Three weeks after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as Speaker of the House, a tenure he kept only 79 days, the House of Representatives voted in favor of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to be the next person to preside over the House. Johnson, who was first elected to Congress in 2016, was the party’s fourth nominee.
Wyoming Representative Harriet Hageman, wasted no time in congratulating the new Speaker, releasing a statement saying, “I congratulate my friend and colleague Mike Johnson. a solid conservative, on his election as Speaker of the House. I know that he will lead the fight to close our borders, pass conservative appropriations bills to responsibly fund our government, hold the Biden crime family responsible for any and all misdeeds, and provide a conservative counterbalance to the Democrat led Senate.”
Representative Johnson, who has been a staunch supporter of former President Trump, by joining a group of Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021, as well as holding a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team, won the Speaker’s gavel with the support of all 220 Republicans in attendance, surpassing the 215-vote total that was required to win, despite his lack of leadership experience in the House. All 209 Democrats in attendance voted for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s House leader.
Hageman, who has worked closely with Speaker Johnson on the Judiciary Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, said she has witnessed first hand Johnson’s “ability to lead, his tenacious spirit working to hold the federal government accountable to the people, and his dogged pursuit to end the Biden Administration’s two-tiered system of justice.”
After three tumultuous weeks of party-nominated candidates not being able to get the magic number of votes (217) to be elected into the most powerful person in the House of Representatives, Johnson will take the gavel as the 118th Speaker of the House in United States history.
As for the Representative from Wyoming, she stated that she voted for him because, “he will fight for our Constitutional rights and for a limited federal government, which are also the same ideals that we hold in Wyoming. I look forward to being a strong ally of our new Speaker in this fight, which is one that we can and must win.”
Johnson serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee.
