After 22 days of disarray, legislative inaction and failed nominations, Republicans in the House of Representatives have finally — and unanimously — elected a new speaker: Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
The 51-year-old Johnson was sworn in as the 56th speaker of the House Wednesday after winning a floor vote with 220 Republican votes to 209 votes for Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. While the election marks the end to the three-week-long national embarrassment of the Republican speaker fight, Johnson’s work is only beginning.
“The challenge before us is great but the time for action is now and I will not let you down,” he said after accepting the gavel. “I think all of the American people at one time had great pride in this institution, but right now that’s in jeopardy. And we have a challenge before us right now to rebuild and restore that trust.”
President Joe Biden said in a statement that he would seek to work with Johnson in good faith. "Even though we have real disagreements about important issues, there should be mutual effort to find common ground wherever we can,” Biden said. “This is a time for all of us to act responsibly, and to put the good of the American people and the everyday priorities of American families above any partisanship.”
But a spokesperson for Biden’s 2024 campaign said in a statement that the congressman’s ascension “cements the extreme MAGA takeover of the House Republican Conference.” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who instigate the vote to oust former speaker Kevin McCarthy, sounded a similar note, telling Steve Bannon’s podcast: “If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”
Who is Mike Johnson? Johnson was first elected to Congress in 2016 and had been vice chairman of the House Republican Conference and a member of the Armed Services and Judiciary committees. He was formerly the chairman of the Republican Study Committee.
He is more conservative than McCarthy and less of a rabble-rouser than Rep. Jim Jordan, a previous GOP nominee for the gavel. “He’s known to carry a copy of the Constitution and harbors big dreams on spending cuts and social issues that don’t stand a chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate,” Politico reports.
But while Johnson has strong right-wing credentials, he has relatively little in the way of House leadership experience and no significant national profile. He was Republicans’ fourth choice to succeed McCarthy and will face serious questions about whether he can lead the fractious House GOP conference.
“Apparently experience isn’t necessary for the speaker job,” Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said. “We’re down to folks who haven’t had leadership or chairmanship role which means their administration of the House will be a new experience for them.”
Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy from the speakership, told CNN that Johnson was chosen “probably because he has the fewest enemies of anybody in the Republican conference,” adding that, “Mike is one of those people who gets along with everybody and he’s well-respected, and I think those two factors played a big role in this.”
Democratic leaders criticized Johnson’s record, while still insisting that they remain open to working in a bipartisan fashion. Appearing on CNN, Jeffries said that he doesn’t know Johnson well. “Based on his track record, he appears to be an extreme right-wing ideologue,” he said. “Mike Johnson wants to criminalize abortion care and impose a nationwide ban. Mike Johnson was one of the chief architects of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Mike Johnson also wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. Those are extreme views and House Democrats will push back aggressively against that.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar, the No. 3 House Democrat, charged that Republicans’ speaker turmoil was about appeasing Donald Trump, to which one Republican in the chamber shouted, “Damn right!”
Johnson’s vote against certifying the 2020 election and his role in trying to deny Biden’s victory will likely continue to be an issue, even as the new speaker and Republicans try to avoid it. “House Republicans have put their names behind someone who has been called the most important architect of the electoral college objections,” Aguilar said.
Can he avoid a government shutdown? In his first speech after being elected, Johnson pledged to rein in federal spending and establish a bipartisan commission to address the national debt. “The greatest threat to our national security is our nation’s debt,” he said.
One of Johnson’s first tasks will be to fund the government ahead of a November 17 deadline. In a letter to colleagues reported by CNN, Johnson said his first priority would be to pass the eight remaining annual spending bills — though, given the short time before the deadline, he also proposed a stopgap measure that would extend funding until January 15 or April 15, depending on what House Republicans want, allowing more time for lawmakers to pass the annual appropriations. Johnson reportedly has yet to lay out whether his stopgap will include the spending cuts that conservatives have demanded.
House conservatives rebelled against McCarthy after he cut a deal with Democrats earlier this year to raise the debt limit. They then ousted McCarthy when he put forth a short-term funding bill at the end of September that relied on Democratic votes to avert a government shutdown (Johnson voted against that spending bill). But House hardliners are reportedly more open to compromise under Johnson than they had been under McCarthy, at least for the moment.
“There is a new level of trust with Speaker Johnson that did not exist previously,” Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, one of the lawmakers who voted to remove McCarthy, told CNN. “That’s why we have a new speaker.”
And Gaetz told Politico that “with Mike Johnson, there is a sincerity to get us to the single-subject bills that was illusory under McCarthy.”
The new speaker will ultimately face the same predicament as the old one, though: The Senate is still controlled by Democrats and Democratic votes will be needed to avert a shutdown and enact new spending bills. Aguilar summed it up this way: “We are back here 22 days into this Republican-manufactured chaos and House Republicans have brought us to the exact same position that we were back then. All of the infighting, all of the disarray, just to end up where we were three weeks ago.”
