House of Representatives | Mike Johnson seeks to retain office

(Washington) The new Congress meets Friday with a major task at hand: the election of the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Current President Mike Johnson’s weak grip on the gavel threatens not only his own survival, but also President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda of tax cuts and mass deportations as Republicans seize power in Washington .

With opposition from his own Republican colleagues, Mr. Johnson holed up at the Capitol on the eve of the vote, working to sway diehards.

A failure by Mr Johnson could upend Congress’ certification of Mr Trump’s 2024 election victory on Monday, without a Speaker of the House of Representatives. Even support from Mr. Trump himself, usually a safe bet for Republicans, is no guarantee that Mike Johnson will stay in office.

Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University, points out that Mr. Johnson relies heavily on people liking him.

But she wonders what he will have to concede to stay in place and how long it can last.

What was once a ceremonial day with newly elected lawmakers arriving to take the oath of office, often with family and friends, has become a crucial vote for the House speakership, one of the most powerful elected positions in Washington.

If the Senate is able to meet on its own and has already elected party leaders — Sen. John Thune as Republican majority leader and Sen. Chuck Schumer for the Democratic minority — the House must first elect its speaker , a role required by the Constitution, second in the line of succession to the president.

Congress has seen this before, when it took Republicans nearly a week and 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as president in 2023, a spectacle unheard of in modern times. Mr. McCarthy was subsequently fired by his party, a historic first, but he was also one of a long list of Republican presidents ousted prematurely.

Trump support

The stakes are higher this year, as Mr. Trump prepares to return to the White House with the House and Senate controlled by Republicans and promising to deliver on big promises on a 100-day agenda.

“He’s the one who can win now,” Mr. Trump said of Mike Johnson at a New Year’s Eve party that drew other Republican leaders to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Mr. Trump supported Mr. Johnson, but also said “others are very good too.”

Mike Johnson, a Louisiana elected official, worked diligently to avoid defeat, spending New Year’s Day at Mar-a-Lago as he positioned himself alongside Mr. Trump.

He believes he may only lose one detractor and hopes to win the post of Speaker of the House of Representatives in the first round of voting. He added that he had not yet asked Mr. Trump to call the holdouts. “My conversations with my colleagues are going very well,” he said on Fox Business Thursday evening.

But Mr. Johnson also warned that without a Speaker of the House, there would be a “constitutional crisis” as January 6 approaches, when Congress is legally required to count electoral votes for the president, weeks ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

“We have no time to waste, and I think everyone recognizes that,” he said.

Slight Republican majority

Mike Johnson has one of the narrowest majorities in modern times (220 to 215) after losing seats in the November election. This forces him to obtain the support of almost all Republicans in the face of Democratic opposition.

Heading into Friday, he didn’t have the full support needed.

One of the most prominent holdouts is Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a staunch member of the Freedom Caucus who has criticized Republican leaders’ handling of the year-end spending bill for not having cut spending and following House rules.

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie is an almost certain “no,” but other far-right Republicans, including some who helped unseat Mr. McCarthy, have kept their views private.

“There’s a lot of discontent,” Rep. Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona, said as lawmakers left for the Christmas break.