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Shop NowThree Republicans, the Hill reports, nearly kept Mike Johnson from the gavel. The key word is nearly. The Louisiana conservative is now free “to usher President-elect Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda.” It’s nice to have a Republican controlled Senate to back him up, conservatives say. The power gavel didn’t come without strings attached and the speaker will need to keep a lot of promises to hold it.
Johnson keeps the gavel
Reigning Speaker Mike Johnson “kept his gavel amid a threat from the right flank of the House GOP.” Things were tense Friday on the House floor, where the vote for speaker became “dramatic.”
Two of the three holdouts eventually saw the light and decided to support him. Earlier, he was facing even more opposition.
At the start of the day, nearly “a dozen Republicans had withheld support for Johnson.” They were firmly insisting on “commitments on spending reductions and a more open process for crafting major legislation.”
Both of those are on the horizon. One of the two fence-sitters, Chip Roy of Texas, “referenced widespread frustration” with the way the recent spending bill was rammed through.
“If anything happens” in the future like happened “right before Christmas, there will be consequences,” Roy declared after switching his hold out vote to back Johnson.
He noted that a number of members initially withholding votes were signaling “that there’s a block of folks who are going to want to make sure that we actually deliver.” That shouldn’t be a problem.
On the same page
Johnson, both before and after the vote, was adamant that they’re all on the same page. Before the vote he released a statement publicly “making commitments on working groups to implement government-reducing reforms.”
After he had the gavel firmly back in his grasp, he assured everyone that he’s open to “scrutiny from members.” By all means, hold me accountable, he insists. That’s what makes Republicans different from Democrats. Or RINOs which are really the same thing as Democrats.
Having GOP control of both congressional chambers will have a huge difference in policy, the speaker points out. “It’s a very different situation than the last Congress was, and they can hold me accountable for that,” Johnson told the press.
“We’re going to have a member-driven, bottom-up process for this really important legislation, and we must succeed. We have no margin for error.”
The legislation he was referring to are “bills jam-packed with Trump agenda items.” Things like “extending Trump’s tax cuts and addressing border security.” Part of the strategy leverages “a party-line ‘reconciliation‘ process that bypasses the threat of a Democratic filibuster.”
All Democrats can do is sit and watch in horror as Republicans Make America Great Again. Senate Majority Leader John Thune observes that Speaker Johnson has “a really, really tough job” with the razor thin margin in the House. That means We the People need to call our lawmakers frequently. Politics is not a spectator sport.
