House Elects Mike Johnson As Speaker | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Daniel Chaitin.

Rep. Mike Johnson (Center) Photo credit - C-Span screenshot     Click image to expand.
    U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks alongside fellow House Republicans after he was elected as the Republican House speaker nominee during a GOP conference meeting in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill on October 24, 2023 in Washington, DC.

    The GOP-led House elected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) as its 56th speaker, ending a weeks-long stalemate in which three Republican nominees failed to win the gavel after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) got pushed out of the speakership.

    In the first House floor ballot on Wednesday, Johnson defeated Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the nominee for the Democrats. The final tally was 220-209. A simple majority was needed for victory.

    "It is the honor of a lifetime to have been elected the 56th Speaker of the House," Johnson said in a post to X, adding later, "As Speaker, I will ensure the House delivers results and inspires change for the American people. We will restore trust in this body. We will advance a comprehensive conservative policy agenda, combat the harmful policies of the Biden Administration, and support our allies abroad. And we will restore sanity to a government desperately in need of it. Let's get back to work."

    Johnson managed to largely unite the GOP conference, which has a narrow majority in the House, in a way that the three prior nominees - House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) - failed to do this month. Johnson, the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, won the GOP nomination on Tuesday night in the hours after Emmer dropped out.

    "A man of deep faith, Mike epitomizes what it means to be a servant leader. A deeply respected constitutional lawyer, Mike has dedicated his life to preserving America's great principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said in her speech nominating Johnson on Wednesday.