Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA) explained that her vote in favor of the motion to vacate House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was an effort to prevent him from interfering with the 2024 election.
Williams was one of 32 Democrats and 10 other Republicans who sided with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in an effort to oust Johnson. She appeared Saturday on PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton to explain that she voted in anticipation that Johnson could reject the 2024 election results.
“My job is to represent the people of Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, and the very day that this motion was brought to the floor to table Mike Johnson’s motion to vacate, he held a press conference, Rev. Al, and could not even affirm that he would accept the results of the 2024 election,” Williams said. “So I could not in good faith — representing this seat that was once held by John Lewis, representing Atlanta, Georgia, steeped in our civil rights history and voting rights — I couldn’t stand there and vote to save his speakership knowing that he could not even affirm that he would accept the 2024 election results and was one of the architects of the plan to overturn the 2020 election results.”
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Johnson was one of the 100 Republican representatives who signed an amicus brief challenging the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — all states Biden won. However, the speaker still maintained the support of some 359 representatives from both sides of the aisle during the vote on the motion to vacate.
There were only two Republican members who voted in favor of removing their own party’s speaker in the recent vote and the one that removed former Rep. Kevin McCarthy: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Eli Crane (R-AZ). It only took eight Republicans at the time, combined with the votes of the Democratic members, to remove McCarthy.
