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Table Of Content

• Rep. Mike Johnson
• Johnson wins speaker vote 220-209
• Mike Johnson and the troubled history of recent Republican speakers
• House expected to vote on resolution in support of Israel Wednesday afternoon
• Power ebbed and flowed
• January 7, 2023 updates on Speaker Kevin McCarthy
• Johnson sworn in as House speaker: "The people's House is back in business"

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. “We are unified and so proud to have elected Mike Johnson as speaker of the People’s House,” Elise Stefanik says to kick off a news conference on the Capitol steps. 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. While Mr. Fetterman may have been in the minority among his political peers, with most of whom following the president’s example and opting for a traditional tux, creative black tie proved a talking point.

House speaker race: Jim Jordan fails first bid, second round expected Wednesday - NPR

House speaker race: Jim Jordan fails first bid, second round expected Wednesday.

Posted: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Rep. Mike Johnson

Every new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, and doing so will be the top of the 118th Congress’ to-do list when the House reconvenes Monday. The Texas Republican said that while "of course" lawmakers wanted to be sworn in on January 3, "you saw democracy play out over the last week and come to consensus in the wee hours of the morning, and now we're ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work." The state’s at-large House seat became vacant after Democratic incumbent Peter Welch — who was first elected in 2006 — decided on an ultimately successful Senate run to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who was himself first elected in 1974.

Johnson wins speaker vote 220-209

He sits on the Judiciary Committee (and chairs a subcommittee on the Constitution), the Armed Services Committee and the newly created select committee on "Weaponization of the Federal Government." WASHINGTON — 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. An earlier version of this article misstated the number of votes Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana received in House Republicans’ internal election to choose a speaker nominee.

Mike Johnson and the troubled history of recent Republican speakers

Highlights: 8 Republican candidates compete for speaker support in private forum - NBC News

Highlights: 8 Republican candidates compete for speaker support in private forum.

Posted: Mon, 23 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

But hours after Emmer won the nod in a closed-door vote by the conference Tuesday morning, the former president lambasted the Minnesota Republican, writing on Truth Social that "voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake." Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, another Scalise supporter, told reporters after Johnson was elected speaker-designate that he believes Republicans are "back" and the conference's agenda "back on track." The Republicans came out of the 2000 elections with a further reduced majority but made small gains in 2002 and 2004. Rayburn's successor, Democrat John W. McCormack (served 1962–1971), was a somewhat less influential speaker, particularly because of dissent from younger members of the Democratic Party. During the mid-1970s, the power of the speakership once again grew under Democrat Carl Albert. The Committee on Rules ceased to be a semi-independent panel, as it had been since 1910.

Those eight years actually made Hastert the longest-serving Republican speaker in history. But any luster left after 2006 was lost when he went to prison for bank fraud charges stemming from hush money payments he had made to a former student he admitted to having sexually abused decades earlier. Even a glance at the history of Republican speakers since World War II would tell him that.

The brief claimed that the officials and courts in each of the battleground states unconstitutionally usurped the power granted to state legislators by changing election rules in 2020. Democrats will nominate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and they are being urged to vote for him, according to a notice from Democratic whip Katherine Clark's office. Rep. Pete Aguilar , the Democratic caucus chair, will deliver the nominating speech for Jeffries. If all 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats mark themselves present, Johnson will need 217 votes to win the gavel. Two seats are vacant due to the resignations of Reps. Chris Stewart, a Republican from Utah, and David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island. But last month, he voted for a Rep. Matt Gaetz amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have cut off all security assistance for Ukraine.

House Republicans spar over Speaker decision as McCarthy fights to secure votes

His removal, after 269 days on the job, raises multiple questions, such as who will take his spot now that the seat is vacant and whether the House will be able to resume its normal duties. They also were unhappy that he had suggested in an interview on Fox News that the House committee investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, had the political aim of damaging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Representative Chip Roy of Texas started out as an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Trump’s claims of a stolen election but gradually grew alarmed about the push to invalidate the results and ultimately opposed Mr. Trump’s bid to get Congress to overturn them on Jan. 6, 2021. The practice of earmarking — where a single lawmaker can use a sliver of the sprawling government budget to send money to a specific project in his or her state — has been both embraced and reviled over the years.

