House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the House Republican Conference had a simple choice. They could side with democracy and common decency, or they could embrace racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant, hate, violence, and the untethered conspiracy theories spewed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). McCarthy and his cohorts should have been voting to expel Rep. Greene from Congress altogether, but instead they refused to even strip her of her committee assignments as the conference once did with former Rep. Steve King (R-IA) for similar reprehensible behavior.

Sadly, this does not come as a complete surprise after McCarthy and a sizable majority of his conference voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election just hours after violent insurrectionists, incited by then-President Trump’s lies about the election, stormed the United States Capitol. House Republicans cast their votes against certifying the election based on nothing but completely discredited conspiracy theories about voting irregularities in predominantly Black and Brown communities that were thrown out by judges across the country – including a string of judges appointed by the Trump administration.

Rep. Greene has no business sitting in the United States Congress. She is a danger to democracy, and a danger to other members of Congress. In recent years, she has indicated support for executing prominent Democrats, and for weeks her lies about the election helped stoke the fires that eventually left five people dead at the United States Capitol.

The refusal by the House GOP leadership, and a shocking majority of the House Republican Conference, to hold Greene accountable is regrettably the continuation of a trend that has flourished under McCarthy’s leadership. The GOP conference under McCarthy has condoned racism and violence and shown its willingness to undermine our democracy by continuing to spread lies about any election in which their candidates do not prevail.

We urge the full House to immediately strip Rep. Greene of her committee assignments until a two-thirds majority can be mustered to expel her from Congress altogether.