Shortly after the reelection of Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., as speaker of the House on Friday, 11 Republican congressmen who were previously reluctant to vote for him signed a statement explaining their decision to save the GOP from a dysfunctional Congress.
“We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” read the letter signed by the congressmen, among them Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., both of whom were undecided on whether or not to vote for Johnson.
The Louisiana lawmaker’s reelection was highly irregular. In the first round of votes, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Keith Self of Texas, and Norman all cast their votes against Johnson, while Rep. Chip Roy of Texas defiantly abstained from voting. That left Johnson and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., in a tie of 215-215. It took 218 votes to win.
But salvation came at last for Johnson when Norman and Self switched their votes back to Johnson to secure his reelection.
Norman told The Daily Signal that President-elect Donald Trump persuaded him to vote for Johnson. On the first ballot, Norman voted for Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Trump told Norman “nobody else has the votes,” so Johnson was the only choice for speaker, the South Carolina lawmaker said.
Norman recounted the “pleasant” conversation: “Trump said, ‘I love Jim Jordan, but he can’t get the votes. Mike can. And in order to move the agenda forward, we have to have somebody who can get elected.’ I said, ‘I get that, but there is a sense of urgency, Mr. President, that I feel for you to get yours passed, because before you know it, a year will be gone. We’ll have the midterms.’ And he said, ‘We’ve got such an opportunity to do good things for the American people that hasn’t happened in 150 years.’”
Norman said “the extra hour-and-a-half were well spent,” because Johnson learned the importance of adhering to conservative values.
The South Carolina Republican initially voted against Johnson because of a conversation he had with him yesterday, in which he sensed Johnson would continue the “same old, same old” in Congress. Still, neither of Norman’s votes in the speaker fight were planned, he said.
“I didn’t get a feeling that he’s really gonna fight for what we had to fight for,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone call, “which is conservatism, which is actual spending cuts.”
The letter does include reservations, including that the signatories wish Johnson had made commitments to ramp up the schedule of Congress, control the federal deficit, and give representatives at least “72 hours to read and debate legislation.”
In the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, the issue of the debt ceiling has created a rift in the Republican Party, as firebrand Roy opposed a Trump-sponsored spending package that would have increased the deficit.
But in the eyes of these fiscal conservatives, they are the true defenders of the Trump agenda.
“Now, Speaker Johnson must prove he will not fail to enact President Trump’s bold agenda,” the statement reads.
In a bullet-pointed list, the congressmen demanded that Johnson implement border security, cut spending, curb Biden-era environmental policies, and “end stock trading by members of Congress.”
The 11 congressmen, all of whom had reservations with Johnson, are attempting to present themselves as Trump’s true allies, despite the fact that Johnson received the incoming president’s endorsement.
“There is zero room for error on the policies the American people demanded when they voted for President Trump … . We demand the House of Representatives deliver,” the statement concluded.
For now, it appears that Roy intends to reconcile himself with Trump, who two weeks before had called the Texas lawmaker a “very unpopular ‘congressman’” and demanded that he be primaried.
In this short-lived contest for the mantle of the Trump agenda, Massie was the only Republican to vote against Johnson’s reelection.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn., voted for Johnson despite expressing previous doubts.
“I think we had some reservations that are sincere, based on the speaker’s past 15 months as the speaker,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “But we have steadfast support of the president and his timely certification, and so we don’t want to imperil that. And so, it’s a balance. But we also wanted to send a signal that business as usual around here is not going to stand.”
“The speaker is on notice that if he’s going to continue to lead like he has over the last 15 months, it’s not going to end well,” he continued.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
