Ahead of the floor vote on his bid for House speaker, Republican Rep. Mike Johnson sounded optimistic. Asked if expected to get the 217 votes he needed, the GOP speaker-designate said, “I do. I do, on the first vote.” The Louisianan added that he saw his conference as “unified.”
As it turns out, that optimism was rooted in fact.
Kevin McCarthy’s speakership ended in failure. Steve Scalise was speaker-designate for just one day. Jim Jordan’s tenure as speaker-designate led to floor votes, each of which he lost. Tom Emmer’s tenure as speaker-designate was roughly as long as the first Lord of the Rings movie.
Johnson, however, succeeded and is now the nation’s 56th House speaker. NBC News reported:
Republicans elected a new speaker of the House on Wednesday in Rep. Mike Johnson, ending 22 days of a paralyzed chamber after a group of rebels overthrew Rep. Kevin McCarthy. … After weeks of disarray, the GOP demonstrated remarkable unity: All 220 Republicans cast their vote for Johnson, while all 209 Democrats voted for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
For Republicans, there’s a palpable — and entirely understandable — sense of relief. It was more than three weeks ago when then-House Speaker McCarthy was ousted in a historic rebuke, touching off a congressional crisis without precedent. GOP lawmakers spent 22 days nominating and rejecting candidates, reinforcing impressions that the majority Republican conference was a hapless, leaderless, and directionless embarrassment.
That impression lingers, of course, but at least the party finally managed to elect a speaker, filling the longest vacancy in American history.
As the dust settles, there’s no shortage of elements to keep in mind.
Johnson’s far-right record: Johnson has a measured temperament, but by most measures, he’s the most far-right House speaker in modern times. One member described Johnson to NBC News as “Jim Jordan with a jacket and a smile.”
We are, after all, talking about a congressman who spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, co-sponsored legislation for a national abortion ban, endorsed trying to “expunge” Donald Trump’s first impeachment, worked as a lawyer for an organization that opposes the separation of church and state, positioned himself as an ardent culture warrior who introduced federal legislation modeled after Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill, and during his tenure as chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the group touted budget plans that called for deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
I realize the word “moderate” gets thrown around a bit too casually sometimes when talking about some congressional Republicans, but no one should use it in reference to the new House speaker.
Johnson’s inexperience: A variety of GOP senators conceded this morning that they have no idea who Johnson is. That’s in part because of his relatively low profile, but it also stems from the fact that he’s only been on Capitol Hill since 2017. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah told NBC News, “Inexperience seems to be a qualification.” It’s a fair point. Traditionally, House speakers cultivate impressive resumes, over the course of many years, before holding a gavel. Johnson hasn’t quite finished his seventh year in Congress; he’s never chaired a legislative committee; and his list of legislative accomplishments is exceedingly thin. Johnson’s difficult future: The good news for the Louisiana congressman is that he’s now the speaker of the House. The bad news for Johnson is, well, he’s now the speaker of the House. As Kevin McCarthy can attest, given the current circumstances, this job is neither easy nor fun, and all of the challenges that burdened the ousted speaker remain unchanged. Johnson still has the same small majority. He still faces the same motion-to-vacate rules. He still needs to figure out how to prevent a government shutdown — with a mid-November deadline looming. He still needs to determine how, whether, and to what extent Congress will support U.S. allies abroad in the midst of military crises. A Washington Post report added as the day got underway, “[Johnson] has little experience in leadership and has only a small staff. It’s likely to take him weeks just to get staffed up if he’s elected speaker — and government funding is set to run out in a little more than three weeks. That’s a tough situation for any speaker — but for a brand-new one leading a deeply fractured Republican conference, it will be nearly impossible.” GOP members have repeatedly joked in recent weeks that being speaker in the current Congress is a terrible job. It probably won’t be long before Johnson stops finding those jokes funny.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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