Republicans elect Mike Johnson to be House speaker: updates : NPR

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• House to take up resolution declaring support for Israel
• House begins first round of voting for speaker
• Republicans Elect Mike Johnson as House Speaker, Ending Party Chaos
• National Politics
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• Louisiana Republican played a significant role in effort to overturn the 2020 election
• Johnson

The House is staring down a deadline of Nov. 17, when current government funding expires. In his blueprint for the next few months, Johnson said a stopgap measure extending funding until January or April may be needed to approve more spending and avoid a shutdown. Sources told CNN earlier Wednesday that there was a "big push" to bring the bill to the floor once the House elected a new speaker. Earlier this month, the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a public agency representing 19 million residents in Los Angeles County and five neighboring counties, sent a letter to state lawmakers asking for a legislative committee hearing to address the timelines.

House to take up resolution declaring support for Israel

Since then, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) tried and failed to secure the 217 votes needed to become speaker of the GOP-controlled House. In a secret-ballot vote on Tuesday night, Mr. Johnson got 128 votes, with 44 Republicans voting for nominees not on the ballot, including 43 for Mr. McCarthy, whom many view as unfairly ousted. Still, in a separate vote afterward, only a few Republicans indicated they would not back Mr. Johnson on the floor, while about 20 Republicans were absent. A social conservative, Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. In the years before he arrived in Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Defense Fund — now called the Alliance Defending Freedom.

House begins first round of voting for speaker

Israel is said to be preparing for a ground offensive in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and lawmakers have been anxious to show support for the key U.S. ally as the speaker's fight dragged on. Emmer, the majority whip, is one of the two speaker candidates who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election results. Earlier Tuesday night, Ohio Rep. Max Miller suggested there was growing support for restoring McCarthy to the speakership. "Who knows, we might end up back at Speaker McCarthy. He's still got the most votes on anybody in that room."

Republicans Elect Mike Johnson as House Speaker, Ending Party Chaos

Biden congratulated Johnson in a statement Wednesday, and said he would try to work with him on "pressing issues," like passing his proposed aid package for Israel, Ukraine and the border. Congress is also set to consider supplemental funding for national security concerns, including border security funding and assistance for Ukraine and Israel. Johnson moved quickly after his election to restart the legislative business of the House with a vote on a resolution in support of Israel. A single hearing has been held as part of the impeachment effort, by the House Oversight Committee in late September. During the proceeding, law professor Jonathan Turley, who was a witness for the GOP majority, said he did "not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment." "We're going to dispense with all the usual ceremonies and celebrations that traditionally follow a new speakership because we have no time for either one," Johnson said after the vote.

During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team. "We need to move swiftly to address our national security needs and to avoid a shutdown in 22 days," Biden said. The federal government will run out of money on Nov. 17 — just over three weeks from now. McCarthy's decision to work with Democrats to pass a short-term spending bill and avert a shutdown is what triggered the push to oust him from the speakership in the first place.

Asked by CBS News if the goal is to hold a floor vote Tuesday afternoon or evening on a House speaker, McHenry held up his hands in a shrug-like gesture. Rep. Austin Scott has been eliminated from the speaker's race in the third round of voting, according to a tally from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana called Emmer the "single most liberal member" of Republican leadership and accused the "left flank" of the conference of blocking Jordan's nomination. GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik tweeted the full list of candidates shortly before the candidate forum was to begin this evening. Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida, Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, Mark Green of Tennessee, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Roger Williams of Texas, are running. "Members are advised that House Republicans are planning to adjourn and votes are no longer expected in the House today," a notice from House Minority Whip Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts said.

Louisiana Republican played a significant role in effort to overturn the 2020 election

Mike Johnson confronts new doubts as House speaker - Reuters

Mike Johnson confronts new doubts as House speaker.

Posted: Wed, 07 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Almost immediately after Mr. Johnson was elected, lawmakers began debating a resolution expressing solidarity with Israel and condemning Hamas, which passed overwhelmingly. "I made my decision based on my relationship with the conference," Emmer told reporters when asked whether Trump helped doom his candidacy. The former president noted that all of them have supported him "in both mind and spirit" since he won the White House in 2016 and said the five candidates "are beyond reproach and represent the absolute best there is in the Republican Party." He noted that Democrats provided support for legislation to raise the debt ceiling, avoid a government shutdown and provide disaster relief funding. Johnson now faces a daunting list of challenges, with a fast-approaching government shutdown chief among them.

In Biden’s first two years, Johnson voted against a slew of bipartisan bills — including one to establish a Jan. 6 independent commission, the infrastructure law, reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a modest new gun law and the CHIPS and Science Act. In the Trump presidency, Johnson argued that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's move to rip up a copy of his State of the Union speech was a crime. “A lot of people have been talking about this the last 48 hours, and I did a little legal memo to point out to my colleagues that she actually committed a felony,” Johnson said on Fox News at the time. The little-known congressman was first elected in 2016, representing a solidly Republican part of north and western Louisiana. He has ascended through the ranks, chairing the conservative Republican Study Committee and holding the position of House Republican Conference vice chair.

Determining the next steps in the Biden impeachment inquiry

No credible evidence has ever emerged to support the conspiracy theories about Dominion and another voting machine firm having helped to ensure Mr. Trump’s defeat. In April, Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit by Dominion over reports broadcast by Fox that Dominion machines were susceptible to hacking and had flipped votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. In December 2020, Mr. Johnson collected signatures for a legal brief in support of a Texas lawsuit, rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities, that tried to throw out the results in four battleground states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. Johnson says that he will bring to the floor “in just a little while” a resolution in support of Israel. “We’re going to show not only Israel but the entire world that the barbarism of Hamas" is "wretched and wrong,” he said. “We are unified and so proud to have elected Mike Johnson as speaker of the People’s House,” Elise Stefanik says to kick off a news conference on the Capitol steps.

Johnson was the first of four Republican nominees who could secure enough support from within his party to win a majority of votes on the House floor. "We'll be talking about the support and what's necessary to get it. We have to ensure that Vladimir Putin is not successful and I think all the House Republicans are united in that cause," he told reporters, despite opposition from many Republicans to more aid for Ukraine. "We'll be talking about how that's going to be done here in the coming days and it's a top priority." Johnson sent a letter to his colleagues on Monday laying out a tentative schedule for how he would approach the next several months' worth of House business. He endorsed a plan to bring up 12 individual spending bills, rather than a single massive piece of legislation to fund executive branch departments.

"House Democrats believe that when members of the body voted to reject the results of the 2020 election, they forfeited their ability to lead this chamber," Aguilar said. In a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House, President Biden welcomed news of Johnson's election. Mr. Biden spoke to Johnson on the phone a short time later, the White House said, to offer his congratulations and express "that he looks forward to working together to find common ground on behalf of the American people." "We're going to dispense with all the usual ceremonies and celebrations that traditionally follow a new speakership because we have no time for either one," Johnson said. It will need to come up as a suspension vote — an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage.

The word is out that major land zoning bills signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom don’t amount to much because they were so watered down by compromising legislators. Some Jewish students at Columbia said they had been physically blocked by protesters from attending classes, and subjected to racial hatred by demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel’s military operations. At Cal Poly Humboldt, a public university on California’s northern coast, the campus has been closed and classes are being held remotely after pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves in a building for a sit-in. Dozens of students remain inside the building and have blocked entrances with furniture, according to the university, while others occupied another nearby building. As temperatures rose, Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, called Johnson’s trip “divisive”, while the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez assailed authorities for the “reckless and dangerous act” of calling police to non-violent demonstrations. The original encampments at Columbia called for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel.