Photo courtesy of Ting Shen

After three weeks of voting, the U.S. House of Representatives has its new Speaker of the House, and his name is Mike Johnson. Johnson is a hard-right Republican from Louisiana who won the votes of every Republican in the House.

This is surprising, as past contenders for the speaker position were never able to get those last few holdouts to vote for them. Many of these holdouts were more centrist Republicans, who, for various reasons, were unwilling to vote for a far-right candidate.

One probable reason Johnson won when previous candidates were unable was because of Johnson’s less abrasive personality. According to Republican Rep. Ken Buck, “In addition to being abundantly qualified, he just is one of those nice people that builds coalitions and doesn’t make people unnecessarily mad.”

Why Johnson was able to get the support of the holdouts is hard to say, but regardless, it seems far-right Republicans have gotten what they wanted.

So, what do we need to know about Johnson?

With such an important position as the Speaker of the House, it’s worth noting Johnson served on former President Donald Trump’s defense team for his first impeachment inquiry while also voting against the certification of the 2020 election. The justification for not certifying the election was based on unverified claims of voter fraud. 

Beyond Johnson’s election denialism, there are also serious concerns about his record of being anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ. Last year, Johnson sponsored a bill commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would nationally ban education on gender identity and sexual orientation in some elementary school grades.

This is a problem because the bill misrepresents the discussions teachers have. The bill claims teachers promote the “sexualization of children” and aims to ban discussion of sexual activity, although there is little proof of this happening.

Given these children might know people who are LGBTQ or might grow up to be LGBTQ, they must have a reasonable understanding of the community. 

The “Don’t Say Gay” bill could create an environment of fear and distrust, even for teachers not teaching these grade levels. Teachers could be called out by parents who take issue with their children learning about LGBTQ people. It sends a message that talking about their lives is somehow inappropriate. 

On top of his work on anti-LGBTQ legislation, Johnson has also worked with conversion therapy groups, which use religious and counseling methods to attempt to change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian people, which can be very harmful.

More recently, Johnson has worked with the House to approve $14 billion in aid to Israel, which passed 226-196. The bill received significant opposition from Democrats because it exclusively gave aid to Israel and included cuts to the IRS, which would affect their ability to audit high-income earners and would increase the deficit.

While Johnson has signaled his support for Israel, he has shown a lack of support for Ukraine against Russia, which Democrats also wanted to give aid to. Johnson has said he is willing to support Ukraine, but he wants the aid packages to be separate and wants to focus on supporting Israel first.