The new legislation, which will be voted on for approval when the 119th Congress convenes Friday, would require nine members of the majority party to co-sponsor a motion to vacate the speaker from the top leadership position, up from current rules that only require one. As a result, Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA) accused Republicans of “partisan extremism” by “destroying the role of the Speaker of the House.”

“Their proposed changes would, for the first time in American history, shield the Speaker from accountability to the entire chamber by making it so that only Republicans can move to oust the speaker,” McGovern said in a statement. “This makes it clear that they have no intention of working together to find common ground. Instead of electing a Speaker of the House, they have decided to elect a Speaker of the Republican Conference—held hostage by their most extreme members.”

McGovern argued Republicans are going against the U.S. electorate, noting the 2024 election was “close” after the GOP lost a seat in the House. Those results, McGovern said, are evidence that voters want bipartisanship in the lower chamber — something he argued is being ignored by the majority party. 

“The American people did not vote for whatever the hell this is—and you better believe that Democrats will not let Republicans turn the House of Representatives into a rubber stamp for their extremist policies,” he said. 

Other Democrats decried the proposal, citing an instance last year in which Johnson relied on the minority party to dismiss a motion to oust him from the speakership. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) also argued it could come back to haunt Republicans in the future if they lose the majority.

“This is a major mistake. We didn’t make the motion to vacate, his own members did,” Moskowitz said in a statement. “This will start the eroding of the minority party. Should this succeed, in just a couple of years, his members won’t be on committees or be able to file bills in the minority. You break it, you own it.”

The move to increase the motion to vacate threshold comes after a handshake agreement between hard-line Republicans and centrist Republicans in the House GOP Conference last year. Members of the centrist Main Street Caucus agreed to withdraw proposed rules to punish lawmakers who choose to buck leadership on the floor in exchange for increasing the required number of co-sponsors from one to nine.

That proposal was included in the updated rules legislation released Wednesday, just two days before lawmakers are set to convene the 119th Congress. The House will meet Friday to elect a new speaker, after which the chamber will be sworn in and vote to approve the rules.