January 7, 2023 updates on Speaker Kevin McCarthy

But Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, a McCarthy ally who is in line to become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, took it to another level when he stepped toward Mr. Gaetz and had to be restrained. Mr. McCarthy agreed to allow a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, a rule that he had previously refused to accept, regarding it as tantamount to signing the death warrant for his speakership in advance. Mr. McCarthy, who rarely moved from his seat over the days of votes, approached Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Boebert in their seats and appeared to be pleading with them to change their votes, his signature smile wiped from his face. At one point, Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Alabama, had to be restrained after stepping toward Mr. Gaetz.

Johnson sworn in as House speaker: "The people's House is back in business"

The vitriolic attack on the top candidate for speaker from a member of his own party led some of Mr. McCarthy’s supporters to walk off the House floor while he spoke. And by the end of the day, with the majority of the detractors finally coalescing around Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Gaetz appeared to have softened his tone. After winning their elections and weeks of preparation, Members-elect were sworn in as Members of the U.S. House of Representatives after the 117th Congress was gaveled into session at noon on Sunday, January 3, 2021. The new speaker played a pivotal role in congressional efforts to overturn the 2020 election and opposes abortion rights and gay marriage. The four absences mean Johnson will need 215 votes to win the speakership if all members in the chamber vote for a candidate.

The members who ousted McCarthy also told reporters that they have no regrets now about ousting McCarthy. In the two years since Russia's invasion, opposition to aiding Ukraine has grown from a fringe position to a majority view among House GOP lawmakers. Many argue the money should be spent domestically or that policy changes at the US-Mexico border should take precedence. Under Johnson's unconventional plan, the Ukraine bill will be sent to the Senate as part of a package that includes aid for Israel and Taiwan and a third bill that forces a sale of TikTok and allows the United States to confiscate Russian assets.

Most of them served in that long stretch when their party held the majority for four decades. The most recent Democrat, however, is Nancy Pelosi, still a House member and the House speaker emerita. 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 30-year saga began with Gingrich of Georgia, who was the first member of his party to gain "the big gavel" since the early 1950s and the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The list of the 10 speakers who served in the job longest includes just one Republican (and in the ninth slot at that). That speaker was Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois, notorious as the autocratic "Czar Cannon" during three two-year tours as speaker that ended with his party's historic defeat in 1910. His predecessor, Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts, also had the top job for less than five years. But when he left after the 1924 session, his party was still firmly in control and had just elected President Calvin Coolidge to a full term. The well-respected No. 2 Republican, Eric Cantor of Virginia, had lost his primary in 2014.

But he voluntarily resigned after the GOP lost badly in the 2006 midterms, a defeat Bush called "a thumpin' " at the time. The No. 2 Republican at the time did not have the votes, and the No. 3 declined to run. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee was nominated by the party conference but withdrew after a magazine story accused him of marital infidelity. Johnson has gained stature and won bipartisan praise for letting the whole House vote on the aid package. He also got strong support in the Senate, where even an outright majority of Republicans voted for the aid on Tuesday.

Moreover, in 1975, the speaker was granted the authority to appoint a majority of the members of the Rules Committee. Meanwhile, the power of committee chairmen was curtailed, further increasing the relative influence of the speaker. Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House. 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. But Johnson indicated that given the time constraints, if those bills can’t pass quickly, he’d look to fund to government using what is known as a short-term spending bill or continuing resolution that would run either through January 15 or April 15, whichever the conference supports. The majority party members and the minority party members meet separately to select their leaders.

He began the day with a scant victory, winning an internal party nominating contest by a vote of 117 to 97 over Mr. Johnson. Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination. Mr. Emmer’s downfall followed a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, that left his candidacy in shambles and the G.O.P. as divided as ever. Instead, he moved quickly to bring up a resolution expressing solidarity and support for Israel. His next order of business, he said, would be addressing what he called the country’s “broken border” with Mexico. He made no mention of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, or of the impending government shutdown that will begin next month if Congress fails to pass legislation to keep the government funded.

The Renew Democracy Initiative, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization promoting democracy and American interest overseas, sent a letter Friday urging Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to work together to get the REPO Act passed. The House passed a foreign aid package Saturday as well as what's called the REPO Act, which would allow the Biden administration to confiscate billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets sitting in U.S. banks and transfer them to Ukraine for reconstruction. There is no requirement for the speaker to be a member of Congress, according to Bateman. But speakers have always been members because their interests are most aligned with Congress. Gaetz had pressured McCarthy not to work with Democrats to avert a shutdown, but the former speaker did anyway and said he chose what was best for America − not his job. The push to oust McCarthy began with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who followed through on a threat and introduced a resolution Monday vacate the speaker.