Home Republicans on Wednesday lastly selected their new chief, electing Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson as the brand new Speaker of the Home.
The election of Johnson, an evangelical conservative and former legal professional, culminates a month-long saga that noticed Republicans oust former chief Kevin McCarthy from the speakership function after which battle amongst themselves for 22 days over who ought to substitute him.
In Johnson, the get together has chosen one probably the most conservative Home Audio system in historical past.
Listed below are three issues to find out about him:
1. He helps a nationwide abortion ban
Johnson has lengthy opposed reproductive freedom and spent years working on the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ authorized group that helped overturn Roe v. Wade. Throughout his time on the group, he fought to close down an abortion clinic in Louisiana.
After being elected to the Home, Johnson pushed Donald Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court docket in order that she would vote to overturn Roe. When Barrett and her fellow conservative Justices on the Court docket did overturn Roe, Johnson celebrated, calling it a “historic and joyful” day.
Johnson additionally signed onto a nationwide abortion ban after Roe was repealed.
2. He was a frontrunner within the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election
Johnson was the main architect of Home Republicans’ effort to dam certification of the 2020 presidential election ends in a bid to assist Donald Trump keep within the White Home. He spread lies about nonexistent voter fraud, embraced conspiracy theories about voting machines from Venezuela, and claimed “the repair was in.”
Pivotally, he led greater than 100 Home Republicans in signing onto a authorized transient looking for to invalidate the 2020 election ends in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, 4 swing states gained by President Joe Biden. On Jan. 6 2021, after a mob of Trump supporters launched a lethal assault on the US Capitol, Johnson voted in opposition to certifying the election outcomes.
When a reporter requested about his function in these efforts on Tuesday, Johnson refused to reply as his Republican friends laughed and mocked the reporter.
Reporter: You assist lead the trouble to overturn the 2020 election outcomes, do you—
Republicans: *boo* shut up pic.twitter.com/L7R5fwhpIi
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 25, 2023
Maybe most significantly, if Republicans retain management of the Home within the 2024 elections and Johnson stays Home Speaker, he can be tasked with overseeing the certification of the 2024 presidential election outcomes.
3. Johnson opposes same-sex marriage and has a historical past of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
Johnson opposes homosexual marriage and through his time on the Alliance Defending Freedom, he filed a lawsuit defending Louisiana’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Extra lately, he launched an anti-LGBTQ invoice final 12 months that might have banned dialogue of sexual orientation or gender id at any establishment that obtained federal funds.
CNN additionally reported on Wednesday that Johnson has a historical past of utilizing inflammatory, anti-gay language in editorials, columns, and op-eds written throughout his time at Alliance Defending Freedom.
“Gay relationships are inherently unnatural and, the research clearly present, are finally dangerous and dear for everybody,” Johnson wrote in a 2004 editorial in help of a Louisiana modification banning same-sex marriage.
“Society can not give its stamp of approval to such a harmful way of life. If we alter marriage for this tiny, trendy minority, we must do it for each deviant group,” he continued. “Polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles, and others can be subsequent in line to assert equal safety. They already are. There can be no authorized foundation to disclaim a bisexual the proper to marry a accomplice of every intercourse, or an individual to marry his pet.”
In a 2003 July op-ed, Johnson wrote that “States have many respectable grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual activity.”
And in a 2004 column, Johnson predicted same-sex marriage would possibly doom America.
“Specialists mission that gay marriage is the darkish harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that would doom even the strongest republic.”
