Meet Mike Johnson, Republicans’ new House speaker.

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.

  • orclev@lemmy.world
    365·
    1 year ago

    This next election is going to be an absolute shitshow. I guarantee they’ll refuse to certify the election, and they’ll try to hijack the electoral college (again).

    • Atom@lemmy.world
      105·
      1 year ago

      The 119th Congress will be seated on January 3rd 2025 and the presidential election certification will be January 6th. So if the Dems win the majority in 2024, they won’t have the power to deny certificatation outright. Though, I’m sure a minority will still object to every swing state like they did in 2020, just to draw it out.

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
        15·
        1 year ago

        And even if the 119th Congress was exactly the same as this one, the House Republicans can only do so much.

        First, they would need to object to Electoral Votes with a Senator. (Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be hard for them to do.) Next, the House and Senate would separate to vote on each objection. Only if both chambers voted to set the Electoral Votes aside would they be set aside.

        With a Democratic Senate, this won’t happen.

        So the House Republicans can slow things down, but they won’t be able to overturn elections. This isn’t to say that there aren’t threats on the state and local level. There are. And if the Republicans gain control of the House and Senate, I could see them sustaining objections because “it must be fraud if Biden won,” thus giving the election to Trump. That just shows why it’s more important than ever to vote blue.

    • Countess425@lemmy.world
      97·
      1 year ago

      I’m betting on this guy not lasting until November 2024 (not sure what the over/under is on November 17, 2023).

      • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        1 year ago

        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?).

          • candybrie@lemmy.world
            18·
            1 year ago

            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.

        • Wrench@lemmy.world
          14·
          1 year ago

          The only possible chance the democrats don’t collectively vote him out, given the chance, is if the budget hasn’t gone through yet. Otherwise, they will take any call to eject the speaker as an opportunity to oust him.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          1 year ago

          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.

      • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
        17·
        1 year ago

        Outrageously false.

        There is nothing that even comes close to settling that in any state at this point. Any speculation on the matter is as good as a handful of shit. Less, maybe.

      • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        1 year ago

        Hopefully, but I also doubt that will stop them trying to elect him anyway. Or if not him I’m sure they’ll find someone worse. I doubt we’re going to see another Democrat elected in the next few elections that doesn’t result in them trying to refuse to certify the election and just in general whine and complain while throwing around baseless accusations. If we’re lucky that’s as far as it goes, but considering how many parallels to 1920s Germany we’re seeing lately I’m very worried the MAGAts recent fascist dabblings are just a taste of things to come.

      • BluJay320@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        I wonder if that also makes write-ins invalid…

        Like is he just removed from the ballot, or is he ineligible altogether?

        • LetMeEatCake@lemm.ee
          10·
          1 year ago

          Election law varies from state to state. But generally from what I gather, a write-in candidate is only valid if the candidate registers with the state in advance.

          If there’s a winning plurality for Mickey Mouse in your state for a statewide office, it won’t matter. The state won’t be forced to see if there’s anyone there that has the name Mickey Mouse and then pick which (if more than one) was the individual meant by the voters. Someone has to register with the state saying that they’re going to run a write-in campaign for office with name XYZ.

          Note that these details are a bit of a side track. The above person was talking about Trump being excluded due to the 14th amendment. However that doesn’t say “not on the ballot” — it invalidates people from office entirely. If applied to Trump, the not being on the ballot would be a consequence of being determined ineligible for office, not a method to make him unable to win. Also it’s all moot: while I think on the face of it the correct action would be to apply the 14th amendment to Trump, the fact of the matter is that this will not happen. States are not going to be willing to risk the political backlash from going down that path, so they will not.

          • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            1 year ago

            States are not going to be willing to risk the political backlash from going down that path, so they will not.

            Many states already are going down that path. Are you saying the judges won’t vote in the people’s favor bringing the suit?

          • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Colorado already did and it has stated it’s Consitutional and allows a 2/3 vote in the U.S. Congress to overturn. We won’t back down from that, the law is the law.

            • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
              2·
              1 year ago

              I AM a lawyer, and from what I can see, you’re close but (perhaps unintentionally) misrepresenting the facts, unless you are referring to some other previous action. A judge this week decided to allow a case to proceed that will determine, amongst other things, whether the events of January 6 “constituted an insurrection” and whether Trump “engaged” in insurrection.

              • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                1 year ago

                I’m referring to what our State Legislators are saying that they will ignore the Supreme Court if they don’t follow the Consitution in favor or partisan politics. The law is the law and the Supreme Court cannot rewrite what the Consitution says.

        • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
          1·
          1 year ago

          No. Not really. Not even a little bit.

          There ARE legal challenges in some states, however. To date, none of those are even close to being settled