As of Wednesday, October 25th, the GOP has finally voted a new Speaker of the House into office: little-known Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

The decision comes after weeks of uncertainty following the unprecedented removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a vote led by a far-right coalition over his support of a bill to avert a government shutdown.

Johnson was the fourth candidate for the position, after Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) all failed to secure the 217 necessary for the position. This occurred over the course of an exhausting three weeks filled with party infighting and House disruption.

In less than 24 hours after a frustrated Emmer stepped down from the race on the 24th, Johnson’s name was nominated during a closed door Republican vote and the little known congressman soon ascended to be second in line for the presidency and leader of one of the most factious Houses in U.S. history.

However, many citizens have still been left uncertain and wondering, who exactly is Rep. Mike Johnson, and what does his election mean for the future of the United States? In an effort to help clear up that uncertainty, here is some background about Mike Johnson and his political views.

He is strongly anti-abortion
Johnson has consistently been a strong supporter of anti-abortion policies. In 2022 on X, previously known as Twitter, Johnson wrote that his home state of Louisiana would work to “get the number of abortions to ZERO!!”
In addition, he has defended the claim that abortion has led to the defunding of social welfare by destroying a hypothetical workforce. In a quote that has been widely criticized, he said “think about the implications of that on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this… Roe was a terrible corruption.”

Though the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision returned the subject of abortion to the states, Johnson has since co-sponsored many bills for a nationwide ban.

He opposed the certification of the 2020 election results and is a close ally of Donald Trump
Johnson was one of 139 lawmakers who voted to invalidate the results of the 2020 election. He also authored an amicus brief for the long-shot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states, and even sent an email from a personal account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for it. He also served on the team that defended Trump in his first impeachment inquiry.

His close ties with Trump have continued even with the politician out of office, as Trump praised the new speaker just this Wednesday, saying that he is a “tremendous leader.”

He supports the restriction of LGBTQ+ rights
This past year, Johnson sponsored a bill that was widely seen as a national version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” which bans education on sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades. Johnson stated that such a bill was “common sense.”

The Human Rights Campaign, a pro-LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, gave Johnson a score of zero in its recent congressional scorecard.

He is a supporter of ‘covenant marriage’
When Johnson and his wife Kelly were married in 1999, they agreed to a ‘covenant marriage,’ in which it is harder to achieve a divorce. He defended the conservative Christian idea on Good Morning America, citing his own parents’ “traumatic” divorce as a major factor.

He was a spokesperson for a ‘hate group’
Prior to entering politics, Johnson worked as a spokesperson for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center, which tracks extremism in the U.S. The ADF is particularly focused on the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, claiming they are more likely to engage in pedophilia and that the ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society.

In total, Mike Johnson is an ultraconservative lawmaker who is likely to support Trump in the upcoming 2024 elections and generally work more closely with the far-right faction in Congress that unseated previous Speaker Kevin McCarthy.