2023-10-26 05:01:00
The United States House of Representatives elected Republican Mike Johnson, an ally of former President Donald Trump, as its president, ending the paralysis that Congress had been facing for three weeks due to the lack of agreement to find a replacement for Kevin McCarthy. This Wednesday, Trump advised Republican congressmen to vote for Johnson, a 51-year-old lawyer specialized in constitutional issues and a representative from Louisiana.
Johnson was the fourth Republican nominated in two weeks after Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer, to succeed fellow conservative Kevin McCarthy, dismissed on October 3 due to an internal rebellion in his party. “These have been tough weeks and a reminder that the House is as complicated and diverse as the people we represent,” Johnson said in his first reaction after being elected.
The Republicans have a slim majority in the House of 221 seats compared to the Democrats’ 212, which forces them to have the support of practically all their members in the chamber. Johnson needed 215 endorsements out of 429 legislators present and he got 220, without internal opposition, compared to 209 from his rival, Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The representative from Louisiana, 51, is one of the Republican legislators who tried to annul Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, the year Trump was still in the White House. On his website he describes himself as a husband and father of four children and a lawyer “who dedicated his life and career to fighting for fundamental freedoms and traditional values.”
The new “speaker”, an ultra-conservative evangelical Christian, opponent of abortion and known for his anti-LGBTQ+ positions, stressed that it is necessary for his party to be “strong” to be able to face the current crises in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Along these lines, US President Joe Biden urged Johnson to vote “quickly” on funds for Israel and Ukraine.
Johnson’s candidacy to preside over the House of Representatives was confirmed late on Tuesday, after the previous candidate, Tom Emmer, gave up just hours after being appointed by his party when he realized that he would not have the necessary support. “My strong suggestion is to elect the frontrunner, Mike Johnson. And do it quickly,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
The House of Representatives presidency had been vacant since McCarthy was ousted from office in early October following a no-confidence motion brought by hardliners in his own party, which questioned the bill he introduced to maintain temporary government funding. , who was facing paralysis.
Now the House has until Nov. 17 to agree on a budget if it wants to avoid a partial shutdown of the federal government, which would force hundreds of thousands of workers to temporarily stay home without a paycheck.
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