Johnson won in a single vote, but will it last?
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) won re-election as speaker of the House after a single roll call vote – but he didn’t do it alone. When the vote was first counted, Johnson found himself just short of the goal. After a call from the president to be, however, two out of three GOP holdouts had a change of heart.
Drama in the Speaker Vote
When the House convened to vote for speaker just after noon on Friday, January 3, most Republicans had voted for Mike Johnson. But three others – Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Keith Self of Texas, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina – voted for other Republican members of Congress instead. The Democrats, of course, stood united behind their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Electing a speaker requires a simple majority (50% plus one vote) of the…
