A Year Ago Kevin McCarthy Was Fired as Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson Is Trying to Avoid That Fate

WASHINGTON – A year after Kevin McCarthy was removed as Speaker of the House of Representatives after Congress voted unanimously to avert a federal government shutdown, new House Speaker Mike Johnson is seeking, but so far avoiding, a similar political fate.

Johnson is leading a House vote this week on legislation to fund the government and ensure there are no disruptions to federal services, but he is also rejecting demands from his right-wing GOP colleagues and counting on Democratic votes and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to push the package toward bipartisan approval.

While Johnson is clearly in no immediate danger of being removed from office (as McCarthy did in a historic vote last fall when eight hardline Republicans engineered a motion to impeach the speaker), it is far from certain that the new leader will hold the speaker’s gavel in the long term.

“It’s a tough task,” said McCarthy, who is now retired and watching from the sidelines.

The vote on funding the government is an important culmination of an extraordinary and tumultuous session of Congress that saw a Republican majority in the House of Representatives take power in January 2023. Now, lawmakers are preparing to face voters.

The outcome of the November election will determine the White House and control of Congress, and could also decide Johnson’s political future. Colleagues are weighing whether to keep Johnson or try someone else as their leader ahead of an internal party vote expected in late November after the election.

“The vast majority support Speaker Johnson — it’s a shame we have about 10 people who keep calling him out on that,” said Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the more centrist Republicans.

“He’s a good guy. He’s got a big heart,” Bacon said. “I think he’s learned a lot this year.”

For the past 11 months, Johnson has been an unlikely choice for speaker. The Louisiana congressman was a relative unknown, a low-profile party leader, first elected to office in 2016 with Donald Trump, when he emerged as the Republicans’ final, final choice to succeed McCarthy.

Republicans had been sparring behind closed doors over who should be their new chairman after taking the historic step of removing McCarthy from power — bypassing Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Republican Whip Tom Emmer, far-right Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and others — before Johnson stepped forward and won his endorsement, with Trump’s blessing.

Johnson, a lawyer, led one of Trump’s main lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and could play a significant role in the 2024 election amid potential legal challenges to the result.

As the new speaker, Johnson inherited a House GOP majority that was bitterly divided, and he worked quickly to piece it all together. He purged the speaker’s staff on Capitol Hill, brought in his own team — and aligned himself closely with Trump, throwing his support behind the impeached former president’s bid to retake the White House.

Johnson has prioritized several House initiatives, from the Biden impeachment inquiry to the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, that closely aligned with Trump’s agenda.

But annual fights over federal spending have loomed over Johnson’s term. With a Sept. 30 deadline marking the end of the fiscal year, the ultraconservative wing of the House Republican Party urged the speaker to press for spending cuts, even if it meant shutting down the government.

Trump called on House Republicans to take an uncompromising stand.

“I wish he would take Trump’s advice,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-South Carolina, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, who said of Johnson: “He’s risk-averse.”

But with a razor-thin majority that leaves Johnson with just a few votes to spare on any issue, he needs near unanimity from his ranks to pass legislation over Democratic objections. He has already survived one attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to oust him this year.

Ahead of an expected vote on Wednesday on the spending plan, Johnson defended his decision, saying it would be “political dishonesty” to shut down the federal government weeks before an election.

Johnson said he was trying to pull off what he called the “best play possible” by including a bill called the SAVE Act that would prevent immigrants in the U.S. without legal status from voting in national elections, even though that is already law and experts say it rarely happens.

But the speaker’s approach failed, rejected by more than a dozen Republicans along with nearly all Democrats. A similar dynamic played out with several other bills aimed at funding various agencies, as lawmakers opposed drastic budget cuts or specific policy provisions as too extreme.

“So we have to go with the first option that comes our way,” Johnson said at his weekly news conference on Tuesday.

Johnson described the stopgap funding bill, which would allow the government to continue operating through Dec. 20, as austere, with no frills — except for $231 million for the U.S. Service in the wake of two assassination attempts on Trump this election season.

He insisted he and Trump are “on the same page” on strategy and have spoken “at length” about the situation. And Johnson vowed the House will hold the line against additional spending next time, in December, when another round of funding is needed.

“There is no difference between us,” Johnson said of Trump.

One of the key differences between McCarthy’s situation and this week’s vote is that last year, Congress also considered funding for arms purchases for Ukraine fighting the Russian invasion, a move that Trump and the far-right did not support and that was ultimately dropped from the final bill.

Additional funding for the war was also not included in a temporary bill introduced this week, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit Capitol Hill later this week, when he will press Congress for permanent support.

“I actually think Kevin McCarthy would have done a much better job,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an ultraconservative who opposes most spending bills.

Massie said he believes “the only chance Mike Johnson has to be re-elected as speaker is if he gets a lifeline from Trump if he wins the White House.”

As for the eight House Republicans who ousted McCarthy, they have since gone their own political ways — one of them, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, a former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, lost his primary for re-election.

McCarthy, meanwhile, isn’t necessarily counting on a comeback, but rather on fundraising to win a majority in the House of Representatives and giving Republicans money to campaign in close elections — and to counter those who have opposed him.

__

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this article.