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Mike Johnson Biography & Facts

James Michael Johnson (born January 30, 1972) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 56th speaker of the United States House of Representatives since October 25, 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he is in his fourth House term, having represented Louisiana's 4th congressional district since 2017. Johnson is a graduate of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. Before entering politics, he worked as an attorney in private practice and for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF); at ADF, he advocated for sodomy laws and criminalizing homosexuality, writing an amicus brief that opposed the eventual U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003). A young-earth creationist, Johnson sat on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention between 2004 and 2012. Johnson's political career began when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2015; he served in that body until 2017. He was first elected to represent Louisiana's 4th congressional district in 2016. He has been identified as a member of the Christian right. During his time in Congress, he contested the results of the 2020 presidential election on the House floor and in court. He supported bills that would institute a nationwide ban on abortion. Johnson was chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives in Congress, from 2019 to 2021. He was vice chair of the House Republican Conference from 2021 to 2023. On October 25, 2023, following the ousting of Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, Johnson was elected as the 56th speaker of the House. In 2024, he helped pass a bill meant to provide Ukraine with $60 billion of U.S. aid. Early life and education Johnson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the oldest of four children to Jeanne Johnson and James Patrick "Pat" Johnson (who died in 2016). He has said that he is the product of an unplanned pregnancy and that his parents were teenagers when he was born. They later divorced. In 1984, while serving with the Shreveport Fire Department, Pat Johnson was severely injured and disabled in a fire at a cold storage facility. A fellow firefighter, Captain Percy R. Johnson, was killed in that fire. Pat Johnson never returned to work as a firefighter, choosing instead to become a HazMat consultant. He also co-founded the Percy R. Johnson Burn Foundation, which aided burn victims and their families. The younger Johnson wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, but his parents forbade him from becoming a firefighter. Johnson is a graduate of Captain Shreve High School in Shreveport. In 1995, he earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Louisiana State University, becoming a first-generation college graduate. In 1998, Johnson graduated from Louisiana State's Paul M. Hebert Law Center with a Juris Doctor degree. Legal career Johnson was a constitutional lawyer before entering politics. He was senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as Alliance Defending Freedom, a socially conservative legal advocacy group that subscribes to the legal theory of constitutionalism. While working there, he wrote an amicus brief opposing the eventual U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), while supporting sodomy laws that would criminalize homosexuality. In 2004, he defended Louisiana Amendment 1, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman within the Louisiana Constitution, against legal challenges. In August 2010, Johnson was named the "founding dean" of the newly established Pressler School of Law at Louisiana College. The law school never opened, and Johnson resigned in August 2012. Joe Aguillard, the president of Louisiana College, blamed Johnson's resignation for the law school's failure. The parent college has since been embroiled in administrative and legal problems. Johnson served from 2004 to 2012 on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2015, Johnson founded Freedom Guard, a nonprofit legal ministry designed to represent Christian clients in lawsuits. He was its chief counsel. During his time in Freedom Guard, he "defended the sports chaplaincy program at Louisiana State University from attacks that it was unconstitutional". Also, when Kentucky officials withdrew millions of dollars of tax breaks from the Ark Encounter theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky, because Ark Encounter required park employees to affirm that they held Young Earth creationist beliefs, Johnson represented Ark Encounter and its owner, Answers in Genesis, in a 2015 federal lawsuit. In September 2016, Johnson summarized his legal career as "defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they've been under assault". Johnson is a professor at Liberty University and teaches classes at its Helms School of Government. From roughly 2015 to 2022, he was a guest host of Tony Perkins's radio talk show Washington Watch. Louisiana House of Representatives The 8th District seat of the Louisiana House of Representatives was vacated in 2015 when Jeff R. Thompson was elected to a state district judgeship. Johnson ran to succeed him and was unopposed. In April 2015, Johnson proposed the Marriage and Conscience Act. It would have prevented the state from engaging in adverse treatment of any person or entity based upon their beliefs about marriage. Critics denounced the bill as an attempt to protect people who discriminate against same-sex married couples. Governor Bobby Jindal pledged to sign Johnson's bill into law if it passed the legislature, commenting in a New York Times editorial that "musicians, caterers, photographers and others should be immune from government coercion on deeply held religious convictions". IBM and other employers in the region expressed opposition to the bill, including concerns about hiring difficulties it would likely produce. Other politicians also objected, including Republican Baton Rouge Metro Councilman John Delgado, who called Johnson a "despicable bigot of the highest order" for proposing the bill. Johnson replied that he "wished Delgado had taken the time to review his record and career before making 'such hateful, wildly inaccurate statements'". On May 19, 2015, the House Civil Law and Procedure Committee voted 10–2 to table the bill, effectively ending its chances to become law. Both Republicans and Democrats voted against the bill; other than Johnson, only Republican Ray Garofalo voted for it. In response, Jindal issued an executive order to enforce its intent. In 2016, Johnson was a strong proponent of a movement to drastically amend or replace the United States Constitution at a national convention called for that purpose. He helped lead the Louisiana House in formally petitioning Congress to call a "Convention of States" to overhaul the Constitution. .... Discover the Mike Johnson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mike Johnson books.