Mike Johnson re-elected speaker as two rebel Republicans convinced to change vote
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) managed to defeat a GOP rebellion and retain his position on Friday afternoon, following an initial vote in which a small group of Republicans had previously voted against him, reported Politico.
Reps. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Keith Self (R-TX) flipped their votes to back the speaker following a break, according to the report.
With this vote, Johnson, who is facing one of the narrowest House majorities in modern history, clears a major hurdle that had threatened to derail and frustrate House GOP plans to pass President-elect Donald Trump's agenda before congressional business even started.
A failure to elect a speaker would have paralyzed the House, and if the process had dragged out for weeks, as it did in 2023 when then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was overthrown by a renegade bloc of far-right Republicans, it would have threatened to delay the certification of Trump's election.
With the House GOP securing the speakership vote, the agenda moves on to some of Trump's first priorities, which are likely to include an energy and border security bill, and an extension of the 2017 tax cut package, which will partially expire without re-authorization from Congress.