Dem
47
GOP
53
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), who announced his retirement from Congress in February of last year and then changed his mind, is quitting again. He says he's going to stay around long enough to help pass Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill, and then he's leaving his job for "a private-sector opportunity that was just too good to pass up." Inasmuch as he's pointedly not sharing details, we assume Green won't be working on feeding the hungry or healing the sick and infirm.
Green is one of the kookiest and one of the MAGA-est members of the House. In a Venn diagram, those two circles overlap quite a bit, so it's not unusual that he's both. He remains a believer that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a non-citizen, says public health programs are meant as obstacles to Christian evangelicals, insists that being transgender is the result of a communicable disease, rejects the theory of evolution entirely, and has sounded the alarm on chemtrails. Did we mention that he's an M.D.? Wright State University School of Medicine must be so proud to claim him as an alumnus. Maybe they can blame the school where he got his MA, namely USC.
In any event, in among all the nuttiness, Green is probably best known for two things: leading the charge to impeach then-DHS Secretary Alejando Mayorkas, and expressing his view that when men look at Victoria's Secret catalogs, it's "one step closer to Saddam Hussein." There has been some reporting that Green's "private-sector opportunity" involves the nation of Guyana. That may or may not be true. And it may or may not be a coincidence that Guyana is where the Rev. Jim Jones led his cult in a mass-murder/suicide back in 1978.
Once Green departs, it will drop the Republicans' majority to 219-212, meaning that Mike Johnson will still have a three-vote margin of error in a circumstance where all members vote, and all the Democrats stick together. Put another way, with Green, three defections means a bill passes 217-215; without him the bill passes 216-215.
Green's district, TN-07, is R+10, so it will presumably remain in Republican hands once a replacement is chosen. Under the terms of Tennessee law, Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) must call for an election within 10 days of the seat coming vacant, and then must hold the general election between 100 and 107 days after that. So, the replacement is likely to be seated in late October or early November. By that time, two vacant-but-sure-to-be-Democratic seats will have been filled (the D+18 VA-11 and the D+13 AZ-07), and a third (the D+22 TX-18) will either be filled as well or will be on the cusp of being filled (the election is Nov. 4). So, barring any further reductions in Democratic membership, the Speaker's margin is as big right now as it's going to be for a while; maybe for the rest of this Congress. (Z)