WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Mike Johnson easily secured enough votes to be elected House speaker on Wednesday, as Republicans were eagerly elevating the little-known conservative leader to the seat of U.S. power and ending for now the political chaos in their majority.
With voting still underway, Johnson, of Louisiana, was picking up support from most all Republicans anxious to put the past weeks of tumult behind and get on with the business of governing.
A lower-ranked member of the House GOP leadership team, Johnson emerged as the fourth Republican nominee in what has become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockey for power. While not the party’s top choice for the gavel, the deeply religious and even-keeled Johnson has few foes and an important GOP backer: Donald Trump.
“I think he’s gonna be a fantastic speaker,” Trump said Wednesday at the New York courthouse where the former president, who is now the Republican front-runner for president in 2024, is on trial over a lawsuit alleging business fraud.
Trump said he hadn’t heard “one negative comment about him. Everybody likes him.”
Three weeks on without a House speaker, the Republicans have been wasting their majority status — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in action to others, but not at all how the House is expected to function.
Far-right members have refused to accept a more traditional speaker, and moderate conservatives don’t want a hard-liner. While Johnson had no opponents during the private roll call late Tuesday, some two dozen Republicans did not vote, more than enough to sink his nomination.
But when GOP Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik rose to introduce Johnson’s name Wednesday as their nominee, Republicans jumped to their feet for an extended standing ovation.
“House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson will never give up,” she said.
Democrats again nominated their leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, criticizing Johnson as an architect of Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost.
With Republicans controlling the House only 221-212 over Democrats, Johnson can afford just a few detractors to win the gavel.
Overnight the endorsements for Johnson started pouring in, including from failed speaker hopefuls — Rep. Jim Jordan, the hard-charging Judiciary Committee chairman, gave his support, as did Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the fellow Louisiana congressman, who stood behind Johnson after he won the nomination.
“Mike! Mike! Mike!” lawmakers chanted at a press conference after the late-night internal vote, surrounding Johnson and posing for selfies in a show of support.
Anxious and exhausted, Republican lawmakers are desperately trying to move on.
Johnson’s rise comes after a tumultuous month, capped by a head-spinning Tuesday that within a span of a few hours saw one candidate, Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP Whip, nominated and then quickly withdraw when it became clear he would be the third candidate unable to secure enough support from GOP colleagues after Trump bashed his nomination.
“He wasn’t MAGA,” said Trump, referring to his Make America Great Again campaign slogan.
Attention quickly turned to Johnson. A lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, Johnson had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
Elevating Johnson to speaker would give Louisianians two high-ranking GOP leaders, putting him above Scalise, who was rejected by hard-liners in his own bid as speaker.
Deeply religious, Johnson is affable and well liked, with a fiery belief system. Colleagues swiftly started giving their support.
“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Johnson said after winning the nomination. “We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who led a small band of hard-liners to engineer McCarthy’s ouster at the start of the month, posted on social media that “Mike Johnson won’t be the Speaker the Swamp wants but, he is the Speaker America needs.”
Republicans have been flailing all month, unable to conduct routine business as they fight amongst themselves with daunting challenges ahead.
The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.
Many hard-liners have been resisting a leader who voted for the budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this year, which set federal spending levels that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now want to undo. They are pursuing steeper cuts to federal programs and services with next month’s funding deadline.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she wanted assurances the candidates would pursue impeachment inquiries into Biden and other top Cabinet officials.
During the turmoil, the House is now led by a speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Financial Services Committee. His main job is to elect a more permanent speaker.
Some Republicans — and Democrats — wanted to give McHenry more power to get on with the routine business of governing. But McHenry, the first person to be in the position that was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as an emergency measure, declined to back those overtures. He, too, received a standing ovation.
Democrats should have nominated a moderate republican
Yes, Dems thought they were gonna teach a lesson to Republicans. They did. But the lesson was to go back to Trump & religion.
It's so sickening that Dems apparently are not in contact with rather moderate Republicans. Whatever people say, Dems miscalculated Republican dynamics here. Or they "enjoyed the chaos" as some news article claimed. I'll see whether Dems fucking own the mistake or just blame it on others.
Insults will only result in a poor discussion. I'm indeed reluctant to counter-argue anything. I'll just report it to admins.
Probably more constructive to just highlight our only rule here, in the future. Something like:
"Please respect the only rule here: Be(e) Kind. It would be very easy to edit your response to keep the sentiment, but in a kind way that would encourage a continued conversation."
Trolls are looking for a reaction; just restate the rule and move on. The more we engage or react, the more it encourages continued trolling.
I agree. Well, I don't expect constructive outcome from a person who insults me, but yes.
And you don't regret failing to convince me? What was the point of your comment, then? I recommend you check if you want to have a discussion in good faith.
I'm someone who you insulted and is therefore annoyed. If you want me to read more than 5 words, maybe not insult people.
The lesson is that establishment republicans can't keep playing their "Let us break our deals with you or we'll elect an extremist that neither of us want" bullshit game of chicken. Now they know that if another pertain like mccarthy thinks they can be a chucklefuck and break the deals they made with the dems, they'll be forced to deal with the psychos in their own party. It's extra pain right now in exchange for less pain later. Though this assumes establishment reps will get the memo
I was genuinely hoping the Dems might choose to back, e.g., Bergman in exchange for some concessions. We would have had a less crazy, more competent speaker in that case.
I don’t think they had the option as the minority.
But they should have voted for McCarthy. I knew that was gonna blow up in everyone’s face. Why did they think they were gonna end up with anyone better?
None of the moderate Republicans would've had enough bipartisan support to get the position.