Then-Rep. Mike Johnson met with USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue in the Lincoln Dining Room at USDA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on September 6, 2018. Photo by Preston Keres.
The GOP has finally chosen its new Speaker. Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana is the House’s 56th Speaker, and he has promised an aggressive agenda, reports Matthew Rice in The New York Sun. Rice writes:
The House’s 56th speaker, Mike Johnson, fresh off his ascension to the job with the unanimous support of his GOP colleagues, is promising to move forward with a rapid pace as the government faces a November 17 shutdown deadline.
In a letter to his colleagues sent shortly before he was elected speaker, Mr. Johnson said he will pass all remaining appropriations bills before the deadline rather than adopt a short-term funding bill to extend the budget deadline, known as a continuing resolution.
It is a heavy lift for the new speaker, to be sure, considering that the House has yet to write the bills, amend them, debate them, and pass them — not to mention reconciling the legislation with the Democratic Senate’s versions while also negotiating with President Biden.
“We all agree the urgency of this hour demands that the next speaker of the House must present a specific plan for bold, decisive action that will: engage our members in productive work as one successful team; advance our key principles and legislative priorities; and allow us to demonstrate good governance,” the Louisiana conservative said shortly before his election. “We must take action right away.”
An elated Congresswoman Kat Cammack tells the Sun that Mr. Johnson’s plan is exactly what the House needs with just days to go before the shutdown deadline. “The urgency is real,” the Florida representative says. “You see an exceptionally aggressive calendar leading all the way up until Thanksgiving. We are going to get our appropriations done. He’s even said he wants to get the farm bill done by December, which up until this point people had said: ‘that won’t get done until next Congress.’”
Mr. Johnson, a 51-year old devout Baptist who hails from rural Louisiana, was elected by his Republican colleagues to the speaker’s chair in a Wednesday afternoon vote. He won the support of all 220 GOP members who were in attendance, while the minority leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, was supported by all 209 Democrats present.
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