Mike Johnson was sworn in as the 56th speaker of the house on Oct. 25. With a position like this it is important to know about the person who will be a leading figure in our government.

Mike Johnson is currently serving his fourth term representing the fourth congressional district of Louisiana, is serving his second term as Vice Chairman of the Republican conference, is a leader on the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, and serves as a Deputy Whip for House Republicans. He has also previously served as Chairman of the Republican Study Committee. He is the first Speaker of the House from the south since 1999, and the first ever from Louisiana.

In the past, Mike Johnson is well known for his part in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, and is known to be very popular among conservative organizations. He has also voted against the stopgap bill on Oct. 1, has voted against sending aid to Ukraine multiple times, and has fathered the “Stop the Sexualization of Children” legislation, however, his critics have pointed out the seemingly excessive mention of the LGBT+ community causing the legislation to have been dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Johnson is also a cosponsor of the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” which bans minors from getting gender-reaffirming care.

“Kevin McCarthy was more of an independent candidate, more so than Mike Johnson who is much more a part of the Republican Party,” sophomore Lukas Van Ostrand said.

Mike Johnson is the least experienced Speaker of the House since 1883 as he only has seven years of experience in the House of Representatives compared to former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s 16 years of experience. It is extremely blatant how little he is known outside of Capitol Hill with some Republican senators saying they hadn’t even met Johnson before and many know very little about him. 

Due to how new and unknown Mike Johnson is, there is a lot that is not known about him. What is known is that he is fiercely conservative. How that will affect his leadership and how much the people and representatives in the house trust him remains to be seen.