A look at Mike Johnson and the troubled history of Republican speakers : NPR

Table Of Content

• Los Angeles Reviews
• Biden congratulates Johnson in statement
• Nixon Birthplace at the Nixon Library and Museum
• In the News
• Republicans Elect Mike Johnson as House Speaker, Ending Party Chaos
• Role in 2020 presidential election denial
• After opposing Emmer bid for speaker, Trump says his "strong suggestion" is to support Johnson

When Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana wanted to make the case against abortion rights last year during a Capitol Hill committee hearing, he grilled a witness in graphic fashion. Mr. Johnson said Mr. Jordan called him when he was running for office, because “he knew I was a conservative,” contributed money to his campaign and invited him to Washington for a meeting with him and other Freedom Caucus members. In December 2020, Mr. Johnson collected signatures for a legal brief in support of a Texas lawsuit, rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities, that tried to throw out the results in four battleground states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. The election on Wednesday of Mr. Johnson, 51, to the post second in line to the presidency has focused new attention on his behind-the-scenes role in trying to overturn the election results on behalf of former President Donald J. Trump. If Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio was the most prominent public face of the congressional effort to fight the results of the 2020 election, his mentee, the newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, was a silent but pivotal partner.

Los Angeles Reviews

Before entering politics, he worked as an attorney in private practice and for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF); at ADF, he advocated for sodomy laws and criminalizing homosexuality, writing an amicus brief that opposed the eventual U.S. A young-earth creationist, Johnson sat on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention between 2004 and 2012. Ryu Kosaka is a graduate of the Musashino Art University’s architecture department.

Biden congratulates Johnson in statement

He did so by telling them that the initiative had been personally blessed by Mr. Trump, and that the former president was “anxiously awaiting” to see who in Congress would defend him. We’re seeing a little bit of that here, with his gracious words toward Jeffries, promising to work together and find common ground. “We will stop the socialist agenda, we will control the purse strings, and you will see some pretty vigorous investigations and oversight because that is a really important responsibility of the Congress in our constitutional system,” he said. Elected to Congress in 2016, Mr. Johnson is the most junior lawmaker in decades to become speaker.

Nixon Birthplace at the Nixon Library and Museum

Mainstream conservatives who backed Mr. Johnson said they hoped to quickly move to pull the House out of its funk. Almost immediately after Mr. Johnson was elected, lawmakers began debating a resolution expressing solidarity with Israel and condemning Hamas, which passed overwhelmingly. Mr. Johnson has opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a bitter fault line in the G.O.P. and in the spending battles that he will have to navigate in the coming days. Mr. Johnson immediately faces a host of challenges that dogged his predecessor, Mr. McCarthy. He is confronting a mid-November deadline to pass a measure to fund the government to avert a shutdown. And he will need to lead a conference deeply divided over foreign policy as Congress considers the Biden administration’s $105 billion funding request for Israel, Ukraine and the southern border.

Hakeem Jeffries quietly wrests control from Mike Johnson - Axios

Hakeem Jeffries quietly wrests control from Mike Johnson.

Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024 21:03:29 GMT [source]

Greene had vowed to press her challenge after Johnson announced a strategy to pass $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan earlier this month. About two-thirds of that money was for Ukraine, an issue Greene had called her "red line" for moving against the speaker. "I made my decision based on my relationship with the conference," Emmer told reporters when asked whether Trump helped doom his candidacy. Emmer voted to certify the 2020 election results after Jan. 6, 2021, but signed onto an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn the presidential election results. Republicans held a candidate forum Tuesday night with five members vying to be the next speaker-designee after Emmer withdrew.

That amendment failed, , with a majority of Republicans voting against the amendment. Stefanik praised Johnson as a "man of deep faith" who is a "titan" on the Judiciary Committee and "dedicated member" of the Armed Services Committee. She said that as vice chair of the Republican Conference, Johnson has "united all of our members to speak clearly and boldly on behalf of the American people."

She comes in at fifth on the longevity roster, having served one day shy of eight years from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. The well-respected No. 2 Republican, Eric Cantor of Virginia, had lost his primary in 2014. The No. 3, McCarthy, soon ran aground over remarks in a TV interview and lacked the votes to be speaker.

