House Votes to Make It Harder to Remove Speaker in Approving New Rules

A rules package that will make it harder to remove the House speaker was passed in the chamber along party lines on Jan. 3. The 215–209 vote happened hours after Republicans handed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) the gavel, entrusting him with steering the party’s historically narrow majority. Under the rules of the previous Congress, a single member of either party could force a vote on a motion to vacate the speaker. The new policy not only increases that threshold to nine members, but also stipulates that those members must be from the majority party. “A vote for these rules means that only Republicans have the ability to call for the removal of a speaker,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said on the House floor....