Though not always guaranteed, a member of Congress may sometimes suffer consequences and repercussions after standing in opposition to their own party's leadership, and that may have just occurred with a member of the House GOP conference.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), just days after being the only Republican to vote against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) remaining in that leadership position, was removed from the highly influential House Rules Committee, according to the New York Post.

Yet, while that removal appeared to be an act of retribution after Massie's opposition to Johnson, the Kentucky congressman said he'd volunteered to be taken off the committee, and previous reporting last month suggested the move was a mutually agreed-upon possibility.

Massie removed from Rules Committee

The House Rules Committee is arguably one of the most powerful committees in the House, as it decides what bills will come to the floor and establishes guardrails for how the legislation will be considered, including by imposing limits on amendments and debate, among other things -- though the committee can be bypassed with a suspension of the rules and bills can still be passed with a two-thirds majority.

In 2023, when then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was fending off a GOP rebellion against his leadership, one of several deals he made to retain the gavel was to appoint Rep. Massie, who opposed him, on the Rules Committee along with a couple of other staunch conservative critics, Reps. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Chip Roy (R-TX).

The Rules Committee's lineup was changed on Tuesday following a closed-door vote by members of the House Republican Conference, according to Axios, and Massie was one of two members who their GOP colleagues voted to remove.

Massie was replaced on the committee by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), who is a conservative and a member of the often disruptive House Freedom Caucus, though he is widely viewed as being "less rebellious than his peers" in that caucus, per the Post.

The other member who was removed, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), was likely reassigned so that he could focus on his duties as the chief deputy whip for House Republicans, and he will be replaced on the committee by freshman Rep. Brian Jack (R-GA), per Axios.

Massie's removal was voluntary and planned since last month

To be sure, the removal of Rep. Massie from the Rules Committee in such close proximity to him being the only House Republican to vote against Speaker Johnson retaining the gavel bore all of the hallmarks of retribution for stepping out of line and going against his own party.

That said, there are indications that the removal was not done out of spite and instead was the result of a mutual agreement, as Punchbowl News reported in December that Massie, who'd just voted against the Johnson-backed end-of-year spending bill and had already announced that he wouldn't back Johnson to remain as speaker, said he was eyeing an exit from the Rules Committee and that Johnson was "thinking" about granting his request to be reassigned.

Massie confirmed as much in an X post on Tuesday, in which he wrote, "I volunteered to step aside if the Speaker wanted to place someone else on the Rules Committee and he chose that option."

"This was not retribution for my vote against him," the Kentucky congressman added. "I look forward to continuing my work on the Judiciary and Transportation committees."

Griffith a "rules guy" much like Massie was

As for Rep. Massie's replacement on the Rules Committee, Rep. Griffith, Axios reported that he described himself as a "rules guy" and suggested that "if the rules are set up in accordance with the House rules, precedent, and Jefferson's manual, then I don't look at the policy, I look at the rules."

"Step out of line of the general policy of parliamentary history in this country and elsewhere, then I might have a question or two to raise," he added along with praise for the member he replaced, Massie, who he asserted was "pretty much a rules guy too."