Gaetz says he’d support raising motion-to-vacate threshold if GOP enacts Democrat’s reform plan

Just days after ousting former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the top leadership position, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) signaled he’d be willing to raise the threshold for a future motion to vacate — but only if Republicans agree to vote on a number of political reforms.

Under current House rules, a single member is permitted to raise a motion to vacate the House speaker, thanks to an agreement that was made between McCarthy and holdout Republicans during leadership elections in January. Gaetz put that rule to the test earlier this week when he filed the motion to oust McCarthy, prompting a handful of Republicans to call for a higher threshold to prevent future removals.

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Now Gaetz is indicating he would be willing to repeal the rule altogether, but only if Republicans are willing to vote on things such as term limits for lawmakers and a ban on congressional stock trading that was proposed by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) last month.

“Ok. Let’s negotiate,” Gaetz posted on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. “My GOP colleagues want to raise the threshold on the motion to vacate. This is a question for all of them. If we enact the reforms [Khanna] lays out here… How high would you like the MTV threshold to be? Because I’ll basically give you whatever you want on the MTV for this stuff.”

Khanna unveiled his five-point political reform plan on the House floor last month, telling the Washington Examiner he plans to bring the legislation forward for a vote sometime by the end of the year. The plan would seek to enact term limits for Congress members and Supreme Court judges, ban congressional stock trading, create a judicial code of ethics for all federal judges and Supreme Court justices, and prohibit candidates running for federal office from accepting donations from lobbyists or political action committees.

“There’s a real crisis of confidence right now in our democracy that people have lost faith that Congress is working for them,” Khanna told the Washington Examiner in an interview last month. “We’re just part of a system that has lost the faith of the American public. … To get involved in this kind of political reform effort has to be serious. And I would like to see candidates from both parties that embrace the reform agenda to this consensus.”

Khanna suggested interest in working with Gaetz, urging the Florida Republican to “push for a floor vote” on any of the items.

“Instead of having members call each other names, it’s time to recognize the American people are fed up with how this place functions, don’t have a high opinion of us, and are demanding some common sense changes,” Khanna said in a post on X.

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It’s not yet clear whether other Republicans would be open to negotiating those reforms for a higher motion-to-vacate threshold. However, several GOP lawmakers have said the rule should be repealed because it makes it too difficult for any speaker to govern.

“We can’t put a new speaker in place with this structure that is completely dysfunctional. You can’t do that. That’s wrong. It would be unjust to another speaker,” Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) said. “Let’s keep in mind, there is a conference rule that says that you cannot bring a motion to vacate without the support of the conference.”