Mike Johnson elected speaker, ending rudderless period for House

By Victor Reklaitis

The Republican-run chamber of Congress was mired in infighting over installing a new speaker for three weeks

The Republican-run U.S. House of Representatives at last managed to elect a new speaker on Wednesday, backing Rep. Mike Johnson, who scored the job after failed bids this month by three other GOP lawmakers.

The tally was 220 GOP votes for the Louisiana Republican, while 209 Democratic lawmakers supported their candidate, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat. The narrowly divided House has 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats, with two vacancies, but there were four members absent.

The selection of a speaker should lead to sighs of relief in Washington, D.C., and beyond. Analysts have been warning that the long process of picking a new speaker was preventing the Republican-run House from addressing crucial matters, such as supporting Israel and Ukraine in their ongoing wars, along with passing a budget bill to avoid a government shutdown next month that could rattle markets SPX.

The House has looked rudderless since Oct. 3, when the chamber voted for the historic ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican.

House Republicans voted on Tuesday night for Johnson to become their latest nominee for speaker, with his selection capping a tumultuous day in which Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota was briefly the nominee.

Emmer, the No. 3 House Republican and an advocate for cryptocurrencies (BTCUSD), was nominated around mid-day Tuesday, beating out Johnson, but he bowed out about four hours later after some hardline colleagues and former President Donald Trump refused to support him.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a Trump ally, secured the nomination for speaker on Oct. 13, but was dropped as the nominee last Friday as GOP opposition to him grew over three rounds of voting on the House floor. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, was tapped for the post on Oct. 11 but ended his speaker bid a day later due to opposition from fellow Republicans.

Johnson, 51, has been serving as vice chair of the House Republican Conference. First elected to Congress in 2016, he also was chair during 2019 and 2020 of the Republican Study Committee, an influential group of conservative House GOP lawmakers.

Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, said in a post on social media on Wednesday morning that his "strong SUGGESTION" to House Republicans on the speakership was to "go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!" The former president also wrote that Johnson was among the "FINE AND VERY TALENTED" speaker candidates who has supported him for years.

Johnson was the lead organizer of an unsuccessful legal brief in Texas that asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the 2020 vote counting in key swing states won by President Joe Biden, noted Chris Krueger, an analyst at TD Cowen's Washington Research Group.

In addition, the Louisiana congressman supports a short-term budget bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, that funds the government at current levels to either Jan. 15 or April 15, Krueger said in a note on Wednesday before the vote.

"Provided a speaker is elected this week, a shutdown on Nov. 17 seems unlikely; even the House GOP chaos agents who have pushed for a shutdown are exhausted," the TD Cowen analyst said.

"The main fight around Nov. 17 will be the $106B military aid supplemental focused on Ukraine, Israel & U.S.-Mexico border. Johnson has previously voted against further aid for Ukraine."

The federal government is funded until Nov. 17 because McCarthy, the former speaker, worked with House Democrats to pass a 45-day funding bridge on Sept. 30 that averted a partial government shutdown. But McCarthy's maneuvers angered some hardline House Republicans, who then led the drive to oust him.

U.S. stocks DJIA COMP were trading lower Wednesday, hurt in part by a big drop for Alphabet's stock (GOOG) (GOOGL) over weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue for the company's Google Cloud business.

-Victor Reklaitis

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10-25-23 1354ET

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