Mike Johnson saved the day. Democrats should be ready to save Johnson.
Mike Johnson, a name unknown to most Americans a year ago, emerged as an unlikely hero last week when the Louisiana Republican shepherded a $95 billion foreign aid bill through Congress against the wishes of many members of his own party. The legislation included billions of dollars in lethal military assistance for Ukraine, which will help the country defend itself from an ongoing Russian invasion, as well as money for Israel and Taiwan.
The importance of the legislation, which the Senate approved Tuesday and President Biden signed Wednesday, can hardly be overstated. The failure to pass it would have raised serious questions about the reliability of the United States as an ally and made it more likely that Russia would be successful in its efforts to annex by force more of Ukraine. The long delay in passing the legislation cost lives; further delay would have cost more.
The question now is what political price, if any, Johnson will pay. He was elected speaker only a few months ago, after the previous Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was deposed by the far right. A few far-right Republicans, most of them closely aligned with former president and presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, threatened to remove Johnson from the speakership before the vote. If they follow through, Johnson will need the support of at least a few Democrats to keep his job. If it comes to that — and it may not, because the extremists in the GOP may well be bluffing — Democrats should be willing to provide the votes.
That would be unprecedented. But so is much about the way the current Congress operates.
Some Democrats might not be in the mood to be magnanimous. Johnson himself is a hard-right figure who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. Some Democrats have grumbled that Johnson is garnering undue praise simply for doing his job. But devising the complicated legislative strategy to get this particular piece of legislation across the finish line was in fact not Johnson’s job. He could have saved himself plenty of grief from his party by doing nothing, which probably would have caused the pro-Ukraine segment of the GOP rank and file to circumvent him by signing a discharge petition that would have forced the matter to the floor without his involvement (such an effort was already underway).
In the end, not only did Johnson’s strategy — dividing the legislation into pieces and having separate votes on the aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as on a sanctions package aimed at Russia and Iran — work, but it yielded a more transparent process that lets voters see exactly where their representatives stood on aid to the different countries.
So what happens if Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other far-right Republicans try to topple Johnson, as they have threatened? House Democrats have already shown commendable bipartisanship in the Ukraine debate. To get the legislation to the floor, Johnson relied on Democrats to win procedural votes on the House Rules Committee, something that rarely if ever occurs.
Democrats should view supporting Johnson now as a continuation of that tactic. If they don’t — if they allow Johnson to be deposed because of a courageous move on Ukraine — it would make support for Ukraine radioactive for any future Republican speaker, which would undermine a cause Democrats rightly support.
Some Democrats have signaled they would be open to supporting Johnson but might exact a price from the speaker. That’s politics. But they should also think of a vote to prevent the House from sliding back into chaos as a purely self-interested move, rather than just a favor to Johnson. Heading into November elections, the contrast between the GOP and Democrats could not be more stark. Republicans are consumed by infighting, while the Democrats have looked the proverbial adults in the room. If Republican disarray creates another opportunity for Democrats to prove it, they should take it.