Election Denier Mike Johnson Now Has the Gavel

Relatively unknown Republican Representative Mike Johnson, from Louisiana’s 4^th congressional district, is now Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and, quite possibly, on a fast track for more.  

If, for any reason, Donald Trump does not wind up with the Republican nomination for President, this relatively unknown backbencher could instantly become the GOP favorite to challenge Joe Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee is for President. Assuming one considers an election denier and schemer flawed, he could be a formidable but seriously flawed candidate.

Mike Johnson, who voted against certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, could very easily find himself in the presidential sweepstakes competition with the wind at his back.

 Think about it. Ron DeSantis is probably done. He has consistently hemorrhaged voter support, and it is hard to rationalize a turnaround for the Florida Governor. Nikki Haley has gained support, but she is out of office and lacks the pulpit and constituency of a major incumbent. Vivek Ramaswamy is little more than comic relief.

The race is primed for a contender with an aura of political authority, apparent smarts, and little-known baggage. Mike Johnson appears to fit that bill, but the fact that his baggage is little known doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. He is the architect of the failed and spurious effort to cancel the votes of millions of swing-state Americans in four states in the last election.

Mike Johnson is soft-spoken, likable, relatively free of enemies, and an architect of the first and only real attempt to steal an American election. Besides his new role as Speaker, Johnson’s little-known scheme to cancel Joe Biden’s 2020 election win is his dubious claim to fame. He was a deputy whip for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, meaning he kept track of votes on important measures and was tasked with converting (whipping) “maybe” votes to “yes” when the voting was close. Johnson was also a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the so-called Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

While Johnson has eschewed the limelight most politicians seek, he was, and presumably still is, a strong ally of former President Trump. He is a constitutional lawyer who labored to undermine the constitutionally mandated transfer of power in the United States by championing an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit to jettison the votes in four swing states (Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). This is really serious stuff.

Johnson shamefully promoted the theory, and a lawsuit based on that theory, that any state legislature could select the electors whose votes are counted in the electoral college, regardless of how the voters in that state had voted. It’s known as the “independent state legislature theory.” It was a shameful assault on the Constitution, advanced with the idea that Republican majority legislatures would vote to assign their state electors to Trump, even though the majority of voters in those states had voted for Biden. On December 9, 2020, Johnson tweeted to the Republican members of Congress, “President Trump called me this morning to let me know how much he appreciates the amicus brief we are filing on behalf of Members of Congress. Indeed, ‘this is the big one!”

While the Supreme Court made short shrift of “the big one,” the chief architect of the scheme is now the Speaker of the House.

Assuming Republicans maintain control of the House after next year’s elections, which is possible, even if doubtful, and assuming Johnson remains as Speaker, it is possible and probably likely that we can expect another attempt to sabotage the will of the people if the election favors Biden or any other Democrat. Constitutional procedure gives the Speaker considerable opportunity to foment mischieve, and given Johnson’s stab at mischieve four years ago, the concern isn’t far-fetched. New York University Law Professor Richard H. Pildes described just such a scenario in a Washington Post article this week.

According to Professor Pildes, a third party on the ballot could produce an election in which no ticket won an outright majority of electoral college votes. Should that occur in 2024, the Constitution requires a contingent election in the House of Representatives, in which case Mike Johnson would preside with each state’s delegation having one vote.

A more alarming concern is whether Johnson would attempt to disrupt the proceedings more dramatically — for instance, by preventing the session from happening altogether. While the Constitution confers the responsibility for presiding over such a session on the Vice President, the session takes place in the House chamber, which will be the domain of the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

If Johnson refused to convene such a session or slow-walked the proceedings, our constitutional order would be thrown into chaos. And if the election in the House wasn’t resolved by the statutory swearing-in date, January 20, what would happen? The clock would have run out on the Biden-Harris Administration. Who would step into the President’s shoes? Well, the Constitution provides an answer. Mike Johnson, as Speaker, would become the successor President. He would be next in line.

Ordinarily, this would be silly talk. Ordinarily…but these are not ordinary times, as demonstrated by Mike Johnson’s attempt to meddle in the Constitutional order four years ago. The GOP is no longer the Party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Today, it is the Party of Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Mike Johnson. Anything can happen.

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William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels

Senator Barbara Boxer

Senator Joe Lieberman

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan

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