Election denier, climate skeptic and anti-abortion: meet the new US House speaker Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson’s emergence as the new speaker of the US House of Representatives has earned the relatively little-known Louisiana Republican a turn in the national spotlight.

In turn, that spotlight has illuminated positions and remarks many deem extreme.

He tried to overturn the 2020 election

In the modern Republican party, supporting Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden is hardly an outlandish position. But Johnson took things further.

In the aftermath of the election, he voiced support for Trump’s conspiracy theory that voting machines were rigged. Later, he was one of 147 Republicans in Congress to object to results in key states, even after a pro-Trump mob attacked Congress on January 6, a riot now linked to nine deaths and the subject of hundreds of convictions.

Johnson also authored an amicus brief filed to the supreme court in a case in which Texas sought to have swing-state results thrown out. According to the New York Times, a House GOP lawyer said Johnson’s brief was unconstitutional. Nonetheless, he persuaded 125 colleagues to sign it, using tactics some thought too heavy handed.

The supreme court refused to take the case. On Tuesday night, Johnson refused to take a question about his work on Trump’s behalf – smiling as fellow Republicans booed and jeered the reporter.

He was a spokesperson for a hate group

Before entering politics, Johnson worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom – designated a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center, which tracks US extremists.

According to the SPLC, the ADF, a rightwing Christian group, has “supported the recriminalisation of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults in the US and criminalisation abroad; defended state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people abroad; contended that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claimed that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society”.

He opposes LGBTQ+ rights

In accordance with such work by the ADF, Johnson has in his time in state politics and at the national level worked to claw back gains made by LGBTQ+ Americans in their long fight for equality.

In 2016, as he ran for Congress, he told the Lousiana Baptist Message he had “been out on the front lines of the ‘culture war’ defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they’ve been under assault”. He has since led efforts for a national “don’t say gay” bill, regarding the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues in schools, and is also opposed to gender-affirming care for children.

He is stringently anti-abortion

Johnson has maintained a relatively low profile in Congress – not even joining the hard-right Freedom Caucus – but the ADF joined efforts to overturn the right to abortion that culminated in its removal last year, by the supreme court, in Dobbs v Jackson. When that ruling was handed down, Johnson hailed “a historic and joyful day”.

Though Dobbs returned the question of abortion rights to the states, Johnson has co-sponsored bills to introduce a nationwide ban. And on Tuesday, as Johnson neared his position of power, footage of striking remarks in a House committee hearing spread on social media. “Roe v Wade did constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America, period,” Johnson said.

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You think about the implications on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this … I will not yield I will not. Roe was a terrible corruption of America’s constitutional jurisprudence.”

He wants to cut Social Security and Medicare

As the comments above indicate, Johnson wants to cut key social support programs on which millions of Americans rely. Such cuts are widely regarded as something of a political third-rail – Trump has used the issue to attack rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, saying only he will defend such benefits – but Johnson is far from alone on the Republican right in wanting to swing the axe regardless.

He is an advocate for ‘covenant marriage’

When he married his wife Kelly in 1999, the couple agreed to a contract or “covenant” marriage: a conservative Christian idea that makes it harder to divorce. The Johnsons promoted the idea across the US, nola.com reported, even appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America.

“My own parents are divorced,” Johnson said. “As anyone who goes through that knows, that was a traumatic thing for our whole family. I’m a big proponent of marriage and fidelity and all the things that go with it, and I’ve seen firsthand the devastation [divorce] can cause.”

He is a climate skeptic

In 2017, Johnson told voters in his oil-rich home state: “The climate is changing, but the question is, is it being caused by natural cycles over the span of the Earth’s history? Or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”

He has also opposed Democratic proposals for a Green New Deal and been named an “energy champion” by the American Energy Alliance, a rightwing group that has defended fossil fuel use and received funding from Koch Industries.

… and progressives are alarmed

On Wednesday, Democrats and progressive groups greeted Johnson’s ascent with criticism – and a torrent of opposition research.

Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog Accountable.US, called Johnson “a far-right extremist who led a desperate attempt to subvert democracy … [who] boasts a voting record deeming him one of the most extreme members of the Republican conference.

“A Speaker Johnson means more of the same from the Maga [pro-Trump] majority: pointless partisan political stunts, peddling dangerous conspiracies and ultimately undermining American democracy. The extreme faction has always pulled the strings with House Republicans, and Speaker Johnson triples down on that.”