As lawmakers return to Washington, they face a looming threat: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s potential push to force a vote on her motion to vacate the Speaker’s position, which could once again plunge the House of Representatives into a chaotic, leaderless state. While Greene’s desire to oust Speaker Mike Johnson stems from frustration over a Republican majority not fully embracing her hard-line positions, the real puzzle lies in why the House’s rules make it so easy for such a reckless threat to succeed.
The solution? A simple yet impactful change to the House’s internal rules. Instead of eliminating the motion to vacate, lawmakers should revise it to ensure that any effort to remove the speaker also includes a designated replacement. This would prevent a situation like last year, when a faction of Republicans and Democrats united to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy but failed to agree on a successor, leaving the House leaderless for weeks. With this change, any effort to vacate the speaker’s chair would require a clear successor to step in, ensuring that the House is never left without a leader.
The good news is that this change is constitutionally straightforward. The House controls its own rules, and a vote could be held at any time to implement the change. Speaker Johnson has already signaled that the motion to vacate will be addressed after the 2024 election, but there’s no reason to wait until the next session.
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time the motion to vacate has been used this way. Under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the motion could only be brought by a majority of the party. The current rule, allowing any member to bring the motion, was introduced as part of a compromise to secure Kevin McCarthy’s speakership in January 2023, as he faced resistance from far-right Republicans.
Under the proposed rule change, any member could still initiate a motion to vacate, but only if they also propose a replacement. This keeps the threshold for initiating the motion the same but introduces safeguards to prevent destabilizing the House. Even Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy, has suggested a similar idea: removing a speaker only if there is unanimous agreement on a replacement.
In the current divided political environment, a rule change like this could gain support from both sides of the aisle. Democrats, in particular, would likely benefit from a more stable legislative environment, where their policy priorities might have a better chance of success. Speaker Johnson, for his part, would be in a stronger position if his leadership were secured, especially given that he’s been targeted by Greene and other far-right Republicans for advancing bipartisan spending legislation and considering aid to Ukraine.
Why does the House seem so dysfunctional under GOP rule? It’s a symptom of deeper issues within the two-party system. Currently, the House operates on a system that assumes a clear-cut majority and minority, with Republicans picking the speaker when they have control. In practice, however, the governing majority on many crucial issues—particularly funding legislation—has been a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans. This divergence between procedural majorities and actual governing majorities has led to gridlock and confusion.
The dysfunction is especially glaring in a multi-faction government like the current House, where various Republican factions—moderates, conservatives, and far-right members—often disagree on fundamental issues. The current rules of the House, designed for a top-down two-party system, struggle to accommodate this more complex political reality. This creates frustration and chaos, as even a small group of dissenters can bring the entire chamber to a halt.
This is a perfect example of how the rules of the House must evolve to reflect today’s political dynamics. The U.S. could benefit from adopting a more flexible approach, one that embraces the reality of coalition governance, which is commonplace in many parliamentary democracies around the world. In countries like Germany and Spain, a similar “constructive” vote of no confidence exists, ensuring that any motion to dissolve a government or remove a leader also includes a clear plan for replacement. This system helps maintain stability and ensures that a leadership vacuum doesn’t paralyze the government.
Adapting House rules to make the motion to vacate more constructive would be a logical and practical step forward. The House has a long history of evolving its rules to accommodate shifting political realities, and this change would simply be the latest chapter in that tradition. By ensuring that any effort to depose the speaker also provides for a replacement, lawmakers can prevent the kind of chaos that we’ve seen in recent months and create a more functional, stable Congress.
Reforming the motion to vacate wouldn’t just prevent disasters; it would help the House run more smoothly and allow lawmakers to focus on actually governing. Given the stakes, it’s a reform that Congress should pursue—before another crisis forces its hand.
