Consultant Mike Johnson, the little-known Louisiana Republican looking for to turn into speaker, 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 Examine 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 score from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America. On the day the Supreme Court docket voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he celebrated, calling it “a unprecedented day in American historical past that took us nearly a half-century to get to.” He hosts a spiritual podcast along with his spouse and considers Consultant Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of many founders of the ultraconservative Home Freedom Caucus, a mentor.
Final 12 months, Mr. Johnson launched a invoice that prohibited the usage of federal funds for offering intercourse schooling to kids underneath 10 that included any L.G.B.T.Q. matters — a proposal that critics known as a nationwide model of Florida’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” regulation. Mr. Johnson known as the laws “frequent 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 support 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 strong committee chairman, was solely capable of 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 another 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 12 months working to convey 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 did not win over extra centrist members of his celebration, who steadfastly refused to help him.
Consultant Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the bulk whip and the third candidate for the job, had the most important issues of any of the speaker-designates that preceded him: the hard-right wing of the celebration 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 delicate model. 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 a substitute, 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 celebration was profitable.
“In case you don’t suppose that shifting from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson exhibits the ascendance of this motion and the place the facility within the Republican Celebration actually lies, then you definitely’re not paying consideration,” Consultant Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, stated in an interview on Steve Bannon’s “Struggle Room” podcast.
