U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson retained the speakership in a first-round ballot Friday, as the 119th Congress came into session. Johnson won 218 votes, just enough to keep his job.
Both the House and the Senate enter the new session with Republicans in the majority, the party having taken control from Democrats in the Senate. In that chamber, Senator Mitch McConnell has stepped away from party leadership for the first time in 18 years. Senator John Thune already has been selected to replace him as majority leader.
Senate Republicans will hold a 53-47 seat majority, well below the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation.
In the House, where Republicans hold a narrow 219-215 majority, Johnson’s position was believed to have been in jeopardy after his deal last month with Democrats to keep the government funded and open. It would have taken as few as two Republicans to vote against Johnson to put his speakership in jeopardy.
Democrats nominated Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for the speakership but fell short by a few votes.
President-elect Donald Trump posted his support for Johnson on social media Monday, saying the speaker was “a good, hard-working, religious man.”
But Republican Representatives Chip Roy and Thomas Massie had stated their doubts about Johnson’s leadership, and Trump ally and adviser Steve Bannon had called on Republicans to remove Johnson from leadership.
“Mr. Johnson caught a lot of fire from his GOP colleagues. And he has an extraordinarily limited margin for his majority, just a handful of people,” Kevin Kosar, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA via Zoom.
Two years ago, at the start of another Congress, Republican Kevin McCarthy faced similar challenges to his bid for the speakership. He was finally elected on the 15th round of voting.
Had Johnson or another Republican been unable to garner enough votes for the speakership, the chamber could have been without a leader in time for the official certification of Trump’s electoral victory on January 6.
At least temporarily, Republicans’ margin in the House will be even tighter after Trump takes office on January 20, because he has picked two House Republicans to join his administration.
Traditionally, the first 100 days of a new presidency and Congress are a time for pursuing an ambitious legislative agenda.
Trump “is going to hit tariffs very hard. He’s going to focus on the border, and executive orders related to immigration and immigrants, particularly from Mexico and Muslim countries. And then he’s going to work on any compromises he can to get through the legislative agenda on things affecting the economy, groceries, as he likes to call it,” Casey Burgat, a professor at George Washington University in Washington, told VOA via Zoom.
Some information for this story came from Reuters.
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