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Mr. Emmer’s demise was the latest evidence of the seemingly unending Republican dysfunction. He began the day with a scant victory, winning an internal party nominating contest by a vote of 117 to 97 over Mr. Johnson. Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination.
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Not every Republican involved in blocking Mr. McCarthy’s ascension was among those who voted against certifying Mr. Biden’s victory. “We stand here with our democracy intact because of those officers,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, as tears welled up in some House members’ eyes. “That remains an issue to be resolved,” said Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, as he shuttled between meetings on Thursday. The two clerks, Tylease Alli and Susan Cole, have been an integral part of what is now the fifth longest speaker election, and television viewers have noticed.
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A majority of those opposed to Mr. Emmer were members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and loyal to Mr. Trump. Last year, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, sponsored legislation that would effectively bar the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity at any institution serving children younger than 10 that receives federal funds. He said that millions of unborn children had lost their lives because of what he called a “legal fiction that the Supreme Court foisted upon this country” and said that “God will bless us” for the court’s decision.
House GOP ends the day in state of uncertainty as 8 candidates vie for the gavel. Here's what happens next
House Speaker News Conference After Foreign Aid Votes - C-SPAN
House Speaker News Conference After Foreign Aid Votes.
Posted: Sat, 20 Apr 2024 18:11:29 GMT [source]
Mainstream conservatives who backed Mr. Johnson said they hoped to quickly move to pull the House out of its funk. Almost immediately after Mr. Johnson was elected, lawmakers began debating a resolution expressing solidarity with Israel and condemning Hamas, which passed overwhelmingly. Mr. Johnson has opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a bitter fault line in the G.O.P. and in the spending battles that he will have to navigate in the coming days. Democrats were scathing in their assessment of Mr. Johnson’s ascent to the speakership. Representative Pete Aguilar of California, the Democratic conference chairman, said that the speaker fight had devolved into a contest over “who can appease Donald Trump.” At that line, a handful of hard-right Republicans stood and applauded. The vote put him second in line to the presidency, capping an extraordinary period of twists and turns on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson appears at Mississippi event - WJTV
House Speaker Mike Johnson appears at Mississippi event.
Posted: Fri, 26 Apr 2024 02:26:41 GMT [source]
But the speech infuriated Mr. Trump, and Mr. McCarthy quickly worked to get back in the former president’s good graces, traveling to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, three weeks later to meet with him. They also were unhappy that he had suggested in an interview on Fox News that the House committee investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, had the political aim of damaging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Still, both admirers and detractors said Mr. McCarthy’s sheer willingness to sit on the House floor weathering vote after humiliating vote against him — even as he offered a slew of concessions with no clear sense of whether the right-wing defectors would ever cave — was critical to his turnaround.
Gaetz called him "MAGA Mike Johnson" in an appearance Wednesday on right-wing host Steve Bannon's podcast. He voted against bipartisan legislation to codify same-sex marriage, which Biden signed into law last year. On Tuesday night, after he was nominated, Johnson declined to respond to a question about his role in the election objections.
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said “probably, not immediately” when asked whether he believed any of the candidates can reach the requisite votes on the floor. House Republicans are concerned that none of the declared speaker candidates will be able to get the requisite 217 votes on the House floor. The process will continue until there are only two candidates left or until one candidate receives a majority of the votes, whichever comes first. Although Rep. Don Bacon said he thinks the House would have a speaker Tuesday night, saying "people are so discouraged by what's happened the last three weeks, that they want to come together," some of his colleagues weren't so sure. The Speaker has always been a member of the majority party (the party with the most members) but does not have to be an elected member of the House (this has not happened yet). The job of the Speaker is to keep the House in order and to assign committee memberships and chairmanships.
Rep. Mike Johnson
Congress banned the practice more than a decade ago, after a series of scandals tied to earmarks and anti-spending fervor swept through the institution with the rise of the Tea Party, but it has since reintroduced it with more guardrails. The 118th version of the Senate did the same this week, convening for a celebratory induction of new members and the swearing in of re-elected senators on Tuesday, then quickly fleeing the capital for three weeks to allow the House to occupy the political stage alone. While it was long before the dawn of Twitter, super PACs and C-SPAN, things really haven’t changed all that much in Congress. Ms. Alli and Ms. Cole work under the clerk of the House of Representatives, Cheryl L. Johnson, who is charged with keeping lawmakers in order until a new speaker is elected. Two Republicans who were absent for personal reasons from votes earlier in the day, Ken Buck of Colorado and Wesley Hunt of Texas, were expected to be back in time for the vote.
Republicans say some constituents angry about GOP dysfunction: "They think all of us are incapable"
Last call came, before the Republicans voted to go to a 15th ballot instead of adjourning — an unexpected opportunity for another viewing party. Former President Donald J. Trump made a crucially timed call to Representative Matt Gaetz on Friday night after the Florida congressman voted “present” and sunk Kevin McCarthy’s 14th effort to be elected House speaker. The vitriolic attack on the top candidate for speaker from a member of his own party led some of Mr. McCarthy’s supporters to walk off the House floor while he spoke. And by the end of the day, with the majority of the detractors finally coalescing around Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Gaetz appeared to have softened his tone.
In 1997, several Republican congressional leaders tried to force Speaker Newt Gingrich to resign. However, Gingrich refused since that would have required a new election for speaker, which could have led to Democrats along with dissenting Republicans voting for Democrat Dick Gephardt (then minority leader) as speaker. After the 1998 midterm elections where the Republicans lost seats, Gingrich did not stand for re-election.
After three weeks without a speaker, the House voted Wednesday to elect Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Emmer voted to certify the 2020 election results after Jan. 6, 2021, but signed onto an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn the presidential election results. 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."
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