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Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) Twitter account was muted/suspended for 12 hours after she allegedly broke the social platform’s rules.
Greene’s suspension comes amid an impeachment motion against her signed by 73 Democrats. This is not the first time Twitter has momentarily silenced the Republican.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) is scheduled to introduce a resolution this Friday to oust Greene. The Republican last month was expelled from committees for making “offensive comments in the past, including social media posts promoting conspiracy theories,” CNBC reported.
That resolution is supported by 72 other House Democrats, a number that represents nearly one-third of the blue caucus.
“A screenshot of Greene’s Twitter account says “we have temporarily limited some of the functions of his account” and notes that he was still able to browse Twitter, but was banned from tweeting, retweeting or liking posts,” the New York Post reported.
Greene’s office strongly criticized Twitter for the 12-hour silence, explaining that the Republican’s account was censored “without any information from Twitter about the alleged ‘rape.'”
“This move eliminated any chance for Congresswoman Greene to defend her reputation, her seat, and more importantly, the votes of 230,000 Georgians in the 14th District on the Twitter platform,” explained from Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office. “This is yet another attempt by the Silicon Valley cartel to silence voices speaking out against their far-left woke orthodoxy.”
The impeachment motion will be supported by more radical Democrats, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), but to be successful it needs to be backed by more moderate Democrats and convince many Republicans, as a two-thirds majority of the House is needed for Marjorie Taylor Greene to be impeached.
Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), John Katko (R-N.Y.), Young Kim (R-Calif.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill. ), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.), Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), Chris Smith (R- N.J.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich. ) were the 11 Republicans who voted to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from their committees, but voting to remove a colleague from a committee is not the same as voting her out of her seat, so even these 11 votes are not safe for Democratic bills.
Not the only one
Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t the only Republican representative who will undergo a process that may end with her removal. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) could also find herself in a similar situation, but for different circumstances.
Miller-Meeks won her election by 6 votes over Democrat Rita Hart, flipping a seat from blue to red, but the Democrats refuse to accept the Republican’s victory and are therefore trying to “out” Meeks to win another seat in the Lower House.
The Democrats, confirmed by House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, will seek to challenge the election in the House of Representatives. Democrat Hart, having the legal right to do so, turned to the House Administration Committee to investigate the whole situation.
“Under the Constitution of the United States, each House of Congress has the express authority to be the judge of the “elections and results” of its own Members (Article I, Section 5, Clause 1),” says the regulations for the “Procedures for Cases Challenging Elections in the House of Representatives.”
“Although initial challenges and recounts for the House are conducted at the state level, by virtue of the State’s authority to administer federal elections (Article I, Section 4, cl. 1), continuing challenges may be brought to the House, which, as the final arbiter, may make a conclusive decision on the claim to the seat.”
While the case is constitutional, the situation is unusual and may even represent an abuse of power, for this very reason, criticism rests on the shoulders of Pelosi and the Democrats, as they are attempting to flip a seat that was rightfully won by a Republican representative.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) criticized the Democrat’s double standard: “Speaker Pelosi says she’s open to unseat Republican Congresswoman Miller-Meeks. Translation: you’re only allowed to object an election if you’re a Democrat.”
Never in history has such a process been conducted after a representative was sworn in (Rep. Miller-Meeks’ case). Therefore, some analysts say that the Democratic moves in the Lower House are due to the fact that the blue caucus needs a larger majority to pass bills more easily.
It is worth remembering that the Democrats will lose a seat after the confirmation that Deb Haaland will serve as Secretary of the Interior.
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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