House Republicans nominated Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana as their latest choice for speaker, selecting one of Donald Trump’s most outspoken allies in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The party’s fourth speaker nomination marked the latest twist in a three-week saga that has prevented action on emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine, and on funding to head off an impending mid-November US government shutdown.
Johnson, 51, won the nomination late Tuesday with 128 votes, according to Representative Randy Weber of Texas. But 43 Republicans voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Weber added, a clear signal that Johnson has a steep climb to getting to the necessary 217 votes on the House floor.
Johnson’s stunning emergence as the party’s choice to fill the leadership vacuum came after Trump on Tuesday quashed the nomination of Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota. He has had a frosty relationship with the former president since voting to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.
By contrast, Johnson was involved directly in the campaign to invalidate the election results.
Those efforts include objecting to the certification of the election and playing a key role in getting signatures for an amicus brief in the long-shot Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn the election results in several states.
Earlier: Latest GOP Speaker Nominee Emmer Ends Bid After Trump Criticism
Johnson tweeted on Nov. 7, 2020, after the election, that he’d personally urged Trump to stay strong.
“The nation is depending upon your resolve,” Johnson said he told Trump. “We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.”
As late as Jan. 6, 2021, before that day’s certification of the election — and the insurrection by Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol — Johnson tweeted, “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.”
Attached to that tweet was a statement that he said summarizes “our position and the legal analysis that supports it.”
Emmer’s failed candidacy — which ended a little more than four hours after he won the nomination — marked the third attempt to fill the speakership since hardliners ousted McCarthy from the post on Oct. 3.
Earlier nominees Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio, also could not secure the required 217 votes to win the gavel in House floor votes.
Johnson, a lawyer, has served in Congress since 2017. He is a former chair of the influential Republican Study Committee, and currently serves as vice chair of the GOP conference.
He is the son of Shreveport firefighter who was critically burned and disabled in the line of duty. He’s also been a conservative talk radio host and columnist.
--With assistance from Gregory Korte, Andre Tartar, Jonathan Tamari and Steven T. Dennis.
(Updates, starting in third paragraph.)
Author: Billy House, Erik Wasson and Maeve Sheehey
