Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has a lot of free time since she was booted from her committee assignments last month. And she’s spending it trying to slow down inevitable legislation she doesn’t agree with.
Videos by VICE
On Wednesday, the Georgia freshman Republican made a motion to adjourn for the day, a tactical procedure she’s deployed at least four times in recent weeks in an attempt to slow down the House’s agenda, this time delaying the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package on its way to passage Wednesday.
And despite growing frustration from some members of her party, Republican House leadership continues to turn the other cheek.
Speaking on the House floor Thursday, Greene—who lost her committee assignments after Facebook posts surfaced in which she endorsed violence against high-profile politicians such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—said the COVID relief bill would “enslave the American people” in debt and called the bill “a waste of money and a complete waste of time.”
She then asked for a motion to adjourn, which failed, and then a roll call vote on the motion to adjourn, which forces members to drop everything they’re doing, including committee meetings, and return to the House floor to vote on whether to adjourn. That process can take an hour or so per bill.
The motion failed—as it always will, since Democrats control the House —and the bill is set to pass the House today, before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
Forty House Republicans also went on the record against Greene’s motion to adjourn. Last month, for example, Greene made a motion to adjourn in order to stop the passage of the Equality Act, which would codify protections for LGBTQ people into law.
“You could just vote ‘no’ instead of trying to get out of work early,” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at Greene after she made the motion last month.
But it’s not just high-profile Democratic priorities Greene is trying to mess with. Apparently even non-controversial bills that are usually taken up through unanimous consent or a voice vote are fair game to slow down the House. Greene had planned to stop more than a dozen such bills earlier this week, which forced House Democratic leadership to scramble and reschedule the vote, CNN reported Monday.
“It’s frustrating,” Rep. Fred Upton, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump in January, told CNN. “I don’t see that this is resonating at home, the motions to adjourn. I mean it’s just a pain. It’s a pain in the ass.”
Greene blasted the criticism last week. “Some GOP members complained to me that I messed up their schedule,” she said in a tweet. “I’m not sorry for interrupting fundraising calls & breakfast.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hasn’t publicly commented on Greene’s obstruction tactics, but a clear majority of Greene’s fellow GOP members continue to back the motions. “It’s time to make some changes, and until those changes start taking place we’ll continue doing what we’re doing,” Rep. Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican, told CNN.
Rep. Jim Jordan, a fellow member of the Freedom Caucus, blamed the Democrats for stripping Greene of her committee assignments and said this was all their fault.
“The Democrats are the ones who created that situation and that’s ridiculous what they did. It’s wrong what they did and now they’re all upset that Marjorie’s asking them to do their job. I don’t have a problem with it,” Jordan told the Washington Post. “I walked on the floor when she made a motion to adjourn and I said, ‘Marjorie, you’re doing your committee work.’”
