Representative Mike Johnson unified House Republicans to vote for him as the new speaker. Can he get them to avoid a shutdown?
Conservative U.S. Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana has been elected as the 56th House speaker, as the vacancy left by the October 3 ousting of Congressman Kevin McCarthy has finally been filled.
But now comes the hard part.
Johnson, 51, will quickly have to confront a packed list of priorities. Congress needs to consider a funding bill to support America’s allies in Ukraine and Israel and in a little more than three weeks, a funding deadline to finance government operations must be met.
The last time such a moment arose, the Republican-led House of Representatives was deadlocked until then-Speaker McCarthy struck a last-minute deal with Democrats to pass a spending bill that averted a government shutdown. That agreement was condemned by the far-right wing of the Republican conference, which proceeded to topple McCarthy. It set-off a 22-day fight to elect a new leader that saw three contenders fail to muster enough support to assume leadership of the House, paralyzing legislative action in the chamber.
On Wednesday, Johnson succeeded where his more well-known colleagues failed. He didn’t lose a single vote from his fellow Republicans and won the gavel in a 220-209 vote.
« To my colleagues, I wanna thank you for the trust you have instilled in me to lead us in this historic and unprecedented moment that we are in. The challenge before us is great. But the time for action is now, » Johnson said in his first address as speaker.
President Joe Biden congratulated Johnson on his election as the new speaker and promised to work with him.
« We need to move swiftly to address our national security needs and to avoid a shutdown in 22 days, » he said in a statement.
The new speaker managed to unite his party but the question analysts are wondering is whether he would be able to lead them on a path that will avert a shutdown.
The election of a new speaker does reduce the risk of a shutdown, Begley said, but it doesn’t remove it entirely. The challenge is whether Johnson can corral the hard-right wing of his party around a budgetary agreement Republicans can all support.
« I’m not convinced that his election will really mitigate much of the partisan politicking that we are seeing in a lot of the budget negotiation processes, » Begley said. « I’m not sure how much it will help with the future budgetary process, at least in the near term.
