The House elected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) to be the 56th Speaker on Wednesday, capping off a chaotic three weeks that paralyzed the lower chamber in a stunning fashion.
In finally coalescing around a new leader, House Republicans hope that Johnson can steer them around a series of legislative and political landmines in the weeks and months to come — an objective that is poised to be a heavy lift in the fractured GOP conference.
Johnson, who was in his second term as vice chair of the House Republican Conference, won the Speaker’s gavel in a 220-209 vote over Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), officially cementing himself as successor to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) following McCarthy’s unprecedented removal earlier this month.
Johnson’s ascension marks the end of a nasty and tumultuous period for the House GOP conference, which witnessed McCarthy’s ouster, cycled through four Speaker nominees and saw tensions reach a boiling point before settling on Johnson as its next leader.
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In the end, Johnson — who has a conservative voting record, no major enemies, and is generally known as a nice guy — became the consensus pick for Republicans as they exhausted their options, and themselves.
Not even a last-minute push by McCarthy allies to try and reinstall him as Speaker amid the chaos could overcome the conference’s momentum in coalescing around Johnson.
The 51-year-old Johnson has been the House GOP’s vice chair, a junior leadership position, since 2021. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, and currently serves on the House Judiciary and Armed Services committees.
Before joining Congress in 2017, Johnson was a member of the Louisiana State House and a constitutional law attorney who had stints as a talk show host and a college professor. His wife, Kelly, is a licensed Christian counselor, and they have four children.
The mild-mannered Louisiana Republican has largely stayed under the radar throughout his tenure in Congress, focusing on his work with the House Judiciary Committee and House Armed Services Committee.
In 2020, Johnson emerged as a key player in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election. Johnson, then the vice chair of the House GOP conference, led an amicus brief backing a Texas lawsuit that sought to reverse the outcomes of the vote in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“Today I made arrangements to file an amicus brief in the Texas case now pending at the Supreme Court on behalf of House Republicans who are all deeply concerned about the integrity of our election system,” Johnson wrote on X, then known as Twitter, on Dec. 8, 2020.
Johnson brushed off a question about his stance on the 2020 election Tuesday night. Asked about his efforts, the then-Speaker designate shook his head and said “next question,” while GOP lawmakers surrounding him booed the reporter and told her to “shut up.”
Democrats, for their part, have been quick to point out Johnson’s involvement in the 2020 plot.
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#BREAKING: House elects Mike Johnson as Speaker https://t.co/NljjoJXpy5
— The Hill (@thehill) October 25, 2023
What’s left of the normals has given up and given in to the Sedition caucus https://t.co/jMmOITClA5
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 25, 2023
People are digging up quotes of Mike Johnson pushing vote-fraud lies. But what makes Johnson really scary is how polished he is in creating plausible sounding legal arguments, not his dabbling in Rudy inky-forehead conspiracy nuttiness.
He's not Vulgar MAGA. He's Refined MAGA.
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 25, 2023
Republicans are getting exactly what they want. A hard core election denier and vote suppressor. https://t.co/hSgxt3TCQq
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) October 25, 2023
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