Johnson loses top committee chair after far-right budget bill outrage

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, Republican of Texas who has served in Congress since 1997, announced shortly after Speaker Mike Johnson’s $1.2 trillion budget bill passed Friday that she will be resigning early as chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. She has already announced she is not running for re-election.

Her resignation, effective upon replacement, comes amid tremendous outrage in Johnson’s far-right flank, primarily although not exclusively from House Freedom Caucus, over the spending bill that passed late Friday morning. Passage came just in time to allow the Senate to take it up before the midnight deadline. The federal government is facing a partial shutdown if the bill is not signed by 12:01 AM Saturday.

Speaker Johnson called Granger “a champion for Texas and a faithful public servant.”

Granger’s move comes just hours after U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to vacate the chair, which, like Kevin McCarthy before him, could mean the end of Mike Johnson’s speakership.

RELATED: Greene Moves to Oust Johnson as Gaetz Says Democrat Jeffries Could Be Elected Speaker

It also comes as U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced Friday he is quitting Congress, and leaving early. NBC News repots that will leave Johnson with just a one vote majority.

In 2018, Rep. Granger was the only House member to join seven Senate Republicans in Moscow on July 4, a trip that raised eyebrows and anger in the U.S., as The Washington Post reported.

“She is 81 years old and has represented Texas’ 12th Congressional District since 1997, when she became the first Republican woman to represent Texas in the House,” Politico notes. “She went on to become the first Republican woman to serve in several other prominent roles, including on the Defense spending subcommittee, going on to lead the influential panel that oversees military funding.”