Johnson’s Incompetence Continues as He Screws Up Antisemitism Resolution; Then Democrats Embarrass Him on Procedural Vote

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) received a stunning rebuke Wednesday on what should have been a slam-dunk resolution to oppose antisemitism followed by a rare procedural defeat on legislation to clarify mining regulations.

The events, hours after Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced they would force a vote to expel Johnson, do little to show Johnson has a firm hand on the wheel.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act, introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Jared Moskowitz (R-FL), would mandate that when the Department of Education enforces federal anti-discrimination laws it uses a definition of antisemitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. While most House members would likely agree that antisemitism is bad, the hastily introduced legislation sparked a firestorm.

The vote was 320 to 91 with 70 Democrats and an astounding 21 Republicans voting against.

Greene, who opposed the bill, said it “could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews.” Other Republicans opposed the bill on similar grounds, kneecapping Johnson on what should have been an easy victory.

Johnson has instructed his committee chairs to focus on combating antisemitism in the coming months – a pivot from efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, which have faltered under his watch.

Minutes later, Johnson was dealt another blow on the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act. Democrats successfully secured enough Republicans on a procedural vote to send the bill back to committee with a motion to recommit, the first of its kind successfully used since 2020 and the first in a Republican-majority House since 2004.

A motion to recommit is an ostensibly procedural vote that in practice is used as one of the few political wedges available to the minority party in the House. The vote enables the minority party to force the House to consider a bill with amended language, sending it back to the committee it came from and essentially killing it before a vote on final passage.

A politically effective motion to recommit generally includes a tricky political amendment in an attempt to pick off vulnerable members of the majority and hinder passage of the bill – or provide fodder for campaign ads.

Republicans so effectively used the motion to recommit in 2020 and 2021 that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) modified the rules to weaken the procedural tool.

In this case, Democrats forced the House to vote on a motion to recommit with an amendment that would bar any mining companies from operating on public lands if the Interior Secretary finds that the organization’s parent company is “incorporated in, located in, or controlled by an adversarial nation.”

It succeeded by a 210-204 vote.  Conservative Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Bob Good (R-VA), and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) all voted “yes.”

Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.