The notion that the speaker serves the whole House is often tossed around, but rarely the case.
Representative Mike Johnson can now, for better or worse, truly lay claim to being speaker of the whole House, after Democrats saved him from a Republican-led coup on Wednesday in another remarkable moment in a chaotic Congress filled with them.
Had Democrats not come to his rescue, the votes existed in his own party to potentially oust him.
The result left Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican still new to the job, indebted to Democrats even as he immediately sought to distance himself from them by emphasizing his deep conservative credentials.
Democrats said their support for him underscored their bona fides as the grown-up party willing to go so far as to back a conservative Republican speaker to prevent the House from again going off the rails.
Persons:
Mike Johnson, Johnson
Organizations:
Republican, House, Republicans, Louisiana Republican
Locations:
Louisiana