Last Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments. The vote was in response to her past remarks that sparked the public’s attention. The vote was 230-199 in favor of removing Greene from her positions in the Education & Labor Committee and the Budget Committee, with 11 Republicans joining the Democrats in condemning her.  

The freshman Republican was chosen as a representative of Georgia in November 2020’s election—after she made most of her controversial comments. Several Republicans against punishing Greene viewed her removal as a “partisan power grab” since her previous posts were made before she was sworn in.

“If we’re going to start judging what other members have said before they’re even a member of Congress, I think it’s going to be hard for the Democrats to place anybody on a committee,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed.

As Marjorie Taylor Greene’s remarks were from before she was elected, some representatives, including Jim Jordan of Ohio, consider Greene’s punishment to be an example of modern cancel culture within Congress.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s actions that have brought her copious amounts of criticism include liking and sharing social media posts that promote violence against Democrats, supporting anti-Semitism and Islamaphobic statements, and promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Before the vote, the congresswoman claimed that she regretted her past behavior, insisting that she had stopped believing in QAnon, understood that school shootings were not staged, and accepted that 9/11’s tragic events were not fake.

“These were words of the past, and these things do not represent me,” she said. “They do not represent my district, and they do not represent my values.”

Greene continued to retract her previous statements, yet she never directly apologized for her controversial history as she avoided acknowledging some of the criticism she received, including her endorsement of political violence towards Democratic leaders, such as Speaker Pelosi. In part, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s lack of remorse and recognition of the wrongfulness of her actions influenced the outcome of her conviction.

“I just have to say that I did not hear a disavowment or an apology for those things… I didn’t hear anybody apologize or retract the anti-Semitic and Islamophobic remarks that had been made that have been posted over and over and over again,” noted Jim McGovern, a representative of Massachusetts.

As a result of her being stripped of her committee assignments, Greene no longer has input in the two committees of which she was previously a member which will considerably limit her ability to shape legislation before it reaches the House’s floor. Now, her most significant role will most likely be promoting pro-Trump conservatism and voting on bills that align with these views.