A look at Mike Johnson and the troubled history of Republican speakers : NPR

Table Of Content

• Biden officials indefinitely postpone ban on menthol cigarettes amid election-year pushback
• It’s official: All 50 states have sent women to Congress
• Opinion: The Supreme Court just showed us that Trump is not incompetent. He’s a master of corruption
• Column: Kevin McCarthy wants vengeance. Now he’s free to pursue it
• House majority leader
• List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives

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. The exact dates of service for each individual speaker is shown in the Term of service column of the above table. Rank-and-file lawmakers have become political stars on their own terms, shaping their personal brands on social media and raising their own campaign funds.

Biden officials indefinitely postpone ban on menthol cigarettes amid election-year pushback

Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, had declined yet again to vote for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California on a 14th ballot, helping sink McCarthy’s chances at speaker that round. Congratulations to @GOPLeader on his election as the Speaker of 🇺🇸 House of Representatives. We’re counting on your continued support and further U.S. assistance to bring our common victory closer. This is the first time Hal Rogers of Kentucky swears in the speaker, following the death of Don Young of Alaska in 2022. After days of a bare stone wall, the Speaker McCarthy sign has been hung outside the office. The dissidents praised the protracted debate that spotlighted their party’s rifts, made it impossible for legislative business to be conducted and threatened the timely issuance of paychecks on Capitol Hill.

It’s official: All 50 states have sent women to Congress

The far right accuses Johnson of stripping his ultraconservative credentials to embrace bipartisan policies, while the governing coalition is frustrated its taken the speaker too long to realize the hard-liners can never be won over. But Congress must reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration by May 11 and fund the government for the 2025 fiscal year while reauthorizing a farm bill by Sept. 30. Given how the far right’s unrealistic demands to curtail spending plagued the last spending process, it’s unlikely Republicans notch aggressively conservative wins this time around.

Opinion: The Supreme Court just showed us that Trump is not incompetent. He’s a master of corruption

No one has been more vehemently opposed to Johnson’s strategy than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). The MAGA firebrand, along with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.), continues to support the speaker’s ouster through what’s known as a motion to vacate. Others, such as freshman Rep. Elijah Crane (R-Ariz.), remain open to the idea of removing Johnson. Rep. Blake D. Moore (R-Utah), who serves as the GOP conference vice chair, said Republicans would get more conservative wins landing on the president’s desk if they weren’t so self-defeating.

Column: Kevin McCarthy wants vengeance. Now he’s free to pursue it

McCarthy has lost the gavel. It was the third shortest speakership in history. - CNN

McCarthy has lost the gavel. It was the third shortest speakership in history..

Posted: Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

By Wednesday, several names had emerged as possible successors to McCarthy, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. "It's uncharted territory because we've never done that in the history of the United States," Matthew Green, a politics professor at Catholic University, told CBS News. GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida leaves the Capitol after Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was ousted on Tuesday. McCarthy said he does not regret the disagreements with members of his own party that led to his demise.

House majority leader

“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 practice of earmarking — where a single lawmaker can use a sliver of the sprawling government budget to send money to a specific project in his or her state — has been both embraced and reviled over the years. 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.

And just shy of his fourth anniversary in the job, he was voted out by the full House Republican conference in December 1998. Johnson is the sixth Republican elevated to the speakership since 1994, the year the party won its first House majority and elected a speaker of its own for the first time in 40 years. The hard truth is that the five who preceded Johnson (McCarthy, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich) all saw their time in the office end in relative degrees of defeat or frustration. And to find a Republican speaker who left voluntarily in a moment of victory, moving on to another office, you have to go back to the mid-1920s. The House elects a new speaker by roll call vote when it first convenes after a general election for its two-year term, or when a speaker dies, resigns or is removed from the position intra-term.

McCarthy was able to sway several far-right members of his party by agreeing to extraordinary concessions that will rewrite the politics of the House. One thing that McCarthy is apparently not interested in, say several people who have spoken with him, is raking in big bucks an an influence peddler. The erstwhile speaker, who remains in touch with the ex-president, has been mentioned as a prospective recruit for a second Trump administration.

"Today I sit here having served as your whip, leader and as the 55th speaker of the House," he says in the video, citing a list of achievements he's proud of. "We kept our government operating and our troops paid while wars broke out around the world. ... I have faith in this country." It took McCarthy himself 15 rounds in January over multiple days of voting before he secured the support from his colleagues to gain the gavel. McCarthy invoked Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon, who more than 100 years ago confronted his critics head-on by calling their bluff and setting the vote himself on his ouster. Cannon survived that takedown attempt, which was the first time the House had actually voted to consider removing its speaker.

Every new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, and doing so will be the top of the 118th Congress’ to-do list when the House reconvenes Monday. The Texas Republican said that while "of course" lawmakers wanted to be sworn in on January 3, "you saw democracy play out over the last week and come to consensus in the wee hours of the morning, and now we're ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work." She also worked in the state attorney general’s office as a policy director and served on the Melrose School Committee. She was among several Democratic congresswomen arrested by US Capitol Police in July during an abortion rights protest in front of the Supreme Court.

Clark served as assistant speaker in the previous Congress, then the party’s No. 4 position in the House. 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. Mr. McCarthy watched as the hard-right flank of that majority ran John A. Boehner of Ohio from his speakership in 2015 and blocked his own first attempt at securing the job, after 40 of its members announced that they would not support him, questioning his conservative credentials.