Mike Johnson, a staunch conservative from Louisiana, is elected Home speaker with broad GOP help

By LISA MASCARO, STEPHEN GROVES, FARNOUSH AMIRI and KEVIN FREKING Related Press

Republicans unanimously elected Rep. Mike Johnson as Home speaker on Wednesday, eagerly elevating a deeply conservative however lesser-known chief to the key seat of U.S. energy and ending for now the weeks of political chaos of their majority.

Johnson, 51, of Louisiana, swept by means of on the primary poll with help from all Republicans anxious to place the previous weeks of tumult behind and get on with the enterprise of governing. He was shortly sworn into workplace, second in line to the presidency.

“The folks’s Home is again in enterprise,” Johnson declared after taking the gavel.

A lower-ranked member of the Home GOP management group, Johnson emerged because the fourth Republican nominee in what had grow to be an nearly absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockeyed for energy. Whereas not the get together’s best choice for the gavel, the deeply non secular and even-keeled Johnson has few foes and an necessary GOP backer: Donald Trump.

“I feel he’s gonna be a incredible speaker,” Trump mentioned Wednesday on the New York courthouse the place the previous president, who’s now the Republican front-runner for president in 2024, is on trial over a lawsuit alleging enterprise fraud.

Three weeks on and not using a Home speaker, the Republicans have been losing their majority standing — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in motion to others, however by no means how the Home is anticipated to operate.

President Joe Biden congratulated the brand new speaker and mentioned it’s “time for all of us to behave responsibly” with challenges forward to fund the federal government and supply assist for Ukraine and Israel.

“We have to transfer swiftly,” the president mentioned.

Within the Home, far-right members had refused to simply accept a extra conventional speaker, and average conservatives didn’t desire a hard-liner. Whereas Johnson had no opponents throughout a personal get together roll name late Tuesday, some two dozen Republicans didn’t vote, greater than sufficient to sink his nomination.

However when GOP Convention Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik rose to introduce Johnson’s title Wednesday as their nominee, Republicans jumped to their toes for a standing ovation.

“Home Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson won’t ever quit,” she mentioned.

Democrats once more nominated their chief Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, criticizing Johnson as an architect of Trump’s authorized effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election he misplaced to Democrat Biden.

With Republicans controlling the Home solely 221-212 over Democrats, Johnson may afford only a few detractors to win the gavel. He received 220-209, with just a few absences.

Jeffries mentioned Home Democrats will discover “widespread floor” work with Republicans each time doable for the “good of the nation.”

Lawmakers had been shortly reconvening in what has been a shuttered chamber to contemplate a Home decision in help of Israel within the conflict towards Hamas.

In a single day the endorsements for Johnson began pouring in, together with from failed speaker hopefuls. Rep. Jim Jordan, the hard-charging Judiciary Committee chairman, gave his help, as did Majority Chief Steve Scalise, the guy Louisiana congressman, who stood behind Johnson after he received the nomination.

“Mike! Mike! Mike!” lawmakers chanted at a press convention after the late-night inside vote, surrounding Johnson and posing for selfies in a present of help.

Anxious and exhausted, Republican lawmakers are desperately making an attempt to maneuver on.

Johnson’s rise comes after a tumultuous month, capped by a head-spinning Tuesday that inside a span of some hours noticed one candidate, Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP Whip, nominated after which shortly withdraw when it grew to become clear he can be the third candidate unable to safe sufficient help from GOP colleagues after Trump bashed his nomination.

“He wasn’t MAGA,” mentioned Trump, referring to his Make America Nice Once more marketing campaign slogan.

Consideration shortly turned to Johnson. A lawyer specializing in constitutional points, Johnson had rallied Republicans round Trump’s authorized effort to overturn the 2020 election outcomes.

Elevating Johnson to speaker offers Louisianians two high-ranking GOP leaders, placing him above Scalise, who was rejected by hard-liners in his personal bid as speaker.

Johnson is affable and effectively favored, and colleagues swiftly began giving him their help.

The congressman, who drew on his Christian beliefs, mentioned to the American folks watching: “Our mission right here is to serve you effectively and to revive the folks’s religion on this Home.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who led a small band of hard-liners to engineer McCarthy’s ouster at the beginning of the month, posted on social media that “Mike Johnson received’t be the Speaker the Swamp needs however, he’s the Speaker America wants.”

Republicans have been flailing all month, unable to conduct routine enterprise as they battle amongst themselves with daunting challenges forward.

The federal authorities dangers a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to move funding laws by a Nov. 17 deadline to maintain companies and places of work operating. Extra instantly, President Biden has requested Congress to offer $105 billion in assist — to assist Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming applications face expiration with out motion.

Many hard-liners have been resisting a pacesetter who voted for the funds deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this yr, which set federal spending ranges that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now wish to undo. They’re pursuing steeper cuts to federal applications and companies with subsequent month’s funding deadline.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia mentioned she needed assurances the candidates would pursue impeachment inquiries into Biden and different prime Cupboard officers.

In all, some 15 congressmen, however no ladies, competed for the gavel over the previous a number of weeks.

Through the turmoil, the Home was led by a speaker professional tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Monetary Companies Committee. His most important job was to elect a extra everlasting speaker.

Some Republicans — and Democrats — needed to offer McHenry extra energy to get on with the routine enterprise of governing. However McHenry, the primary individual to be within the place that was created within the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults as an emergency measure, declined to again these overtures. He, too, obtained a standing ovation.

Related Press author Jill Colvin contributed to this report.