Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., said Tuesday she opposes House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., removing some Democrats from top House Committees.
"Two wrongs do not make a right. [Former] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, D-Calif., took unprecedented actions last Congress to remove Reps. [Marjorie Taylor] Greene, R-Ga., and [Paul] Gosar, R-Ariz., from their committees without proper due process," Spartz said in a statement Tuesday.
"Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented actions this Congress to deny some committee assignments to the Minority without proper due process again. As I spoke against it on the House floor two years ago, I will not support this charade again. Speaker McCarthy needs to stop 'bread and circuses' in Congress and start governing for a change."
McCarthy vowed after the November midterm elections, and confirmed after winning the speakership earlier this month, that in leading the new GOP House majority he will remove Democrat Reps. Adam Schiff, Calif., Eric Swalwell, Calif., and Ilhan Omar, Minn., from their committee posts for the new session.
"Speaker McCarthy confirms that Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar are getting kicked off the Intel and Foreign Affairs Committees," Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, who is a member of the Republican Freedom Caucus said in a Jan. 10 post on Twitter. "Promises made. Promises kept!"
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., formally recommended the re-appointments of Schiff, Swalwell, and Omar, to their respective committees on Monday.
McCarthy has said the removals are justified due to the lies Schiff told while chairing the Intelligence Committee during the last Congress, Swalwell's relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, and Omar's "antisemitic and anti-American remarks," the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The move is seen as political payback to Pelosi and Democrats for removing Greene and Gosar from their assignments as well as Pelosi refusing McCarthy's recommendations for the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, and then using her power as speaker to appoint former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., to the panel.
Cheney and Kinzinger were critical of former President Donald Trump and blame him for the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
"I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do," Schiff told ABC News of McCarthy on Jan. 10. "He is a very weak leader of his conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator. And if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that's what they'll do."
With just a four-vote majority and including Spartz's defection, McCarthy's goal of removing the Democrats could become more tenuous as votes are taken on the floor.