Mike Johnson’s Speakership Puts South Back in GOP Driver’s Seat

• Rep. Mike Johnson’s ascent to the Home speakership final week took most within the GOP unexpectedly.
• He is now the primary Home speaker from the South since Newt Gingrich held the gavel within the Nineties.
• Johnson’s elevation places the South entrance and heart. The area may decide management of the Home.

Rep. Mike Johnson’s ascent to the speakership got here so shortly that in his acceptance speech, he talked about that his spouse could not make it to Washington in time to attend his swearing-in ceremony.

“This occurred form of out of the blue,” the Louisiana Republican mentioned final Wednesday after succeeding Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California as speaker and because the new chief of the Home GOP convention.

With McCarthy’s ouster from the position comes a serious regional shift as Johnson is the primary Southern Republican to guide the Home since Newt Gingrich of Georgia held the gavel from 1995 to 1999. Within the late Nineties, Gingrich’s ideological tussles with then-President Invoice Clinton coincided with the area’s rising energy because the social gathering’s anchor.

With Johnson as speaker and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky main the GOP within the higher chamber, Southern politicians will as soon as once more orient the social gathering’s agenda on each ends of the Capitol.

Why is that this bolstered Southern affect so vital?

An agenda at stake

Johnson, who chaired the conservative Republican Research Committee lower than three years in the past, is now tasked with patching up a complete convention whose inside divisions led to the weekslong management stalemate whereas additionally appeasing conservatives who orchestrated McCarthy’s removing.

Nevertheless, with President Joe Biden within the White Home and Democrats operating the Senate, Home Republicans are restricted in pushing the total scope of their priorities.

Cue McConnell, in addition to Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise, a fellow Louisiana lawmaker who will probably be key in serving to information Johnson as the brand new speaker seeks to maintain the federal government open subsequent month —whereas additionally navigating the social gathering’s sharp inside divides over elevated support for Ukraine.

One factor is for certain: Louisiana, for a minimum of the following 12 months, may have newfound prominence in nationwide coverage conversations.

An electoral dilemma

Within the early-to-mid Nineties, cracks within the Republican presidential coalition had been unimaginable to disregard because the nationwide GOP — led by leaders like Gingrich — grew to become more and more tilted towards the conservatism of the South.

Whereas the GOP was as soon as dominant in suburbs round cities like New York, Chicago, and Denver, voters in these communities had been typically socially liberal and moderate-to-conservative on fiscal issues. However with the rise of the Spiritual Proper and the GOP’s sharply outlined views on points like abortion, lots of these voters more and more backed Democratic presidential nominees.

Johnson’s antiabortion stance and his long-standing opposition to same-sex marriage had been already identified throughout the GOP, however his views are actually totally on view on a nationwide stage.

How would possibly that impression the presidential race, as voters decide whether or not they’ll proceed to again a divided authorities or give one social gathering full management? May Johnson develop into a foil, much like Clinton’s needling of Gingrich forward of the 1996 presidential election?

Johnson is nothing just like the form of bombastic determine that Gingrich was within the Nineties, however because the nation has develop into extra polarized, conservative priorities pushed by Home Republicans may develop into an efficient wedge for Democrats as they search to carry the White Home subsequent 12 months.

The South might resolve management of the Home

Republicans have a 221-212 Home majority, a razor-thin margin that empowered them earlier this 12 months whereas additionally holding them again as only a handful of holdouts can tank social gathering priorities.

The GOP presidential nominee (seemingly former President Donald Trump) will nearly actually carry out properly on the presidential stage in Johnson’s native Louisiana, in addition to many of the Deep South, which has develop into the bedrock of the social gathering’s electoral coalition.

Paradoxically, the South may additionally value the social gathering its majority.

In Alabama, the GOP-controlled legislature was ordered to redraw its seven congressional districts and retool one district (to reinforce an current majority-Black district) to spice up Black voting energy within the state following the US Supreme Courtroom’s rejection of the state’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act. However the legislature redrew strains that fell properly wanting what was directed to them, so a three-judge federal district court docket panel earlier this month chosen maps that had been constructed by a particular grasp.

Republicans now get pleasure from a 6-1 edge in Alabama’s congressional delegation, however the brand new map offers Democrats a superb alternative to choose up a seat.

In Georgia and Florida, courts have just lately dominated that legislatures diluted Black voting energy and have additionally ordered new maps. (The Georgia ruling, which got here final week, will seemingly be appealed by the state.)

Ongoing challenges in states, together with Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Johnson’s native Louisiana, may imply that Democrats might be able to chip away on the GOP’s majority.

So Johnson, who, not like McCarthy, has not been a prodigious fundraiser previously, should buckle up and study the ropes shortly.