The Memo: New Speaker’s views on abortion, LGBTQ issues could weigh down GOP

Republicans are discovering the downside of electing a previously obscure figure to be second in line to the presidency.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), largely unknown outside the Beltway — and not especially well-known within it — finally succeeded this week where three more prominent Republicans had failed. 

Johnson got unanimous support from within his conference to become Speaker, thus ending a three-week period of House chaos that followed the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Media attention in the immediate aftermath of Johnson’s elevation focused on his efforts to help former President Trump overturn the 2020 election. 

Johnson was one of the leading figures behind an amicus brief that aimed to invalidate election results in four key states. He also voted, in the hours after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, against certifying some of those results.

The sensitivity of that topic was immediately clear once Johnson became Speaker, with at least one of his colleagues telling a reporter — Rachel Scott of ABC News — to “Shut up!” when she asked about his actions.

But in the days since then, the spotlight has increasingly fallen on Johnson’s views on social issues, including abortion and LGBTQ rights. 

Reporters have unearthed past comments in which Johnson threatened “hard labor” for doctors who perform abortions; blamed a combination of “radical feminism,” the sexual revolution and abortion rights for school shootings; and referred to homosexuality as “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous.”

He also tweeted about his hope to get the number of abortions in America “to zero” and co-sponsored a bill in recent months which held that “the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution” was present from the moment of fertilization.

Democrats have seized on the comments, in part because they seem to comport so well with the argument made by President Biden’s reelection team and other allies — that the GOP is out of step with the American public on many hot-button social issues, including abortion.

“This is not just about Mike Johnson,” Democratic strategist Abigail Collazo said. “This is about the Republican Party that chose to elect this man to lead. Republicans voted to write Mike Johnson a blank check to pursue, for example, a nationwide abortion ban.”

Collazo added that “every Republican running for any political office is going to have to answer for elevating an extremist like Mike Johnson.”

The Democratic National Committee (DNC), meanwhile, is seeking to brand the new Speaker as “MAGA Mike Johnson.”

DNC national press secretary Sarafina Chitika told this column that Johnson “is an out-of-touch extremist who won Donald Trump’s approval by leading efforts to overturn the election, supporting a national abortion ban and slashing Social Security and Medicare, and spreading hateful vitriol about the LGBTQ community. This is the MAGA platform that’s taking over the GOP, but it’s wildly unpopular with voters.”

For his part, Johnson told Sean Hannity of Fox News that he simply doesn’t recall some of his more controversial comments, which stretch back roughly two decades. 

He also noted that other points of contention, such as quotations backing the right of individual states to criminalize gay sex, were drawn from amicus briefs, in which he was a lawyer advocating for a client.

“I was a religious liberty defense lawyer, and I was called to go in and defend those cases in the court,” Johnson told Hannity.

Some defenders have also noted the speed at which the center of political gravity has shifted on some of the topics for which Johnson is now being excoriated. Former President Obama, for example, did not support marriage rights for same-sex couples during his first campaign in 2008, though he did back civil unions.

Other Republicans suggested that Johnson would at least soften the expression of his personal views and focus more on the array of legislative commitments that are pressing on Capitol Hill — including funding the government beyond a Nov. 17 deadline and considering a request from President Biden for a $106 billion aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other causes.

“His main job is to pass legislation and get things done and address the concerns of every American,” said Brad Blakeman, a GOP consultant who served in former President George W. Bush’s White House. “He can put aside his personal views, because he is now representing the whole body.”

But even Blakeman acknowledged that the focus on social issues was unlikely to be helpful to the GOP, which appears to have much more electorally potent arguments to make on topics including the economy, immigration and even Biden’s age.

Abortion is a very different story.

The GOP and the anti-abortion movement have suffered a number of electoral disappointments since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. 

Abortion rights activists have won several ballot measures, including in the conservative states of Kansas, Kentucky and Montana. In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans did worse than expected, failing to take control of the Senate and achieving only a slim majority in the House.

The abortion question appears to have played a key role.

A 2022 voter survey commissioned by The Associated Press and Fox News found that fully one-quarter of voters considered abortion to be the single most important issue. Within that group, 71 percent voted for a Democrat, compared to just 26 percent who backed the GOP.

To be sure, the controversies around the new Speaker might begin to fade quickly, especially amid conflict abroad and an intensifying presidential campaign at home.

But, as 2024 looms, Democrats believe they stand to benefit from the most senior Republican in Washington being such a hardline figure.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.