House Republicans will be forced to go on record on Thursday over the conduct of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, with Democrats scheduling a vote over whether to strip the freshman lawmaker of her committee assignments.
The vote presents the latest fork in the road for Republicans as they try to navigate the aftermath of former President Donald J. Trump’s re-election defeat and grapple with the future of their party.
It will take place at a particularly fraught moment for Republicans in the House, coming one day after their leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, released a statement that condemned Ms. Greene’s past comments endorsing violent behavior and conspiracy theories — but made clear the party did not intend to punish her.
Another sign of the party’s post-Trump turbulence came on Wednesday night, when House Republicans voted in a secret ballot on whether to strip Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, of her leadership post after she voted to impeach Mr. Trump. Ms. Cheney survived by a wide margin, but the vote nonetheless put a spotlight on the party’s divisions.
On Thursday, the Democrat-led House will vote on a resolution removing Ms. Greene from her two committees — the Budget Committee, and the Education and Labor Committee — citing the “conduct she has exhibited.” While expelling a lawmaker from the chamber requires a two-thirds vote, censuring or stripping one of committee assignments requires a simple majority.
Mr. McCarthy had tried to shield his members from taking such a vote, and spoke with Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, by phone on Wednesday to try to strike a compromise. Mr. McCarthy later told reporters that he had offered to remove Ms. Greene from the committees and put her on a panel overseeing small businesses instead. Mr. Hoyer declined the offer, he said, insisting that Ms. Greene should not sit on any committees.
Some Republicans are now arguing that voting in favor of the resolution would set a dangerous precedent because it would in effect allow the majority party to dictate which lawmakers in the minority party are fit to serve on committees, a crucial pipeline for members to advance legislation. Committee assignments have traditionally been the prerogative of the party leaders.
Others argue that members of Congress should not face punishment for remarks they made before they were elected. But Democrats said they were comfortable establishing a new set of rules whereby statements like those Ms. Greene had made would prompt banishment from committees.
“A member of this House is calling for assassinations — that’s the new precedent,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the Rules Committee. “If that’s the standard that we remove people from committees, I’m fine with that.”
Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Rules Committee, did not try to excuse Ms. Greene’s comments, calling them “deeply offensive,” “repugnant” and “unbecoming of any member of Congress.” But he argued that the matter should be punted to the Ethics Committee for a bipartisan group of lawmakers to review.
“I do worry a lot about the precedent of another party choosing” to strip committee assignments, Mr. Cole said.
