ATLANTA — The U.S. House stripped Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments Thursday afternoon.
Greene, a freshman member from Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, has a long record of making incendiary remarks ranging from allegedly supporting violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats, to spreading baseless claims that mass school shootings were staged.
The final vote tally was: 230-199. There were 11 Republicans who voted in support of the resolution: Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, John Katko of New York, Nicole Malliotakis of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan, Carlos Gimenez of Florida, Rep. Chris Jacobs of New York, Young Kim of California, Maria Salazar of Florida, Chris Smith of New Jersey, and Mario Diaz Balart of Florida.
Back in her district in Georgia, District 14 Chairman Darrell Galloway said the move will come back to haunt Democrats.
Greene sat on the House Education and Labor, and Budget Committees.
“I think they will rue this day for many, many years to come,” Galloway said.
He told Channel 2′s Matt Johnson that Greene has never been more popular than she is right now.
“She won with 75% of the vote on November. And I would say if she actually ran today, she would probably be 85% or higher,” Galloway said.
Earlier in the day, Greene spoke on the House floor, stepping back from her previous statements, and even revealing she experienced a school shooting incident herself.
“You see, school shootings are absolutely real. And every child that is lost, those families mourn it,” Greene said. “I understand how terrible it is, because when I was 16 years old in 11th grade, my school was a gun-free school zone, and one of my schoolmates brought a gun to school and took our entire school hostage.”
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Greene is referring to an incident that happened at South Forsyth High School in 1990, in which an armed sophomore held nine classmates hostage for hours before surrendering. Randy Floyd Addis, 17, brought a semiautomatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol to the school and fired over students’ heads, holding about 40 at gunpoint before releasing some and taking the rest hostage.
Addis eventually surrendered after getting dizzy. He was charged as an adult with kidnapping and weapons violations.
Greene said she loves kids and believes that they should never be left unprotected. Greene has been a proponent of Republicans calls for “good guys with guns” to protect schools and said she believes the National Guard should be deployed at schools.
Greene said she loves God and is “grateful and humbled to be reminded I’m a sinner and that Jesus died on the cross to forgive me for my sins.”
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In her remarks, Green also explained how she came to follow conspiracy theory QAnon, which she says she stopped following in 2019.
“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true,” Greene said. “And I would ask questions about them and talk about them. And that’s absolutely what I regret. Because if it weren’t for the Facebook posts and comments I liked in 2018, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
Greene said she was never interested in politics until she found a candidate she liked, Donald Trump.
“He was someone I could relate to, someone that I enjoyed his plain talk, not the offensive things, but just the way he talked normally,” Greene said. “And I thought maybe finally this was someone that would do something about the things that deeply bother me.
Experts say Greene’s confrontation of Parkland High School survivors and her comments about the Sandy Hook shooting posed the biggest issues.
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“I think it’s that combination of being on the education committee, and yet to have these horrific events that have taken place at public schools. She apparently doesn’t believe them, or doesn’t believe they’re as bad as most people would think,” said University of Georgia professor Charles Bullock.
Greene tweeted she was able to raise $175,000 in the day before the House vote.
Her supporters say they don’t expect her popularity at home or within the party to go anywhere.
“They have now, given her a national platform that I would say, she will take full advantage of. And I think it’s going to come back and bite them,” Galloway said.
Greene tweeted that she will be holding a news conference on Friday at 11 a.m.
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