Table Of Content
- Letters to the Editor: Debating the arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses
- Rep. Mike Johnson has been elected speaker. Here's what to know
- DOES A MOTION TO VACATE HAVE THE VOTES TO PASS?
- Increased bear sightings prompt alert at San Bernardino …
- What’s next now that Speaker Mike Johnson is facing a motion to vacate from Marjorie Taylor Greene
In the years before he arrived in Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Defense Fund — now called the Alliance Defending Freedom. During that time, he expressed some of his hard-line views in editorials in the local newspaper in his hometown of Shreveport, La. He also opposed legislation to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages — a bill that passed with strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. The views are sharply at odds with those of most Americans, according to opinion polls that have found the public is broadly supportive of gay rights. Mr. Johnson’s abrupt rise to the speaker post this week in the depressed and divided House Republican conference underscores the rightward lurch of the G.O.P., which dumped his more mainstream predecessor, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. “Experts project that homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic,” he wrote in one such article in 2004.
Letters to the Editor: Debating the arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses
Mr. Johnson’s decision to risk his speakership to push the $95 billion foreign aid bill through the House on Saturday was the culmination of a remarkable personal and political arc for the Louisiana Republican. It was also an improbable outcome for a man plucked from relative obscurity last fall by the hard right — which had just deposed a speaker they deemed a traitor to their agenda — to be the speaker of a deeply dysfunctional House. Pro-Palestinian student protesters set up a tent encampment at Columbia University last week. On Wednesday Johnson denounced the treatment of Jewish students on the campus and called for the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign if she cannot bring the protests under control.
Rep. Mike Johnson has been elected speaker. Here's what to know
Some three-fourths of the 146 Republicans who opposed certifying the election cited it as the rationale for their vote. That narrow, technical, and questionable argument was predicated on Johnson’s assertion that, by authorizing changes to early voting and mail-in voting procedures without consulting their state legislators, state election officials had violated the Constitution. He huddled with top national security officials, including William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, in the Oval Office to discuss classified intelligence. He met repeatedly with broad factions of Republicans in both swing and deep red districts, and considered their voters’ attitudes toward funding Ukraine. Johnson's visit to the campus further elevates the issue, and marks the latest in a series of visits from lawmakers this week. Every Republican member of New York's congressional delegation has called for Columbia's president to resign.
DOES A MOTION TO VACATE HAVE THE VOTES TO PASS?
House speaker Mike Johnson heckled by protesters in tense Columbia campus visit - BBC.com
House speaker Mike Johnson heckled by protesters in tense Columbia campus visit.
Posted: Wed, 24 Apr 2024 21:50:35 GMT [source]
Student reactions to calls for the college president's resignation have been mixed, Karam said. House Speaker Mike Johnson called Wednesday for the resignation of the university’s president if she can't "bring order to this chaos." Negotiations between protesters and Columbia University officials about clearing the encampment on its lawn that had been extended for 48 hours have been “unstable," said Esha Karam, managing director of Columbia Daily Spectator, citing student organizers.
LAPD arrest about 50 protesters at USC
“We just can’t allow this kind of hatred and any antisemitism to flourish on our campuses, and it must be stopped in its tracks,” he said. The shift from Democrats is noteworthy given their lockstep support of the motion to vacate that led to the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in October, which ultimately resulted in Johnson’s getting the gavel. Members tried to remove speakers in previous congressional terms, but no motion ever reached the floor for a vote. If the motion is brought to the floor, the three Republican votes supporting it could be enough for passage if they are joined by all Democrats in the chamber.
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The upshot is that Democrats are empowered like no House minority in memory. Republicans can pass all the red-meat bills for the MAGA base they want, like punitive measures on immigration or transgender issues, but the bills will die in the Senate. However, Democrats are in control when it comes to bills that must become law, such as on annual spending and debt increases, or should become law, such as aid to Ukraine. So lately, under Johnson, they have all but forfeited key powers and in effect shared governance with Democrats, whose votes are what keep the place running. The speaker of the House, under the rules of the chamber, is required to keep a list of individuals who can act as speaker pro tempore in the event a chair is vacated.
