The New York Times reported that Trump’s extremists are in charge of the House
The Emerging Democratic Rep. Mike Johnson: After a Few Hours of Congressional Correspondence, He Drops his Candidate for Speaker
Only hours later, Mr. Emmer told Republicans in a closed-door meeting that he was dropping his bid, according to a person familiar with his decision who divulged the private discussion on the condition of anonymity. He then quickly left the room, avoiding reporters’ questions.
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.
Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination. Mr. Emmer’s downfall followed a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, that left his candidacy in shambles and the G.O.P. as divided as ever.
Mr Johnson seemed to have formed a coalition that gave him a chance of capturing the speakership, which had been vacant since Kevin McCarthy was deposed three weeks ago. Though it was not certain he had the votes to be elected, he said he planned to call for a floor vote on Wednesday at noon.
“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Mr. Johnson said, standing beside dozens of other Republicans in a show of unity after he was nominated. The majority of the House Republicans are united.
The selection of Mr. Johnson, 51, was the latest abrupt turn in a chaotic leadership battle in which they have lurched from one speaker nominee to another, then another, and now another conservative.
A social conservative, Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. He was a member of the impeachment defense team who played a role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief in favor of the lawsuit.
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.
House Republicans Set to Vote on 4th Republican Speaker Nominee: The Tragic Case of the House G.O.P.
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.
He has opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a fault line in the budget battles that any new speaker will have to navigate in the coming days.
By Tuesday evening, five more Republicans, none with a national profile, were vying for the nomination. Mr. Johnson defeated Representative Donalds of Florida in multiple rounds of voting.
Republicans have now spurned all three of their top leaders over the past few weeks. The chamber has been frozen for the better part of a month as Republicans feud over who should be in charge, even as wars rage overseas and a government shutdown approaches.
“It’s a pretty sad commentary on governance right now,” said Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas, adding: “The American public cannot be looking at this and having any reasonable confidence that this conference can be governed. It is sad. I’m sad. I feel like I’m broken.
After Mr Emmer was nominated, about two dozen right-wing Republicans indicated they would not vote for him on the floor, denying him the majority he would need to succeed in a vote. And as he met with holdouts to try to win them over, Mr. Trump issued a scathing statement on social media expressing vehement opposition to Mr. Emmer, calling him a “Globalist RINO” — short for “Republican in name only” — whose elevation would be a “tragic mistake.”
The House G.O.P. has a new ethos that many members are acting according to their personal preferences, ideologies and loyalties, rather than respecting the winner of the internal elections.
Some hard-right Republicans consider themselves a distinct political party from their more mainstream, business-minded colleagues, whom they accuse of being in a “uniparty” with Democrats.
Source: House Set to Vote on 4th Republican Speaker Nominee
The Three-Week Battle for a Speaker: From Rep. Mike Johnson to the House of Representatives of the House Republican Conference During the 2020 Presidential Election
Mr. Emmer had attempted to mollify Mr. Trump by calling him over the weekend and praising him, according to the former president. Mr. Trump made a clear statement that 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, not 129.
Those operating principles include allowing Mr. Trump to all but select the speaker, and elevating, in Mr. Johnson, one of the party’s most prominent election deniers. It has been concerning to see the decline from Republican speakers like Paul Ryan, who denounced attempts to challenge the electoral results, to the rise of Mr. Johnson, who advocated for the anti-democratic position of Mr. Johnson. And it has certainly been a long slide from the party of Ronald Reagan — whose 11th Commandment was not speaking ill of other Republicans and who envisioned the party as a big tent — to the extremism, purity tests and chaos of the House Republican conference this year.
The three-week battle to choose a House speaker may be over, yet the fallout for the United States and its reputation as a sound government and a beacon of democracy will be long-lasting and profound.
The Republicans in the House unanimously voted for a man who made it his mission to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election, who put the political whims and needs of former President Donald Trump ahead of the interests and will of the American people. A party that once cared deeply about America as the leader of the free world, and believed in the strength, dependability and bipartisan consensus that such a role required, has largely given way to a party now devoted to an extremism that is an active threat to liberal values and American stability.
