Republicans have at long last elected a House speaker: Representative Mike Johnson, a fundamentalist Christian who was also once called a key “architect” in Congress’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election.
Johnson finally secured the speaker’s gavel after Republican infighting left the House without a speaker for 22 days. He secured 220 votes.
Johnson is a four-term congressman representing Louisiana. His win also represents the rise of the MAGA front in the Republican Party. Earlier Wednesday morning, Donald Trump endorsed Johnson as House speaker—after quickly killing Mike Emmer’s nomination the day before.
I’m betting on this guy not lasting until November 2024 (not sure what the over/under is on November 17, 2023).
How do you think he’ll get removed? It took them this long to agree on someone to elect, it seems unlikely enough of them would agree to remove him. They could maybe get the Democrats along with a small subset of Republicans to vote him out like the last time, but I’m not sure the Democrats would be up for that. Maybe if they wait until right before the election, but I can’t imagine the GOP being dumb enough to oust the speaker right before elections happen (although that does raise the question of who certifies the election if there’s no speaker. I’m assuming the speaker pro tem?).
They can oust any and every speaker at will, keeping Congress at a standstill and the government in chaos as long as they can get a simple GOP majority vote.
They don’t need a GOP majority vote. They need a house majority vote. And unless dems have some compelling reason to keep the republican speaker (unlikely), it only takes a handful from the GOP to oust the speaker. I think McCarthy only lost 8 republican votes.
I tend to agree, but let’s remember that Republicans ousted McCarthy, it only took one member requesting to call for a vote, and they had had a giant number of votes to get him in initially. Those maga Republicans are nutty, I wouldn’t count on them not getting pissed off and trying to break all the toys again.
