists had nothing to do with the insurrection since white people died during the attack on the Capitol, a claim refuted by the FBI. She also claims President Joe Biden’s election was stolen from Trump, claiming without evidence that both Georgia and Pennsylvania voted fraudulently. She goes a step further to claim the Senate elections, too, were stolen. Various election officials have stated that their investigations into claims of election fraud found no significant such occurrences. Though all of these conspiracies have all been disproven by experts in their fields, Greene continues to perpetuate them.
In light of these comments, actions, and attitudes, House Democrats are calling for either her removal or resignation from Congress. Representative Jimmy Gomez of California announced that he will be introducing a resolution to expel Greene from Congress on a yet-undisclosed date. In a statement given on January 27, Gomez says of Greene:
Her very presence in office represents a direct threat against the elected officials and staff who serve our government, and it is with their safety in mind, as well as the security of institutions and public servants across our country, that I call on my House colleagues to support my resolution to immediately remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from this legislative body.
Many other House representatives have stepped forward in support of this resolution, including Missouri Representative Cori Bush, who feels so unsafe after repeated harassment against her that she was forced to relocate her office away from Greene’s.
I am in agreement with Representative Jimmy Gomez and supporters of his resolution to expel Marjorie Taylor Greene that her conduct is so unacceptable of an elected official that to not remove her from Congress presents a danger to both our elected representatives and the American people. As we have seen during the January 6 attack on the Capitol, incitement of violence by lawmakers has the potential to move scores of people to committing real harm. Marjorie Taylor Greene has engaged in similar incitements of violence against lawmakers, posing in a photo with an AR-15 in front of images of House members Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib. It is not only morally reprehensible that a sitting member of Congress expresses her support for the hanging of a former US President and Secretary of State, the execution of the current Speaker of the House, and the shooting of her House colleagues, but it also presents the national security issue that her supporters or even foreign actors may actually carry out her violent rhetoric.
Additionally, her obsession with unfounded conspiracy theories makes the general public distrustful of the very people who are supposed to protect them. We should not mince words: statements which have been repeatedly disproven as false are lies. If we cannot trust that our lawmakers are telling us the truth, the public’s faith in our democracy will erode.
Greene’s expressed racist sentiments and perpetual insults of her colleagues are unbecoming of a lawmaker, and have gone as far as to make other members of Congress uncomfortable, as evidenced by the relocation of Cori Bush’s office. Harassment and hate speech of this severity would be punishable by termination at any other job of lesser pay and responsibility, and should be as such in Congress.
If the House resolution to be introduced by Representative Jimmy Gomez receives a ⅔ majority vote, Marjorie Taylor Greene can and should be removed from Congress.
