Mike Johnson is an ardent conservative
The House Republican Majority is Unite: Mike Johnson, a conservative evangelical who opposes abortion and same-sex marriages, has been appointed as speaker of the House for three weeks
Republicans were scrambling on a chaotic day after Tom Emmer withdrew as speaker hours after being nominated.
House Republicans chose and then quickly repudiated yet another of their nominees for speaker on Tuesday and rushed to name a fourth, pressing to put an end to a remarkable three-week-long deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed.
After weeks of uncertainty, House Republicans elected Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson, a conservative Christian who opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriages, to become House speaker.
But by late Tuesday night, Mr. Johnson appeared to have put together a coalition that brought him closer to capturing the speakership than any candidate has been since hard-right rebels deposed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy three weeks ago. He intended to call for a floor vote on Wednesday, despite the fact that it was not certain he had the votes.
Mr. Johnson stood next to dozens of other Republicans in a show of unity after he was nominated and he said that democracy was messy but it was our system. “This House Republican majority is united.”
The selection of Mr. Johnson, 51, was the latest abrupt turn in a chaotic leadership battle among House Republicans in which they have lurched from one speaker nominee to another — first a mainstream conservative, then a far-right rabble rouser, then another mainstream candidate and now another conservative hard-liner — putting their rifts on vivid display.
Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and a former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. He worked on Mr. Trump’s impeachment defense team and helped recruit House Republicans to sign a legal brief in support of a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election results.
Pressed by reporters on Tuesday night about his efforts to overturn the election, Mr. Johnson smiled and shook his head, saying, “next question,” as Republicans beside him booed.
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Last year, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, sponsored legislation that would effectively bar the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity at any institution serving children younger than 10 that receives federal funds.
It’s no wonder that he opposed continued war funding in Ukraine, because it is a bitter fault line of the G.O.P. and will be difficult for a new speaker to navigate.
In a secret-ballot vote on Tuesday night, Mr. Johnson got 128 votes, with 44 Republicans voting for nominees not on the ballot, including 43 for Mr. McCarthy, whom many view as unfairly ousted. Still, in a separate vote afterward, only a few Republicans indicated they would not back Mr. Johnson on the floor, while about 20 Republicans were absent.
Republicans have now spurned all three of their top leaders over the past few weeks. Even as conflicts rage around the globe and a government shutdown looms, the chamber has been frozen for a month because of a dispute between Republicans.
The American public does not have a reasonable confidence in the conference being governed, said Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas. It is sad. I’m sad. I’m heartbroken.”
I think he has learned a lesson, because he is Pro-Trump all the way, but who can ever be sure? Mr. Trump wrote a letter. “Has he only changed because that’s what it takes to win? The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. It would be a mistake to vote for a Globalist like Tom Emmer.
The Republican disarray underscored a new ethos that has gripped the House, where many members have abandoned their previous practice of respecting the winner of the party’s internal elections.
The hard-right Republicans think of themselves as a different political party from their more mainstream, business-minded colleagues.
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Mike Johnson, the First Speaker of Louisiana, received 128 votes in the House of Representatives (1995-2005), a milestone moment in Louisiana’s history
The former president said that Mr. Emmer tried to curry Mr. Trump’s favor by praising him over the weekend. But Mr. Trump made clear he had not been won over.
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of votes Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana received in House Republicans’ internal election to choose a speaker nominee. He got 128 votes.
While his hardline conservative record is not one that’s widely known nationally, it’s being celebrated by many Republicans in his home state who are welcoming what they see as an important moment in Louisiana’s history.
The Gov.-elect is a Republican. Johnson is “well-liked by everyone,” Jeff said. Congratulating him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Landry stated, “he has the work ethic and tenacity to lead our country in this prestigious position. Louisiana is proud!”
After three other GOP nominees did not gain enough support from their fellow House Republicans to secure the top leadership position, Johnson was able to do just that after a single floor vote, making history as the first speaker from Louisiana. Newt Gingrich held the job from 1995 to 1999 and is the only speaker from the South that has done so.
His election means two of the top leadership positions in the House — speaker and majority leader — will be filled by Louisianans. Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, who dropped his bid for speaker two weeks ago, is currently the House majority leader.
When Johnson was elected to the House, he said he would work to decentralize power in the house and emphasize the importance of running the house again.
“We are just getting started, but people are going to come to know and love what he represents because he fights for things bigger than himself and people who have been ignored for way too long,” Scalise said about Johnson in a press conference on Capitol Hill following his election.
In addition to the support from Scalise and other Republicans from his home state, he received praise from Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who said Louisianans always find a way to work across party lines to deliver progress.
Others have not been as enthusiastic. Many Democrats are concerned with his record on restricting access to abortions and are not confident in his ability to work across party lines.
Rep. Don Beyer, D-VA., described Johnson on X as, “one of the biggest anti-choice extremists in Congress” saying that Johnson “wants to ban all abortions without exception — to the point of criminalization with prison sentences.”
Johnson, who was an anti- abortion rights activist, posted on X that his home state would work to get the number of abortions to zero.
The Human Rights Campaign decried it when the law was introduced, because they believed it was an assault on the ability of people who are gay to live their lives openly.
Johnson represents Louisiana’s 4th Congressional district, which covers most of the western and northwestern parts of the state, including Shreveport. His record is considered just as reliably conservative as that of Jordan. But Johnson is lesser-known and has often been described as an under-the-radar lawmaker who has a kinder façade than Jordan.
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The pro-Trump Republican is expected to work closely with the GOP leaders to get the House back on track after they were unable to agree on a new speaker.
“We will restore trust in this body,” Johnson said on X. “We will advance a comprehensive conservative policy agenda, combat the harmful policies of the Biden Administration, and support our allies abroad. We will restore sanity to a government that is desperate for it. Let’s get back to work.
