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Consultant Mike Johnson, the little-known Louisiana Republican who was elected speaker on Wednesday, is each a number one election denier and one of many staunchest non secular conservatives within the Home.
Mr. Johnson, a lawyer and former chairman of the conservative Republican Research Committee, performed a pivotal function in congressional efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
An evangelical Christian, he has voted for a nationwide abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, incomes him an A-plus ranking from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America. On the day the Supreme Courtroom voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he celebrated, calling it “a rare day in American historical past that took us virtually a half-century to get to.” He hosts a non secular podcast together with his spouse and considers Consultant Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of many founders of the ultraconservative Home Freedom Caucus, a mentor.
Final yr, Mr. Johnson launched a invoice that prohibited using federal funds for offering intercourse training to kids underneath 10 that included any L.G.B.T.Q. matters — a proposal that critics referred to as a nationwide model of Florida’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” legislation. Mr. Johnson referred to as the laws “widespread sense.”
He additionally opposed laws to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages — a invoice that handed with sturdy bipartisan help in each the Home and the Senate. And he has lengthy opposed sending help to Ukraine.
His rise within the depressed and divided Republican convention comes after three weeks when Republicans have been unable to elect a speaker, and underscores the rightward shift of the G.O.P.
Mr. Johnson, who has no expertise in top-tier management and has by no means served as a robust committee chairman, was solely in a position to emerge after three different G.O.P. nominees earlier than him have been unable to rally sufficient help from the convention to win the gavel. And it’s unlikely to have occurred in some other state of affairs.
Consultant Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Home Republican, the primary speaker designate, was finally seen as insufficiently pro-Trump, and had the added baggage of getting spent the yr working to carry laws to the ground that was unpopular with some members of the convention.
Mr. Jordan, the following speaker designate, had Mr. Trump and the hard-right in his nook. However he finally didn’t win over extra centrist members of his social gathering, who steadfastly refused to help him.
Consultant Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the bulk whip and the third candidate for the job, had the largest issues of any of the speaker-designates that preceded him: the hard-right wing of the social gathering didn’t help him and former President Donald J. Trump branded him a “globalist RINO.”
Mr. Johnson’s hallmark in Congress has been combining his hard-line views with a mild fashion. He emerged at a second when members of the convention have been worn down and able to settle for somebody who they didn’t view as an apparent alternative. As an alternative, he handed a lowered bar: They view him as somebody sufficiently conservative and who they don’t personally despise.
Among the hard-right members of Congress hailed his rise as an indication that their wing of the social gathering was successful.
“Should you don’t assume that shifting from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson reveals the ascendance of this motion and the place the ability within the Republican Occasion actually lies, you then’re not paying consideration,” Consultant Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, stated in an interview on Steve Bannon’s “Battle Room” podcast.
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