SALT LAKE CITY – Utah Democrats were quick to condemn Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), the long-awaited pick of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to be their new speaker.
Johnson, a fourth-term lawmaker and a constitutional lawyer, was selected as House Speaker by a 220-209 party-line vote on Oct. 25, ending nearly three weeks of stalemate in Washington.
That same day, Utah Democratic Party Chair Diane Lewis roundly criticized Johnson’s selection.
“Mike Johnson will be the most extreme speaker of the House in history,” Lewis said in a prepared statement. “His deeply unpopular MAGA agenda will be an absolute disaster for Utah families.”
Lewis was echoing President Joe Biden’s habit of turning former President Donald Trump’s catch-phrase MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) into the equivalent of a swear word associated with political and social extremism.
“(Johnson) won his party’s vote by passing every MAGA litmus test,” according to Lewis, “leading efforts to overturn the 2020 election, proposing a national abortion ban and calling to slash Social Security and Medicare for thousands of Utah seniors.”
Johnson’s elevation to the speaker’s role ended weeks of Republican infighting that sank three other hopefuls before him.
Those previous nominees were firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH); House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also from Louisiana; and Majority Whip Tom Elmer (R-MN), who withdrew his name from contention just hours before the House floor vote on Oct. 25.
“Let the enemies of freedom around the world hear us load and clear,” Johnson said in a speech after accepting the House gavel. “The people’s House is back in business.”
Johnson represents the city of Shreveport and western portion of Louisiana, including Barksdale Air Force Base.
He has been a vocal advocate of key GOP issues during his tenure in Congress – including the defense of Trump — making it easier for the two wings of the Republican Party to accept him in the role of speaker.
He has been a member of the Judiciary and Armed Services committees in Washington.
In that latter role, Johnson has pushed for growing the U.S. defense budget, including veterans’ benefits.
Like Lewis, House Democrats who voted en masse against Johnson were particularly critical of his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election.
Johnson led 125 fellow House members in filing an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit to throw out election results in swing states that voted for Biden in 2020. That effort was later rejected by the Supreme Court.
Along with many of his Republican allies, Johnson also later objected to certifying the 2020 election results from key states after the Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
While acknowledging that the challenges facing the U.S. House are great, Johnson promised his GOP colleagues that he would not let them down in his acceptance speech of Oct. 25.
Capitol Hill observers are still debating how Johnson’s stepping up the House speakership will impact the 2024 election, but Lewis confidently promised a reckoning at that time.
“Come November 2024,” she predicted, “Utah Republicans like Blake Moore, John Curtis and Burgess Owens will have to answer to Utahns for putting their extreme MAGA agenda ahead of Utah families.”
Oh please, who else was the GOP gonna pick other than a MAGA loon?
You watched an American president, who received 81 million votes, be inaugurated in our nation’s capital, with no civilians allowed under guard of 125,000 troops.
And you continue to clap like a seal.
You’re just delusional. You must work really hard to avoid reality. Sad.
You should go back and watch the video of the inauguration. No civilians. Except Lady Gaga and Bruce Springsteen and a few others. Certainly not open to the public. Are you sure you don’t remember National Guardsmen sleeping in parking structures? The same ones called up to secure the inauguration?
The US capital was locked down for the inauguration. I’ve read about that happening in other countries, but I presumed we held ourselves to a higher standard…
Don’t worry though, it was very wholesome.
https://youtu.be/-iGGjS6VgxE?feature=shared
Big Tuna with the insane take!!!
after seeing what the dem’s do approve of, we must be doing something right
Of course the democrats don’t want someone as Speaker who will cut off their years long money laundering schemes in Ukraine funded by we taxpayers; of course the democrats don’t want someone as Speaker who will actually uphold the Constitution rather than butcher it and use it whenever it’s profitable to do so; of course the democrats don’t want someone as Speaker who will use the full force of the law to hold them to account for their blatant civil rights violations i.e. censorship of truthful, yet politically inconvenient statements of fact, the outright butchering of our nation’s children under the clear delusion and manipulation that they are of another sex, the securing of foreign nations borders whilst our borders are wide open and where thousands of terrorists enter daily and have entered daily for three years, etc, etc, etc. Of course they don’t want someone as Speaker who will actually do their job rather than jump to their communist song and dance. Biden, the democrats, and their corporate financiers stole the 2020 election plain and simple; they are the oligarchical power which have instituted the fascistic merger of corporate and political powers which have all but destroyed our country in just a few years. They have most of the federal, state, and even local judges, DA’s morally and financially compromised to continue their attacks on the foundational ethics and laws of our nation. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell…whose remarkable and predictive book 1984 is currently on the list of banned books…the irony is palpable.
That’s way too many words of pure nonsense so I’m not even going to read your comment, but I would like to remind you to get help for your mental illness.
Thanks, Pete. Enjoy your servitude!!
You’re welcome! (Seriously though, I hope you get help. You’re clearly not well. I’m not being insulting either. These rants are unhinged.)
Dear Pete, alas Sam Adams said it best. This quote is penned especially for you. “If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of liberty, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains rest lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” I hope you are able to learn how to cope with reality.
This guy has been making a combined income with his wife of over 200K since he got elected in 2016. His mandatory congressional financial statements say he has no assets, no bank account over 1K, no investment or retirement accounts, and has hundreds of thousands in debt. If this is true, this is not a guy that should get anywhere near a budget.