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House Republican Mark Meadows (NC) is threatening to force a vote to oust Speaker Boehner. The result of this move would be a virtual voluntary surrender of power as Democrats would hold all of the cards in determining John Boehner’s fate.

According to The Daily Signal (News arm of The Heritage Foundation), Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) renewed his threat to oust the Speaker of the House:

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Indeed, when Congress returns from its six-week summer recess, Meadows warned he may take it a step further.

Meadows says if leadership’s tactics don’t change to his liking, he—or another supportive lawmaker—could refile the motion from “non-privileged to “privileged,” forcing a vote within two legislative days.

Meadows insists that Boehner would need to depend on Democrats to keep his speakership—he says there are “many more” than 29 Republicans who would vote to strip the speaker of his gavel (for comparison, 25 lawmakers did not vote to re-elect Boehner as speaker in January).

If the vote is successful, Meadows, for the first time, acknowledged that he would “certainly entertain” becoming speaker himself.

Democrats would save Boehner from the coup attempt, but the price for his survival would be high. Speaker Boehner would owe Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats his job, so his tactics would probably change, and votes on legislation that Democrats have long wanted to see come to the floor would finally happen.

Restoring The Voting Rights Act and immigration reform are two of the issues that have bipartisan support, but have seen Boehner refuse to bring bills to the floor for a vote.

Should House Republicans be foolish enough to force a vote to oust Boehner, and there is nothing in their track record to indicate that they aren’t, the result of their action would be to hand power over to House Democrats in an unprecedented way.

A vote to overthrow Boehner would force the Speaker to look for allies on the Democratic side, and the result could be bipartisanship in the House.

Speaker Boehner would find himself in the unique position of having a numerical majority, but relying on the Democratic minority to govern. The other consequence of a vote to remove Boehner would be an open and full-scale civil war among House Republicans.