Some three-fourths of the 146 Republicans who opposed certifying the election cited it as the rationale for their vote. That narrow, technical, and questionable argument was predicated on Johnson’s assertion that, by authorizing changes to early voting and mail-in voting procedures without consulting their state legislators, state election officials had violated the Constitution. In Congress, guided foremost by his evangelical faith and belief in traditionalist family structures, Johnson has amassed a staunchly conservative voting record.

Among the concessions was agreeing that a motion to vacate could be triggered by a single member — the threshold that historically has been the norm. Barely six months into the job, House Speaker Mike Johnson is at risk of being ousted after Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate. It’s the same political dynamic that removed the last Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in October. By Tuesday evening, five more Republicans, none with a national profile, were vying for the nomination.

His worldwide projects include a song dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Emperor of Japan’s reign, the official theme song for the World Expo, Hollywood film soundtracks, and the official theme song for the prestigious Golden Globe Awards. Led by YOSHIKI, X Japan has sold over 30 million albums and singles and sold out the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome a record-breaking 18 times. He was the first Asian musician to perform at the world’s greatest music halls including Madison Square Garden, Wembley Arena, and solo performances at Carnegie Hall. The prolific Charles Fletcher Lummis founded the Southwest Museum, was an editor at the Los Angeles Times, and still managed to design this house (the name of which means “the Sycamore” in Spanish) on the banks of the Arroyo Seco. Its exterior is made almost entirely from river rock and the interior is heavily influenced by Pueblo Indian dwellings. Fans of today’s DIY movement will appreciate the rustic Craftsman charm of this home, which is furnished with hand-crafted wood pieces; it’s interesting to see how closely modern-day bohemian design mirrors that of Lummis House.

And the hard-right Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, setting into motion the three-week stretch of chaos that left the House without a leader, said Mr. Johnson’s ascension to the top job made their decision to depose the California Republican worth it. A bloc of Republicans had objected to the speaker bid of Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, because of his role in helping lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Mike is a dedicated husband and father and an attorney who has devoted his life and career to fighting for the fundamental freedoms and traditional values that have made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. The little-known congressman was first elected in 2016, representing a solidly Republican part of north and western Louisiana.

"Our mission here is to serve you well, to restore the people's faith in this House in this great and essential institution." "The challenge before us is great, but the time for action is now and I will not let you down," Johnson said. In a statement distributed by the White House, President Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden extended their congratulations to Johnson, and the president reiterated his commitment to working with him "in good faith" for the American people.

Johnson is the sixth Republican elevated to the speakership since 1994, the year the party won its first House majority and elected a speaker of its own for the first time in 40 years. The hard truth is that the five who preceded Johnson (McCarthy, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich) all saw their time in the office end in relative degrees of defeat or frustration. And to find a Republican speaker who left voluntarily in a moment of victory, moving on to another office, you have to go back to the mid-1920s.

The Historical Society of Southern California is now headquartered here, and it holds several Sunday afternoon programs a year, as well as an annual holiday open house in December. Basil Rodriguez, 23, argued Wednesday that Johnson and any lawmaker who backed sending aid to Israel is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Palestinians. The hearing launched further investigations by the committee and continual hearings to combat antisemitism on college campus, ending in Shafik’s Capitol Hill testimony last Wednesday.

"Today is the day that House Republicans will humbly look in our hearts and elect Mike Johnson as speaker of the People's House," she said. "House Democrats believe that when members of the body voted to reject the results of the 2020 election, they forfeited their ability to lead this chamber," Aguilar said. Johnson won the speaker's gavel in a single round of voting, with the support of all Republicans in attendance. In a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House, President Biden welcomed news of Johnson's election. Jeffries, the Democratic leader, presented him with the gavel, calling him a "family man, a hardworking man, a Baptist man, a Southern man, a son of a firefighter's household."

Today, they reside in Bossier Parish.You can find Congressman's official photo here. In February 2015 Johnson ran unopposed as a Republican in the special election to fill the vacant seat in the lower chamber of the Louisiana legislature representing District 8, made up of a section of the northwestern part of the state, including a portion of Shreveport. As a legislator, he was driven by his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and his support for religious freedoms. In the Louisiana House of Representatives, Johnson authored the Marriage and Conscience Act, a bill aimed at averting harmful treatment by the state of individuals in response to their views on marriage. Critics of the legislation—which failed to advance beyond committee consideration—argued that it offered legal cover to discriminate against same-sex couples.