House Speaker: Johnson Elected Speaker of the House, Ending Weeks of Chaos The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Mayor Bass’ ambitious housing program calls on L.A.’s wealthy. Can she pull it off?
• Votes on the Foreign Aid Bills
• There's been a history of hard landings
• Rep. Mike Johnson
• Mike Johnson elected House speaker with unanimous GOP support, ending weeks of chaos
• California Assembly
• List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives[change change source]

Washington — Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, won election as the new speaker of the House on Wednesday, ending three weeks of chaos since Rep. Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster. This marks a clear departure from how those same members viewed former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision earlier this month to put a short-term spending bill on the floor, which ultimately led to his ouster. House conservatives are signaling they’ll give the newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson some runway and flexibility as the House barrels toward a November 17 spending deadline to fund the government. After three weeks without a speaker, the House voted Wednesday to elect Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Today, the role of the speaker is influenced especially by changes instituted by Speaker Newt Gingrich, who took the gavel after the 1994 elections. By the 1970s, committees had gained such control over legislative outcomes that widespread reforms were adopted, which shifted power back to the speaker.

Mayor Bass’ ambitious housing program calls on L.A.’s wealthy. Can she pull it off?

Asked if he was worried Johnson might attempt to overturn the results of the 2024 election, Mr. Biden said he wasn't. Jeffries urged swift action on a package to provide aid to Israel, Ukraine and other U.S. allies, which the White House has requested. The New York Democrat pledged his party will back Mr. Biden as he works to free hostages held by Hamas. The Democratic leader then took his place at the dais and delivered a speech cheering the work of House Democrats so far this Congress, while decrying the dysfunction that gripped the House over the last three weeks.

Votes on the Foreign Aid Bills

The brief claimed that the officials and courts in each of the battleground states unconstitutionally usurped the power granted to state legislators by changing election rules in 2020. Democrats will nominate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and they are being urged to vote for him, according to a notice from Democratic whip Katherine Clark's office. Rep. Pete Aguilar , the Democratic caucus chair, will deliver the nominating speech for Jeffries. "We'll be talking about the support and what's necessary to get it," Johnson said. "We have to ensure Vladimir Putin is not successful, and I think all the House Republicans are united in that cause."

There's been a history of hard landings

Under the California Constitution, all judicial, school, county, and city offices, including those of chartered cities, are nonpartisan.[1] The current mayor is Karen Bass, the current city attorney is Hydee Feldstein Soto and the current city controller is Kenneth Mejia. Johnson faces backlash from hard-right members of his party after he joined Democrats on Saturday to pass a critical foreign aid package that included $60.8 billion of aid for Ukraine. Republican Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky have signed on to the motion to vacate, which Greene authored but hasn't yet brought to the floor as a privileged resolution. An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the political party of a group of representatives who notably voted “no” on new aid for Israel.

But what you hear from conservatives – at least in the minutes before and after Johnson won the speaker’s election – is they are willing to give some room for Johnson to maneuver in his new role. From 1977 to 1995, three successive Democratic speakers – Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Jim Wright and Tom Foley – reinvigorated the speakership. They enlarged the party leadership structure, creating wider networks of loyalty among members of the majority party while strengthening support for their priorities. Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House. A social conservative, Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. In the end, it was Mr. Johnson who was able to bring together both the party’s hard-right and mainstream flanks that had taken turns sinking speaker candidates.

The majority party members and the minority party members meet separately to select their leaders. Third parties rarely have had enough members to elect their own leadership, and independents will generally join one of the larger party organizations to receive committee assignments. A party caucus or conference is the name given to a meeting of or organization of all party members in the House. Additionally, since many speakers held office for multiple terms, often with non-consecutive periods, the time listed for each speaker represents the total length of their time as speaker. It is important to note that the period between the adjournment of one Congress and the convening of the next Congress is not included in the calculations. For instance, Nathaniel Macon served as speaker during both the 8th and 9th Congresses, but the eight-month gap between the two Congresses is not included in his service duration.

Mike Johnson elected House speaker with unanimous GOP support, ending weeks of chaos

Evoking his evangelical Christian faith, Mr. Johnson repeatedly referred to scripture in his speech from the House floor. The Speaker recognizes Members to speak on the House Floor or make motions during Floor proceedings. The Speaker also serves as an ex officio member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Read more about what Republicans plan to do with their new House majority here. There will also be some must-pass policy issues — like funding the government — that will test the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together.

California Assembly

Adherence to strict rules and procedures is necessary to overcome the difficulty of managing a large legislative body like the House of Representatives. The House has been in a state of uncertainty and chaos since Oct. 3, when rebels forced a vote to oust Mr. McCarthy as speaker. Eight Republicans backed that move along with Democrats, who remained united behind their own leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Republicans had cast aside two previous winners of their closed-door nominating process — Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio — before settling on Mr. Emmer. Pressed by reporters on Tuesday night about his efforts to overturn the election, Mr. Johnson smiled and shook his head, saying, “next question,” as Republicans beside him booed.

