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Since Kevin McCarthy was stripped of the speaker’s gavel, Republicans have put up one “speaker designate” or “speaker designee” after one other—they’ll’t even determine on which time period to make use of to faux these candidates have an actual shot at a easy election. First it was Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise—David Duke with out the bags. Then it was Rep. Jim Jordan—Gymnasium Jordan, in the event you favor. A collection of names got here and went, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer emerged as The Man … for just a few hours. It’s possible you’ll not have recognized a lot about Emmer, however he was at the very least identifiably prime management. Now it’s Rep. Mike Johnson. Which … who?
Johnson is value figuring out about, although, even when his possibilities of really being elected speaker when the Home reconvenes at midday aren’t value betting on. For one factor, he was one of many mental leaders of Home efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 win, providing a supposedly constitutional argument for why, even with out fraud, Congress ought to block certification of the outcomes. “It was a fig-leaf mental argument,” former Rep. Peter Meijer informed The New York Occasions. Johnson wasn’t only a man who signed onto a letter opposing certification—he was the man who got here up with the argument:
In formal statements justifying their votes, about three-quarters [of those who objected to the results] relied on the arguments of a low-profile Louisiana congressman, Consultant Mike Johnson, an important architect of the Electoral Faculty objections.
ABC’s Rachel Scott tried to ask about that Tuesday night time as Johnson was introduced as the newest Republican speaker candidate. Right here’s how that went:
Whereas he’s lower-profile and appears extra mild-mannered than Jordan, don’t let that idiot you. Johnson has described his relationship with Jordan as “like Batman and Robin,” and so they vote just about in lockstep on key points. When Jordan was the speaker candidate, Johnson described him as “a trustworthy good friend and brother.”
Johnson tweets usually about Jordanesque obsessions like immigration and Hunter Biden. He’s fully on board with unfounded Republican claims that the president is implicated in his son’s enterprise dealings.
However Johnson didn’t simply seem in Congress out of nowhere. Earlier than he was in Congress, Johnson was an legal professional for the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom, doing authorized work like suing New York and New Jersey to make them settle for anti-abortion specialty license plates, suing New Orleans to block home associate advantages for LGBTQ+ metropolis workers, and selling an occasion described by the Related Press like so: “Irked by the success of the nationwide Day of Silence, which seeks to fight anti-gay bias in colleges, conservative activists are launching a counter-event this week referred to as the Day of Fact aimed toward mobilizing college students who consider homosexuality is sinful.”
That is the man Republicans now say needs to be main the Home: An anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ extremist who was “an important architect” of the argument Home Republicans used to justify voting to dam the president’s 2020 win from being licensed and considers Jim Jordan a “good friend and brother.” Is he going to be the one to get throughout the end line and get his arms on the speaker’s gavel? Keep tuned—Every day Kos might be masking the motion stay.
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