Golden votes against effort to oust Speaker of the House

WASHINGTON — Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) today voted to table a motion to vacate the speakership, which would have removed House Speaker Mike Johnson from the post. He released the following statement: 

“Mike Johnson is not Kevin McCarthy,” Golden said. “McCarthy was an untrustworthy leader ousted by his own party because he passed a budget. I wasn’t going to save him for doing the bare minimum expected of Congress since its founding. Now, a small group of extreme members tried to remove Speaker Johnson because he passed essential military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to support their defense against authoritarians and terrorists who are hostile to America. I am not going to punish this Speaker for doing the right thing.

“Additionally, there are only six months until the next election and Congress still has work to do. Removing the Speaker would mean weeks or months of time lost to a chaotic House GOP infighting. We should spend that time addressing the unprecedented number of illegal crossings and the tidal wave of deadly fentanyl coming across our southern border. Or restoring the Affordable Connectivity Program, which helps connect one out of every five households in my district to broadband Internet. Or passing my Government Integrity & Anti-Corruption Plan to fight dark money special interests, ban public officials from using their office for personal profit, stop the lawmaker-to-lobbyist pipeline and overturn Citizens United. 

“Our politics are broken enough. I will not vote for more chaos or to waste the precious time we have left to do the people’s work.

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