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

Table Of Content

• Stefanik nominates Johnson for speaker
• Banks says Jordan should be the speaker designee after Scalise quits
• Republicans Nominate Louisiana’s Mike Johnson for House Speaker
• When will the House vote?
• Are Pelosi's picks good choices now?
• Republicans nominate Mike Johnson for speaker after spurning Emmer.
• Rep. Mike Johnson

Others railed against Mr. Emmer’s vote in favor of a stopgap spending bill put forward by Mr. McCarthy, the speaker at the time, to avert a government shutdown. Still others said he was insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, because he voted to certify the results of the 2020 election won by President Biden. The new speaker has been in Congress since 2017 and has no experience in the House leadership. The speaker in the United States, by tradition, is the head of the majority party in the House of Representatives, outranking the majority leader.

Stefanik nominates Johnson for speaker

The vote indicates that Emmer faces a tough road to securing the 217 votes needed to win the speaker's gavel. "One of the things that I think won a big round of applause inside the room was that Tom Emmer said, 'Listen, we're not gonna do this shell diplomacy," Johnson told reporters. "We're not gonna break up in small rooms. I'm not gonna say one thing to you differently than what I'm gonna say to you." Emmer can only afford four defections in a vote on the House floor to still win the speakership. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida proclaimed on social media that she would not be supporting Emmer in a floor vote. He did not respond to reporters' questions about whether he was still in the race.

There's Still No House Speaker. What Happens Now? - The New York Times

There's Still No House Speaker. What Happens Now?.

Posted: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Banks says Jordan should be the speaker designee after Scalise quits

However, despite having the right to vote, the speaker usually does not participate in debate and only votes on the most significant bills. House Republicans will — yet again — huddle behind closed doors this morning to select their new speaker designate. Only this time, instead of two candidates facing off for a majority of their colleagues’ votes, there will be eight names to choose from, which means we’re most likely in for hours of waiting to see who the next candidate to try for 217 on the House floor will be.

Republicans Nominate Louisiana’s Mike Johnson for House Speaker

The No. 3, McCarthy, soon ran aground over remarks in a TV interview and lacked the votes to be speaker. The party settled on Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had not sought the gavel but agreed to take it. Like Johnson an era later, Hastert was a relatively quiet member of the leadership who enjoyed goodwill generally in the rank and file. Hastert was speaker through the last two Clinton years and first six of the George W. Bush presidency.

Self announces he will vote for Jordan in floor vote

"Members are advised that House Republicans are planning to adjourn and votes are no longer expected in the House today," a notice from House Minority Whip Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts said. Williams was eliminated from the race as the lowest vote-earner, and Green withdrew his candidacy. Thirty-three of the "other" votes were cast for McCarthy, Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida said. There will also be some must-pass policy issues — like funding the government — that will test the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together.

Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama announced ahead of the closed-door conference meeting that he is dropping out of the race to be speaker, leaving seven candidates vying for the position. After the first round of voting, Sessions received the lowest number of votes and was eliminated. He quietly made deals with the most conservative members of the conference in order to win the speakership in January. Emmer told GOP colleagues he won't strike any secret deals to become speaker, Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson told reporters.

Are Pelosi's picks good choices now?

Johnson has a spotless history of voting against legal abortion, earning an "A+" rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Abortion rights proponents have noted his work from 2010 as a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, citing a letter in which he fought to shut down an abortion clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In Biden’s first two years, Johnson voted against a slew of bipartisan bills — including one to establish a Jan. 6 independent commission, the infrastructure law, reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a modest new gun law and the CHIPS and Science Act. On Tuesday night, after he was nominated, Johnson declined to respond to a question about his role in the election objections.

Republicans nominate Mike Johnson for speaker after spurning Emmer.

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. Democrats were scathing in their assessment of Mr. Johnson’s ascent to the speakership. Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the Democratic conference chairman, said that the speaker fight had devolved into a contest over “who can appease Donald Trump.” At that line, a handful of hard-right Republicans stood and applauded. Exhausted from the feuding, which unleashed a barrage of recriminations and violent threats against lawmakers, both the right wing and mainstream Republicans finally united to elect Mr. Johnson, 51, in a 220-to-209 vote.

Emmer is one of two speaker candidates who voted to certify the 2020 election results. Following his win, the Republican conference held a roll call vote to gauge Emmer's support. Roughly 20 GOP lawmakers voted no on the Minnesota Republican's speaker bid, according to Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York. House Republicans have begun voting on the first ballot for their speaker nominee after convening to elect a fourth candidate just hours after Emmer, who won the conference's nomination earlier Tuesday, withdrew his candidacy amid growing opposition. He told reporters Johnson had 84 votes, and 31 votes were cast for other candidates. The House has now been without an elected speaker for three weeks, which means that it has not been able to consider or pass legislation to address a rising number of domestic and foreign crises, including providing aid for Israel or Ukraine.

It’s been two months since a klatch of House Republicans forced the ouster of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy because, frankly, they didn’t like him. One voted against him because she didn’t think he had women’s rights in mind. Another kicked him to the curb because he thought McCarthy had mocked his faith. After all, McCarthy had dared to strike a deal with Democrats earlier in the year to keep the lights on. In the end, those eight rabble-rousers booted McCarthy after just nine months with the gavel, turning themselves into a kind of veto-wielding super-minority in a chamber where the Republican margins are epicly narrow. The power of the speaker was greatly augmented during the tenure of the Republican Thomas Brackett Reed (1889–1891, 1895–1899).

Emmer remained the top vote-getter, with 107 votes, according to McMorris Rodgers, followed by Johnson with 56 votes. GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik tweeted the full list of candidates shortly before the candidate forum was to begin this evening. Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida, Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, Mark Green of Tennessee, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Roger Williams of Texas, are running.

House Republicans are planning to hold another candidate forum at 6 p.m., now that Emmer has dropped out of the race, Republican members told reporters. Johnson, a former radio host from Louisiana, was first elected to Congress in 2016. Johnson, who was first elected to Congress in 2016, voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

The challenge for House Republicans is they still have eight more spending bills to pass including two that have been stuck in committee because of disagreements within GOP ranks. In his letter to colleagues, Johnson set out an aggressive time table for passing the bills, but the issue will be finding a way to pass the legislation in just a narrow GOP majority. In a letter to colleagues earlier Wednesday, Johnson outlined his first priority will be trying to pass the remaining spending bills that have so far languished in the House one by one. Scalise secured the Republican nomination for speaker and quickly won over some of the eight rebels who voted last week to oust McCarthy, but many GOP lawmakers say the Louisiana congressman would largely be a continuation of his predecessor. Now that House Republicans have chosen Scalise as their speaker nominee, Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has been acting as speaker pro tempore since McCarthy was removed, can bring the vote up on the chamber floor.

This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Today, congressional correspondents Billy House and Erik Wasson look at where things stand with the ouster threat facing House Speaker Mike Johnson. Most of them served in that long stretch when their party held the majority for four decades.