US House speaker, who strongly opposed Ukraine aid, ushers it through - Voice of America - VOA News

US House speaker, who strongly opposed Ukraine aid, ushers it through.

Posted: Sat, 20 Apr 2024 23:28:19 GMT [source]

The members who ousted McCarthy also told reporters that they have no regrets now about ousting McCarthy. Asked if he would bring a vote to oust Johnson if he put forth a short-term spending bill at current spending levels, Rep. Matt Gaetz said he’s optimistic Johnson will be able to actually pass the individual spending bills. “I have never been comfortable with CRs (continuing resolutions), but it … is going to be difficult for Mike and anyone who steps into that job, but I think he is going to do a great job,” Rep. Eli Crane, a Republican, told CNN. Only hours later, Mr. Emmer told Republicans in a closed-door meeting that he was dropping his bid, according to a person familiar with his decision who divulged the private discussion on the condition of anonymity.

A social conservative, Mr. Johnson played a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results. “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. “From an outside point of view these last few weeks probably look like total chaos, confusion, no end in sight," he said. "But from my perspective, this is one of the greatest experiences of the recent history of our republic." Clark is only the second woman after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve in one of the top two party leadership positions in Congress.

Who is House Speaker Mike Johnson? - ABC News

Who is House Speaker Mike Johnson?.

Posted: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

“While I navigate through the judicial system to defend my name against unwarranted charges filed against me, the last thing I want to do is be a distraction to the people’s business,” Price wrote in a letter. The development makes Price the fourth current or former council member to face criminal charges in four years — and the latest in a long line of elected leaders and officials facing the fallout from legal troubles or prior missteps. Less than a year after a leaked racist recording led to the downfall of several of Los Angeles’ top officials, a new bombshell is rocking the city’s political world. City Hall and the adjacent federal, state, and county buildings are served by the Civic Center station on the Metro B and D subway lines and the Historic Broadway station on the Metro A and E light rail lines. Reached for comment about the House's changing posture toward a motion to vacate, office directed NBC News to recent remarks from Johnson, R-La., which included his saying Saturday that he doesn't walk around the Capitol "being worried about a motion to vacate."

The hearing led to a bipartisan call on Capitol Hill to denounce or demand the resignation of leaders at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their responses, which were deemed out of touch. Progressive activists have condemned Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, for “willfully spreading misinformation” and “inciting violence” in a TV interview about student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Not helping matters is Johnson’s decision last week to lock arms with George Santos before a two-thirds majority of the House chose to expel him from the chamber, a dicey vote that left swing-district Republicans in a lurch. Yet none of that has solved the problems that McCarthy found himself ill-equipped to solve. The structural deficiencies that fueled Johnson’s improbable rise to the lush Speaker’s office remain.

The plan, laid out in a rule that passed on Friday, was concocted to capitalize on the pools of support for each part of the $95 billion package, while preventing opposition to any one piece from taking down all of them. A member of a joint program between the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia, he was in the crowd watching Johnson speak. He said he feels safe on campus but understands why others do not and that his roommate booked a last-minute flight home over safety concerns.

Abortion rights proponents have noted his work from 2010 as a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, citing a letter in which he fought to shut down an abortion clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He voted this year in favor of the debt limit law negotiated by McCarthy and Biden. But he voted against the stopgap bill to avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1. 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. Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site, early Wednesday to urge House Republicans to back Johnson for speaker, less than a day after he effectively derailed Majority Whip Tom Emmer's own bid for the gavel. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, who voted for Majority Leader Steve Scalise on each of the three ballots during House voting last week, said he plans to back Johnson when the lower chamber convenes to elect a new speaker.

The school also announced it would start a hybrid learning model for the rest of the year. Some on the right opposed to Mr. Emmer cited his vote in favor of codifying federal protections for same-sex couples. Others railed against Mr. Emmer’s vote in favor of a stopgap spending bill put forward by Mr. McCarthy, the speaker at the time, to avert a government shutdown. Still others said he was insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, because he voted to certify the results of the 2020 election won by President Biden.

In a statement emailed to CNN, Garcia said that comics are especially significant to him because they helped him learn English after coming to the US from Peru. A leader on conservation and the environment at home and abroad, Pelosi authored legislation to create the Presidio Trust and transform San Francisco’s former military post into an urban national park. She also secured passage of the “Pelosi Amendment” in 1989, now a global tool used to assess the potential environmental impacts of development. Currently serving as Speaker Emerita of the House and as the Representative for California’s 11th Congressional District, she is fighting For The People to lower costs, grow paychecks and create jobs.