It’d been three weeks since the ignominious ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans were restless and snappish. Majority Whip Tom Emmer had just pulled his name from the running, the third person to drop out of consideration after being backed by a majority of the caucus. There were no clear alternatives left.
Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson, the runner-up on the last internal party vote, was hardly an obvious consensus candidate among the fractured GOP. Johnson had a minimal public profile, mostly known for pushing a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential election and for his arch-conservative views on social issues, someone who had called legal abortion “an American holocaust,” won taxpayer funding for a creationist theme park and held an open disdain for LGBTQ+ rights.
But he found an ally from an unexpected corner. Rep. Marc Molinaro — a relatively unknown, moderate Republican freshman from upstate New York — played a pivotal role in ushering Johnson into the speakership. He gave an impassioned speech calling on his colleagues to immediately vote for Johnson in a closed-door meeting after Emmer bowed out of the running.