Don Wolfensberger at The Hill:
The rule change that attracted most attention was to require that a motion to vacate the speakership be offered by a member of the majority party and be seconded by eight other majority party members. Previously, a single member of either party could offer the motion. Now it can only be offered by members of the majority.
In a not-so-subtle move, six Republicans had remained silent when their names were initially called on electing the Speaker. (They subsequently announced their votes for Johnson.) The concerted non-response of the silent six sent an obvious message. Their six votes, combined with the three Republicans who initially voted for members other than Johnson, could later be utilized to provide the nine votes required to offer a motion to vacate the speakership.
The groundwork had been laid and the implicit threat conveyed that if Johnson did not toe the line of the ultra-conservative Republicans, his tenure could be abruptly curtailed, just as Speaker McCarthy’s had been after just nine months in the chair.
As Rod Serling might have commented at the close of this latest in the ongoing Twilight Zone series on the speakership: “You never know how it will all end until you’ve been there.”