Table Of Content
Huizar pleaded guilty to tax evasion and racketeering in an agreement filed in federal court on Jan. 19, admitting that he extorted at least $1.5 million in bribes. He had denied the allegations — that he repeatedly took cash bribes and campaign donations from real estate developers in exchange for help getting development projects through the city’s arduous approval process — for years. Englander’s case, though, is part of a larger probe into an alleged “pay-to-play” scheme, which has centered on former Councilmember Jose Huizar. It first gained public attention in 2018 when FBI agents raided the then-council member’s home and office. Twenty-five Republicans voted against the fourth bill, which included measures that could lead to a ban on TikTok in the United States and that would redirect funds from seized Russian assets to help aid Ukraine.
His role in promoting 2020 election denial
The little-known-beyond-Louisiana conservative weathered a rough few weeks as the public—and many of his colleagues—discovered that he was far more aligned with the evangelical, hard-right flank of the GOP than they had realized. But, in those first few weeks, a lot of conservatives held their tongues as Johnson got his sea legs and started to show what kind of figure he would be as he clutched the gavel. Prior to the GOP's 40-year sentence as the minority party, several of its speakers had risen to the top rung largely on their personal popularity among their colleagues. One was Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, who led the party in the House during two brief interludes of majority status after World War II. Both lasted only the minimum two years, the first ending with Democratic Harry S. Truman's surprise White House win in 1948.
Mike Johnson is now House speaker. Here’s the latest.
Both Democrats and Republicans made strides in diversifying their congressional ranks in the November midterm elections, with several historic milestones reached and a record number of women elected. Her late father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., served as Mayor of Baltimore for twelve years, after representing the city for five terms in Congress. She and her husband, Paul Pelosi, a native of San Francisco, have five grown children and ten grandchildren. Pelosi is the chief architect of generation-defining legislation under two Democratic administrations, including the Affordable Care Act and the American Rescue Plan.
City Council members
A government shutdown is fast approaching, and the White House has requested a $106 billion emergency aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other priorities. The House passed a resolution in support of Israel in the war against Hamas – the first measure to come to the floor after Speaker Mike Johnson was elected earlier Wednesday following three weeks without a speaker. Since Gingrich’s tenure, speakers are often criticized as too partisan and too powerful, trampling minority party interests. An earlier version of this article misstated the number of votes Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana received in House Republicans’ internal election to choose a speaker nominee.
From legislation to accounting
Just such a "motion to vacate the chair" was filed against Johnson in March by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. But Greene has yet to make the motion "privileged," which under the rules would necessitate a vote within two days. During the speaker battle, Trump proved more adept at hurting candidates than helping them win — his early endorsee, Jordan, flamed out on the floor. But Johnson's ability to avoid Trump's ire cleared a hurdle for him within the House GOP, which is attuned to the wishes of the "MAGA" base.
Johnson says he's never voted against Ukraine aid. That's not what his record says.
Mr. Johnson said Mr. Jordan called him when he was running for office, because “he knew I was a conservative,” contributed money to his campaign and invited him to Washington for a meeting with him and other Freedom Caucus members. On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, Mr. Johnson had honed his arguments undermining the election to be more palatable. He presented colleagues with arguments they could use to oppose the will of the voters without embracing conspiracy theories and the lies of widespread fraud pushed by Mr. Trump.
Rep. Mike Johnson voted new House speaker
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says Speaker Mike Johnson should resign as Democrats signal potential support - NBC News
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says Speaker Mike Johnson should resign as Democrats signal potential support.
Posted: Sun, 21 Apr 2024 17:57:03 GMT [source]
And he has fast-tracked impeaching the President despite thin evidence to date—but, hey, a formal vote calendared for next week to allow subpoenas is propped up behind a snazzy logo. Most of them served in that long stretch when their party held the majority for four decades. The most recent Democrat, however, is Nancy Pelosi, still a House member and the House speaker emerita. She comes in at fifth on the longevity roster, having served one day shy of eight years from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. In 1994, two years into the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, Gingrich organized a campaign around a 10-item agenda called the "Contract with America." It provided a unified message for the party's nominees, who flipped more than 50 seats and stormed into the majority.
Speaker Pelosi then led the House in creating the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. John Boehner was elected speaker when the 112th Congress convened on January 5, 2011, and was subsequently re-elected twice, at the start of the 113th and 114th Congresses. The Republicans came out of the 2000 elections with a further reduced majority but made small gains in 2002 and 2004. Los Angeles has voted for every Democratic Party candidate for president since at least 1964. In the seven presidential elections since George H.W. Bush's re-election bid in 1992, no Republican candidate has received as much as 30% of the vote in Los Angeles.
