In Johnson, House Republicans Elevate One of Their Staunchest Conservatives

When Consultant Mike Johnson of Louisiana needed to make the case towards abortion rights final 12 months throughout a Capitol Hill committee listening to, he grilled a witness in graphic style.

“Do you assist the correct of a girl who’s simply seconds away from birthing a wholesome youngster to have an abortion?” he requested at a Judiciary Committee listening to.

When the witness, Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board member for Physicians for Reproductive Well being, responded that such a state of affairs had by no means occurred, Mr. Johnson solely doubled down.

“By no means occurred in your observe, ma’am,” Mr. Johnson fired again. “But it surely occurs. How about if a baby is midway out of the delivery canal? Is an abortion permissible then?”

The trade mirrored the lawmaker’s deeply conservative views, notably on social points, and his tendency to precise them in inflammatory methods.

Mr. Johnson, the evangelical Christian who gained the speakership on Wednesday with the unanimous assist of Home Republicans, has additionally spoken out sharply towards homosexuality, calling it “inherently unnatural” and a “harmful life-style” and linking it to bestiality, in accordance with opinion essays unearthed on Wednesday by CNN.

“Specialists undertaking that gay marriage is the darkish harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that might doom even the strongest republic,” he wrote in a single such article in 2004.

The views are sharply at odds with these of most Individuals, in accordance with opinion polls which have discovered the general public is broadly supportive of homosexual rights. Mr. Johnson’s abrupt rise to the speaker submit this week within the depressed and divided Home Republican convention underscores the rightward lurch of the G.O.P., which dumped his extra mainstream predecessor, Consultant Kevin McCarthy of California.

“For those who don’t assume that transferring from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson reveals the ascendance of this motion and the place the ability within the Republican Get together actually lies, then you definitely’re not paying consideration,” Consultant Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who engineered Mr. McCarthy’s downfall, stated in an interview on Steve Bannon’s “Struggle Room” podcast.

Elected to Congress in 2016, Mr. Johnson, a lawyer and former chairman of the conservative Republican Research Committee, has by no means led a strong committee in Congress or served within the prime tier of Home management. Democrats instantly pounced on the pivotal position he performed in congressional efforts to overturn the 2020 election. (As a loyal supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, he has continued to make use of a podcast he hosts along with his spouse, a licensed pastoral counselor, to rail towards the prosecution of Mr. Trump for his efforts to intrude within the 2020 election.)

However much more than his election denialism, Mr. Johnson’s political profession has been outlined by his spiritual views.

“I don’t imagine there are any coincidences,” he stated on Wednesday in his first speech on the Home flooring as speaker, including: “I imagine that God has ordained and allowed every one among us to be introduced right here for this particular second on this time. That is my perception.”

He added that his spouse “spent the final couple weeks on her knees in prayer to the Lord, and she or he’s a little bit worn out.”

Mr. Johnson, the son of a firefighter and the primary in his household to graduate from faculty, was 12 when his father was burned and disabled within the line of obligation.

“All I ever needed to be after I grew up was the chief of the hearth division in Shreveport,” Mr. Johnson stated Wednesday. However the explosion that harmed his father, he stated, “modified all of our trajectories.”

In Congress, Mr. Johnson has voted for a nationwide abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, incomes him an A-plus ranking from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America. After the Supreme Courtroom voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in June final 12 months, he celebrated.

He stated that tens of millions of unborn kids had misplaced their lives due to what he referred to as a “authorized fiction that the Supreme Courtroom foisted upon this nation” and stated that “God will bless us” for the courtroom’s choice.

Final 12 months, Mr. Johnson launched a invoice that prohibited using federal funds for offering schooling to kids below 10 that included L.G.B.T.Q. subjects — a proposal that critics referred to as a nationwide model of Florida’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” legislation. Mr. Johnson referred to as the laws “widespread sense.”

He additionally opposed laws to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages — a invoice that handed with robust bipartisan assist in each the Home and the Senate.

Within the years earlier than he was elected to Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson labored as an legal professional and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Protection Fund — now referred to as the Alliance Defending Freedom. Throughout that point, he expressed a few of his hard-line views in editorials within the native newspaper in his hometown of Shreveport, La.

Writing in 2004 in assist of a state modification banning same-sex marriage, he asserted that with out it, “There can be no authorized foundation to disclaim a bisexual the correct to marry a accomplice of every intercourse, or an individual to marry his pet.”

Mr. Johnson was solely in a position to emerge as his celebration’s nominee for speaker this week after three different G.O.P. nominees earlier than him have been unable to rally sufficient assist. It was unlikely to have occurred in every other state of affairs.

Consultant Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Home Republican and the primary to be nominated for speaker following Mr. McCarthy’s ouster, was in the end seen as insufficiently pro-Trump by too a lot of his colleagues.

Consultant Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding father of the hard-right Home Freedom Caucus and somebody Mr. Johnson has described as a mentor, was the subsequent member to be elected speaker designate in a secret poll. He had Mr. Trump and the far proper in his nook, however in the end didn’t win over extra centrist members of his celebration who steadfastly refused to assist him.

Consultant Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the bulk whip and the third candidate for the speakership, had the largest issues of any of the speaker-designates that preceded him: the hard-right wing of the celebration rose as much as oppose him and former President Donald J. Trump branded him a “globalist RINO.”

Mr. Johnson’s fast ascent got here when members of the convention have been worn down and able to settle for somebody whom they didn’t view as an apparent selection or the celebration’s pure chief in ready. As a substitute, he cleared a lowered bar: They view him as somebody sufficiently conservative and who they don’t personally despise.

Mr. Johnson’s hallmark in Congress has been combining his hard-line views with a delicate private fashion. That was on show on Wednesday, when he vowed to attempt to discover widespread floor with Consultant Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority chief.

“I do know we see issues from totally different factors of view, however I do know in your coronary heart you need to do what’s proper, so we’ll discover widespread floor there,” he stated.

To indicate assist for racial equality, Mr. Johnson prior to now has instructed audiences that he and his spouse adopted a Black teenager they met by an evangelical youth group — just like the film “The Blind Aspect” however with out the N.F.L. prospects, he has quipped.

He as soon as shared the story with a largely Democratic viewers at a congressional listening to on slavery reparations, and he was shocked to listen to boos as he spoke, he later recounted to the Council for Nationwide Coverage, an meeting of conservative donors recognized for its strict secrecy.

“I had my emotions surgically eliminated again within the ’80s,” he joked, in accordance with a recording of the occasion, after which prompt the listening to had been filled with Black Panthers who disapproved of the blending of races. (The Black Panther Get together dissolved many years in the past.)

On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson was toiling to assist Republicans flip the web page from the chaos of the previous few weeks. He stated there could be not one of the typical celebrations that accompany the election of a brand new speaker.

As a substitute, he moved rapidly to carry up a decision expressing solidarity and assist for Israel. His subsequent order of enterprise, he stated, could be addressing what he referred to as the nation’s “damaged border” with Mexico. He made no point out of the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, or of the upcoming authorities shutdown that can start subsequent month if Congress fails to cross laws to maintain the federal government funded.

“These previous couple of weeks most likely appear like complete chaos, confusion, no finish in sight,” Mr. Emmer, who tried and didn’t grow to be speaker, stated on Wednesday. “However from my perspective, this is among the best experiences of the current historical past of our republic.”

Steve Eder contributed reporting.