2023-10-25 21:56:21
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The election of this elected official from Louisiana, a Trump ally, ends a three-week impasse that paralyzed Congress. The new “speaker” has already submitted a first text on support for Israel which has been adopted.
After three weeks of chaos and violent infighting, the Republicans finally managed to elect a speaker to the House of Representatives. Mike Johnson, an obscure 51-year-old elected official from Louisiana, won unanimously. This former ultra-conservative lawyer had until now become known for his active role in manipulating the results of the 2020 elections. He not only encouraged President Trump to “stay strong and keep fighting» to keep power following Joe Biden’s victory. But he was “Most important architect“, according to New York Times, of the legal battle to change the outcome of the election and prevent the transfer of power. And even following his complaint was rejected by the Supreme Court, he challenged the certification of the results on January 6.
Mike Johnson, now the third person in the state, has refused to answer journalists’ questions on this subject in recent days. No wonder he received congratulations from Donald Trump upon his victory. He will be “un grand speaker», assured the former president on his social network. This father of four children is also an evangelical Christian activist opposed to gay marriage, LGBT rights and of course abortion, which he would like to have banned federally. With his wife, he hosts a religious podcast. In his speech following his victory, he mentioned God a lot and suggested that it was to him that he owed this promotion.
Default speaker
He was far from being the Republicans’ first choice. After the dismissal of speaker Kevin McCarthy by a small group of conservatives furious that he had passed a finance law with the Democrats, several candidates ran for the position but none managed to gather enough votes, either because they were too moderate to the Trumpists, or too extremist for the moderates. If it is so easy for a faction to block a candidate, it is because the Republicans have a very small majority in the House. It only takes four votes to derail a nomination. Mike Johnson is therefore a speaker somewhat by default. He owes his nomination to the fact that he has fewer enemies than his better-known rivals and seems more consensual. Even though he is very right-wing, he is a calm and composed character. “Ce is not an arsonist“, summarized Kelly Armstrong, representative of North Dakota.
His candidacy also comes at a time when the Republicans were ready to do anything to find a solution that would put an end to the bleak spectacle of their internal squabbles for weeks. In his speech, the new speaker promised to work with the Democrats and praised the work of Kevin McCarthy. His task is not going to be simple. Elected to the House in 2016, he has little experience while the contenders for this
position generally prepare for years. He has never held a leadership position in the House, has no personal relationship with Senate leaders or Joe Biden and the party’s number 2 and number 3 in the House who ran for speaker before Being ousted by the Trumpist wing may not help him much. Above all, he has neither the contacts nor the address book of McCarthy to organize the enormous fundraising from donors, a major function of the speaker. Finally, he will have to lead a deeply divided Republican group following his last weeks.
Also read: The impeachment of Kevin McCarthy, the great upheaval of American politics
A text on Israel voted on immediately
This election does not put an end to the dysfunction of the Chamber which has become almost ungovernable because of the different factions. All it takes is one elected official to trigger a vote to overthrow the speaker. Johnson’s advantage is that he is an ally of the Trumpist bloc, which should perhaps give him more latitude to govern while his predecessor McCarthy was constantly forced to negotiate with him. He has serious deadlines ahead of him. In a speech delivered just following the election, he promised that the first text he would submit would be on Israel, something he did a few hours following the election. “Our country’s greatest ally in the Middle East is under attack. The first bill that I will submit to this chamber in a short while will be in support of our dear friend, Israel. did he declare. He also needs to have the budget voted on urgently before November 17. And aid to Ukraine… However, Mike Johnson opposed in May with around fifty conservatives the allocation of nearly 40 billion to Ukraine and said he was hostile to any new aid.
In any case, his election signals an even further rightward shift in the House. “If you don’t believe that passing from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA (Make America Great Again, Trump’s slogan, Editor’s note) Mike Johnson is enough to show the rise of this movement and where the real power of the party lies republican, you’re not paying attentionsaid Matt Gaetz, the Florida representative who led to McCarthy’s impeachment.
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