Johnson is sticking with the parameters negotiated between the Biden White House and Speaker McCarthy’s office, including topline spending of $1.59 trillion through next Oct. 1. While the far-right Freedom Caucus seems to have made peace with that, some holdout conservatives are still demanding that number be cut to $1.47 trillion. That delta is one of the reasons some GOP lawmakers are starting to sour on Johnson. A New York Times article last year called Johnson “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections” on Jan. 6, 2021. His argument to colleagues was that certain states’ changes to their voting procedures during the Covid-19 pandemic were unconstitutional, an argument that became more palatable to lawmakers than the fabricated claims of mass fraud.
Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida, who supported McCarthy over Jordan, called Johnson a "straightforward leader" who can unite the Republican conference in a post to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Gimenez, former chief of the City of Miami Fire Department, highlighted that both Johnson and McCarthy are the sons of firefighters. Johnson has laid out a tentative legislative schedule to approve new spending and take up other pieces of legislation, but things could change quickly as he confronts the realities of governing, especially given the fractious nature of the Republican conference. Johnson, a little-known lawmaker who is now second in line for the presidency, attracted the support of all 220 Republican members in attendance, surpassing the 215-vote total that was required to win. The challenge for House Republicans is they still have eight more spending bills to pass including two that have been stuck in committee because of disagreements within GOP ranks. In his letter to colleagues, Johnson set out an aggressive time table for passing the bills, but the issue will be finding a way to pass the legislation in just a narrow GOP majority.
Wednesday morning, hours before an expected vote, Trump, the de facto leader of the Republican Party, said he wasn't technically endorsing Johnson but suggesting the House elect him. He voted against bipartisan legislation to codify same-sex marriage, which Biden signed into law last year. In Biden’s first two years, Johnson voted against a slew of bipartisan bills — including one to establish a Jan. 6 independent commission, the infrastructure law, reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a modest new gun law and the CHIPS and Science Act. Johnson is a constitutional lawyer who has used his talents to craft some creative — and controversial — theories. The most notable is his role in devising an argument aimed at keeping Donald Trump in power even though he lost the 2020 election.
Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and someone Mr. Johnson has described as a mentor, was the next member to be elected speaker designate in a secret ballot. He had Mr. Trump and the far right in his corner, but ultimately failed to win over more centrist members of his party who steadfastly refused to support him. In the years before he arrived in Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Defense Fund — now called the Alliance Defending Freedom. During that time, he expressed some of his hard-line views in editorials in the local newspaper in his hometown of Shreveport, La. And the hard-right Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, setting into motion the three-week stretch of chaos that left the House without a leader, said Mr. Johnson’s ascension to the top job made their decision to depose the California Republican worth it. A bloc of Republicans had objected to the speaker bid of Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, because of his role in helping lead Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
"From the very beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have been governing for the people," Jeffries said. "We continue to look forward to finding bipartisan common ground whenever and wherever possible." Jeffries, the Democratic leader, presented him with the gavel, calling him a "family man, a hardworking man, a Baptist man, a Southern man, a son of a firefighter's household." Johnson listed a number of his priorities, including border security, cutting federal spending and establishing a bipartisan debt commission "immediately." "I think all the American people at one time had great pride in this institution, but right now that's in jeopardy," he said.
Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican and the first to be nominated for speaker following Mr. McCarthy’s ouster, was ultimately seen as insufficiently pro-Trump by too many of his colleagues. Mr. Johnson was only able to emerge as his party’s nominee for speaker this week after three other G.O.P. nominees before him were unable to rally enough support. He also opposed legislation to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages — a bill that passed with strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. He said that millions of unborn children had lost their lives because of what he called a “legal fiction that the Supreme Court foisted upon this country” and said that “God will bless us” for the court’s decision. In Congress, Mr. Johnson has voted for a national abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, earning him an A-plus rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
Mr. Johnson came to Congress in 2017 with support from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, though he has never joined the group. “The slates of electors were produced by a clearly unconstitutional process, period,” he said. He wrote a two-page memo of talking points meant to buck up Republicans, and lamented that the violence had almost eclipsed his careful arguments. A constitutional lawyer, Mr. Johnson was also a key architect of Republicans’ objections to certifying Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
No comments:
Post a Comment