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The vote put him second in line to the presidency, capping an extraordinary period of twists and turns on Capitol Hill. It marked a victory for the far right that has become a dominant force in the Republican Party, which rose up this month to effectively dictate the removal of an establishment speaker and the installation of an arch-conservative replacement. Wednesday morning, hours before an expected vote, Trump, the de facto leader of the Republican Party, said he wasn't technically endorsing Johnson but suggesting the House elect him. Johnson has a spotless history of voting against legal abortion, earning an "A+" rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Abortion rights proponents have noted his work from 2010 as a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, citing a letter in which he fought to shut down an abortion clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In the Trump presidency, Johnson argued that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's move to rip up a copy of his State of the Union speech was a crime.
Rep. Mike Johnson voted new House speaker
Still others said he was insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, because he voted to certify the results of the 2020 election won by President Biden. Mike Johnson (born January 30, 1972, Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S.) American lawyer and Republican politician who became the speaker of the U.S. Johnson, an ardent social conservative, represents the 4th district of Louisiana, encompassing the state’s northwestern and western regions.
Russia-Ukraine War
In the years before he arrived in Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Defense Fund — now called the Alliance Defending Freedom. During that time, he expressed some of his hard-line views in editorials in the local newspaper in his hometown of Shreveport, La. The views are sharply at odds with those of most Americans, according to opinion polls that have found the public is broadly supportive of gay rights. Mr. Johnson’s abrupt rise to the speaker post this week in the depressed and divided House Republican conference underscores the rightward lurch of the G.O.P., which dumped his more mainstream predecessor, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. With two decades of previous experience in Constitutional law, Mike previously served on the House Judiciary Committee, and as chairman of its Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. With less than seven years under his belt, Johnson has a shorter length of service in the House than past speakers in modern history.
What If Mike Johnson Is Actually Good at This? - The Atlantic
What If Mike Johnson Is Actually Good at This?.
Posted: Mon, 22 Apr 2024 17:20:00 GMT [source]
Johnson wins speaker vote 220-209
Jeffries closed his remarks declaring, "Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He's doing a great job under difficult circumstances and no amount of election denialism will ever change that reality. Not now. Not ever." The Democratic leader also vowed that his party will continue to support Ukraine to defeat Russia's aggression. "Our commitment to Israel's security is ironclad and Israel has a right to defend itself under the international rules of war against the brutal terror unleashed on its citizens by Hamas," Jeffries said. "From the very beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have been governing for the people," Jeffries said.
House of Representatives on December 10, 2016, by the largest margin of victory in his region in more than 50 years and is currently serving his fourth term in Congress. Visit this 1818 home to see what life was like in California when it was still governed by Mexico. This is the oldest standing residence in the city, built by wealthy cattle rancher Francisco Avila, whose extensive 4,439-acre land grant covered much of Beverly Hills and the Miracle Mile district. Though visitors only see about half of the original house, it’s well-preserved with an interesting mix of Spanish, Mission and ranchero influences. Pasadena may think it owes much of its traditional Arts and Crafts style to Charles and Henry Greene, the brothers and architects responsible for designing many of the city’s landmark buildings, but really, they should be honoring Thomas Greene, the architects’ father.
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He was elected speaker after a roughly three-week scramble by a fractious Republican caucus to find a replacement for his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, whose historic ouster from that office had been orchestrated by the party’s hard right. In terms of tenure in the House, Johnson is one of the least experienced speakers in modern U.S. political history. Johnson faces backlash from hard-right members of his party after he joined Democrats on Saturday to pass a critical foreign aid package that included $60.8 billion of aid for Ukraine. Republican Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky have signed on to the motion to vacate, which Greene authored but hasn't yet brought to the floor as a privileged resolution.
McHenry served in the role for three weeks as Republicans nominated and toppled three candidates until they were finally able to rally enough support around Johnson. It remains unclear what support Greene’s resolution would have if she called it up for a vote. Some of her colleagues, who voted to oust McCarthy, threw cold water on the idea, saying they were not ready to support a motion to vacate Johnson.
A social conservative, Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. 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. 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. The elevation of Mr. Johnson, 51, an architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election and a religious conservative opposed to abortion rights, homosexuality and gay marriage, further cemented the Republican Party’s lurch to the right.
But he voluntarily resigned after the GOP lost badly in the 2006 midterms, a defeat Bush called "a thumpin' " at the time. The 30-year saga began with Gingrich of Georgia, who was the first member of his party to gain "the big gavel" since the early 1950s and the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Gingrich had been a backbench rabble-rouser since coming to the House in 1978 and built up a cadre of supporters until he won the party's No. 2 power position as minority whip in 1989.
His argument to colleagues was that certain states’ changes to their voting procedures during the Covid-19 pandemic were unconstitutional, an argument that became more palatable to lawmakers than the fabricated claims of mass fraud. In 2016 Johnson defeated a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat by more than 30 percent of the vote to gain the seat representing Louisiana’s deep-red 4th district in the U.S. (He was reelected in 2018, 2020, and 2022.) He entered Congress in the same election that elevated Republican Donald Trump to the White House.
House Democrats descended Monday onto Columbia’s campus to express outrage over antisemitic harassment of Jewish students on and around campus. They included Jewish Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Dan Goldman (N.Y.), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.) and Kathy Manning (N.C.). Progressive activists have condemned Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, for “willfully spreading misinformation” and “inciting violence” in a TV interview about student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. And finally, when his plan to work with Democrats to clear the way for aiding Ukraine met with an outpouring of venom from ultraconservatives already threatening to depose him, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, knelt and prayed for guidance.
