New speaker Mike Johnson made his name as a cultural conservative
Little-known Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson played key role in unsuccessful legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In choosing Mike Johnson as the new House Speaker, Republicans have cast their lot with a little-known congressman from Louisiana who has made his name pushing conservative positions on cultural issues and who played a key role in unsuccessful legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
After 22 days without a speaker, House Republicans came together to elect Johnson for the post Wednesday after three other better-known nominees failed to unite the fractured conference.
Johnson, 51 years old, represents Louisiana’s deep-red fourth district, in the state’s northwest that includes Shreveport, where he grew up. Johnson is the son of a firefighter who was critically burned and disabled in the line of duty. He is the father of four children of his own.
Johnson was elected to Congress in 2016 after serving in the Louisiana state legislature. He has been an lawyer with a focus on social conservative issues, including defending the state’s same-sex marriage ban before the Louisiana Supreme Court. His opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion along with support for religious freedoms have continued to guide him as a legislator.
As vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, Johnson was one of seven elected leaders for the party. However, he was seen as far enough removed from the top positions that members looking for new leadership — even more moderate politicians who might differ with him on some issues — were supportive of him taking over.
“Mike Johnson is a person who I think everybody respects, he’s a very principled human being,” said Rep. Mario Diaz Balart (R., Fla.)Rep.
Blaine Luetkemeyer (R., Mo.) said Johnson “represents all of us, not just a particular group within the conference.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) has been seatmates with Johnson since the two were both elected in 2016 and has served with him on the oversight and armed services committees. “He is not swampy,” said Gaetz, who launched the vote that first ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Caliph.).
“He is not beholden to the lobbyists and special interests. Even when we disagree, it comes from a place of sincerity, not whoever’s donated to his campaign.”
Democrats called Johnson an extremist. They said his opposition to abortion and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results had been losing issues for Republicans in the 2022 election. When at least one Republican who will have a tough election next year voted for Johnson, a Democratic Voice could be heard shouting “bye! bye!”
Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said on the House floor Wednesday that Republicans’ were choosing a person who “can pass their extreme litmus test to oppose marriage equality, enact a nationwide abortion ban without exceptions, gut Social Security and Medicare, support overturning a free and fair election.” Aguilar said Johnson had been called “the most important architect of the electoral college objections,” and a Republican member shouted “damn right.”
On paper, Johnson will mark a break from the prior House Republican leadership team. McCarthy, along with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R., Minn.) all voted for the stopgap measure that is keeping the government funded through Nov. 17. All three also voted for $40 billion in aid to Ukraine in 2022, and again this year for about $300 million toward the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Johnson voted against those measures.
Now that Johnson is speaker, the question is how firmly rooted Johnson’s beliefs are about those funds, or whether he is part of a perennial “vote no, hope yes” caucus.
In a letter to his colleagues, Johnson proposed advancing a temporary spending measure until either Jan. 15 or April 15 — depending on what the conference would support, while working to advance the eight individual appropriations bills that haven’t yet cleared the House. Without a stopgap measure, the government is set to run out of money next month.
For next year, he proposed passing a fiscal 2025 budget resolution by April and keeping the House in session during August if the House had not passed all of its fiscal 2025 appropriations bills by that time.
When he served as head of the Republican Study Committee, which represents a spectrum of House conservatives, Johnson presided over a budget blueprint designed to balance the federal budget in 10 years. Among other things, it pushed an idea long associated with former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) to turn Medicare into a “premium support” system in which beneficiaries would receive financial assistance to buy health insurance through a regulated Medicare exchange. The plan also proposed raising the retirement age to 69. For people born in 1960 and later, the current retirement age is 67.
Johnson has been a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday morning urged Republicans to support Johnson.
Johnson has played a key role pushing Trump’s false claims of election fraud. In 2020, Johnson organised an amicus brief signed by 126 House Republicans supporting a lawsuit filed by Texas’ lawyer general arguing that Texas could challenge the election results in four swing states won by Biden. The conservative Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit.
At the time, Johnson heavily lobbied fellow Republicans to sign onto the letter, suggesting that Trump would be watching to see who signed, which some members took as a threat.
At the time, Democrats were so upset that one member, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D., N.J.) argued that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) should bar the GOP signatories from taking their seats, saying that they were attempting to “obliterate public confidence in our democratic system” by installing an “unelected dictator.” Johnson also joined with 146 other Republicans in voting against certification of the 2020 election results.
The push to overturn President Biden’s victory has led to legal peril for the former president. Johnson’s selection as the party nominee took place the same day that one of Trump’s lawyers, Jenna Ellis, became the third legal adviser to plead guilty in the Georgia racketeering case involving Trump’s 2020 efforts.
When a reporter asked Johnson at a press conference Tuesday night about his effort to overturn the election, she was shouted down by some of Johnson’s colleagues, with Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) telling the reporter: “Shut up! Shut up!” In the lead-up to Johnson’s election, Republicans had rallied around three other speaker nominees who all ultimately dropped out of the running after it became clear there wasn’t enough support to be elected on the House floor.
For Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a conservative with many similar stances to Johnson’s, some moderate Republicans said they couldn’t back him because of past positions he had taken which they viewed as out of the mainstream. However, they were united in backing Johnson, who is seen as more personable and less combative than Jordan.
Though Gaetz considers Jordan a mentor, to him, a Speaker Johnson is an even better outcome: “I get the best of Jordan’s brilliance and dogged commitment to oversight with a government funding strategy more closely tailored to my vision,” Gaetz said.
Rep. Ken Buck (R., Colo.) who said he wouldn’t be able to support Jordan because of the 2020 election issue, backed Johnson for the post. Buck justified his support for Johnson: “I think it is a mistake, but I think people make mistakes and still can be really good speakers,” he said about Johnson and 2020.
Johnson isn’t known for bipartisanship. He was ranked 429th out of 435 politicians in the 2021 bipartisan index kept by the Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, situated among members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus. The measure scores how well members of opposite parties work together using bill sponsorship data.
The lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, gives Johnson a lifetime score of 90% for his voting record.
Johnson has proposed legislation on issues central to Republicans’ policy agenda, including a bill that would make it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion. He is strongly opposed to abortion access.
Another proposal would cut off federal funding to any school district, museum or other organisation that exposes a child younger than 10 to the topic of gender identity or sexual orientation, enabling parents to sue over violations.
Johnson has called for restrictions on medical interventions, such as surgery, for transgender youth. Conservatives say children are too young to access care with lasting consequences based on a self-diagnosis.
Democrats say medical interventions provide necessary relief to youth struggling to manage deep distress. Clinicians who defend providing gender-affirming care to minors say there is more harm in denying the care to youth and that the matter has been subject to extensive study and research.
Johnson opposed a congressional push to ratify an amendment mandating equal rights for both men and women, saying he opposed it because he was concerned it could restrict abortion regulations. Some critics of the Equal Rights Amendment have said they worry restricting federal funds for abortions could be struck down under the ERA because only women can get pregnant. Its proponents disputed that its passage would automatically undermine all such limits.
Johnson will have a long way to go on the fundraising front to match McCarthy, who by the time he was ousted had already pulled in tens of millions of dollars for the 2024 election on behalf of House Republicans, including for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The Wall Street Journal
