Sometimes sitting fourth in line is just the right place to be.
Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana is the new speaker of the House after every high- or even medium-profile candidate flamed out. He had the fewest enemies and wasn’t suspected of knifing any of the prior candidates, so he made getting elected speaker look easy following the chaos of the last few weeks.
Johnson, who practiced as an attorney before serving in the Louisiana legislature and getting elected to Congress in 2016, is a talented man and staunch social conservative. If his pitch-perfect speech yesterday after taking the speaker’s gavel is any indication, he’s a gifted communicator with a light touch that will make it difficult for Democrats to demonize him.
Yet he has very little leadership experience in Congress, and he has an enormous political, legislative, and fundraising challenge ahead of him. He may well rise to it, but there’s a reason that well-functioning congressional parties don’t make a practice of tapping untested commodities for such important roles.
Also, Johnson’s conduct after the 2020 election is a black mark on his record. He organized fellow House Republicans to sign a brief in support of a meritless Texas lawsuit to try to get the Supreme Court to block the results. The Texas suit was bad facts and bad law in the service of a noxious cause, and Johnson is a good enough lawyer that he should have known it. He also was a leader in the foolish and destructive effort to object to Biden electors.
Unfortunately, Johnson’s post-election kowtowing to Trump was a factor in his ascension. During the speaker fight, Trump and his allies showed that they couldn’t create their own candidate — Jim Jordan’s speaker bid failed — but they did have blocking power. That they were content with the prospect of Speaker Johnson greased the skids for him.
This doesn’t mean that his job is going to be easy. The same spending fight that precipitated McCarthy’s ouster looms again, along with the same reality that Republicans aren’t going to get what they want with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House. The party has a deep division, as well, on funding for Ukraine. Johnson has been opposed to that funding on the spurious grounds that funding the Ukraine war somehow undermines border enforcement and limits access to baby formula. We hope in his new role he allows the bipartisan majority in the House in favor of supporting both our allies fighting defensive wars against anti-Western adversaries to prevail.
Despite what will be a welcome honeymoon period, the same lack of cohesiveness and destructiveness for its own sake that undid McCarthy may eventually undermine Johnson, too. But that’s a concern for another day. It’s a good thing that House Republicans have ended their flagrant display of dysfunction.
The speaker is dead, long live the speaker — hopefully for more than nine months this time.