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Their paper-thin House majority is so riven — antigovernment hardliners squaring off against more moderate legislators, isolationist America Firsters versus Reaganesque internationalists — that it was dysfunctional from its start, in January 2023. It took Republicans an unprecedented 15 votes to elect a speaker, and 10 months later they ousted that leader and finally settled on the novice Johnson. Republicans unanimously chose Johnson late last year to replace McCarthy after several candidates for the job failed to gain enough support. Johnson’s conservative bend was seen as a welcome departure by the most extreme members of his party who had accused McCarthy for years of being too moderate, including when he worked across the aisle last year to fund the government and raise the nation’s debt limit. Proponents of allowing a single lawmaker to file the motion said it promotes accountability, noting its long history in the House. The tool was used memorably in 2015 against then-Speaker John Boehner when then-Rep.
The House is practically functioning as a parliament, with Mike Johnson as its 'prime minister' - Fox News
The House is practically functioning as a parliament, with Mike Johnson as its 'prime minister'.
Posted: Wed, 24 Apr 2024 19:10:00 GMT [source]
Increased bear sightings prompt alert at San Bernardino …
The vote was 220 to 209, with House Republicans voting unanimously for Johnson, and all Democrats present backing Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. The House is expected to vote on a resolution in support of Israel on Wednesday afternoon, according to a notice from the House Democratic whip. House Speaker Mike Johnson entered the speaker's office for the first time after being sworn in, with his new name plate hanging above the door. The members who ousted McCarthy also told reporters that they have no regrets now about ousting McCarthy.
What’s next now that Speaker Mike Johnson is facing a motion to vacate from Marjorie Taylor Greene
The well-respected No. 2 Republican, Eric Cantor of Virginia, had lost his primary in 2014. The No. 3, McCarthy, soon ran aground over remarks in a TV interview and lacked the votes to be speaker. The party settled on Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had not sought the gavel but agreed to take it.
The visit came as college campuses continue to be roiled by protests and tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war. Many of the protesters are demanding universities to divest financial holdings in Israel. At Columbia, demonstrators have taken over a portion of the New York City campus, creating an encampment. "If this is not contained quickly, and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard," he said. Reached for comment about the House's changing posture toward a motion to vacate, office directed NBC News to recent remarks from Johnson, R-La., which included his saying Saturday that he doesn't walk around the Capitol "being worried about a motion to vacate." A member of a joint program between the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia, he was in the crowd watching Johnson speak.
And the hard-right Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, setting into motion the three-week stretch of chaos that left the House without a leader, said Mr. Johnson’s ascension to the top job made their decision to depose the California Republican worth it. Johnson has served as a member of the House committees on the judiciary (including chairing a subcommittee on the Constitution and serving as a member of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government), armed services, and natural resources. His rise through the ranks of the Republican Party also has included service as House Republican conference vice chair and chair of the Republican Study Committee, the large conservative caucus of House Republicans. To become speaker last year, Kevin McCarthy agreed to a change in the rules that makes it possible for a single representative to move to “vacate the chair” — that is, trigger a vote on whether to depose the speaker. That’s what happened last year after McCarthy avoided a default on the national debt, kept the government open and committed other alleged outrages. Only by continuing this unorthodox bipartisanship will the House be able to, for example, fund the government for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and avoid a pre-election shutdown.
Last year, he introduced legislation that would have banned federally funded institutions from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity. The Texas lawsuit received stiff backlash not only from Democrats but also legal experts, who deemed it meritless and shallow. There’s a strong desire among Republicans to show a functioning House after being paralyzed for weeks following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But the same members are warning they do believe Johnson starts in a more solid place with conservatives than McCarthy did. The glimmer of consensus came only hours after Mr. Emmer’s abrupt exit made him the third Republican this month to be chosen to lead the party, only to have his bid collapse in a seemingly endless cycle of G.O.P. grievances, personality conflicts and ideological rifts. Mr. Johnson’s hallmark in Congress has been combining his hard-line views with a gentle personal style.
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