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 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he is in his fifth 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 the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian legal advocacy group. 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. During his time in Congress, he contested the results of the 2020 presidential election on the House floor and in court. A social conservative, Johnson supported bills to ban abortion nationwide. Johnson chaired 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, after Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker of the House, Johnson was elected to replace him. He was narrowly reelected to a full term as speaker in 2025.
Early life and education
James Michael Johnson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the eldest of four children to Jeanne Johnson and James Patrick "Pat" Johnson, who divorced after 23 years of marriage. In 1984, Pat was severely injured in a Shreveport fire that killed a fellow firefighter. He later became a HazMat consultant.
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. From 2002 to 2010, he was an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom, a socially conservative legal advocacy group that subscribes to the legal theory of constitutionalism. 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, accused by a university vice president of misappropriating money and lying to the board, blamed Johnson's resignation for the law school's failure. The college soon terminated Aguillard, as it was determined he "engaged in numerous improprieties and falsities in his representations not only to school donors, but to the Board of Trustees". 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 law firm that engaged in religious liberty litigation. He was its chief counsel. During his time at 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, Johnson represented Ark Encounter and its owner, Answers in Genesis, in a 2015 federal lawsuit. The court ruled in favor of Answers in Genesis, saying the state's exclusion of the ark from the tourism tax incentive based on its "religious purpose and message" violated the First Amendment. After the ruling, Johnson said: "The court has affirmed a longstanding principle that the Constitution does not permit a state to show hostility towards religion. The First Amendment does not allow Christian organizations to be treated like second-class citizens merely because of what they believe."
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".
In 2018, Johnson became an adjunct professor teaching online courses at Liberty University's Helms School of Government. From roughly 2015 to 2022, he was an occasional 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, outlined in Article V of the Constitution, to amend 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. He later held hearings on this proposal in Congress.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
On February 10, 2016, Johnson announced his candidacy for the 4th congressional district seat, which had been held for eight years by John Fleming. Fleming was running for the United States Senate seat vacated by David Vitter. Johnson won the December 10 runoff, defeating Democratic nominee Marshall Jones, 87,370 votes (65%) to 46,579 (35%).
In 2018, Johnson won a second House term, defeating Democratic nominee Ryan Trundle, 139,307 votes (64%) to 72,923 votes (34%).
In 2020, Johnson won a third House term with 185,265 votes (60%) to Democratic nominee Kenny Houston's 78,157 votes (25%).
In 2022, Johnson won reelection unopposed.
In 2024, Johnson won reelection with 262,821 votes (86%) to fellow Republican Joshua Morott's 43,427 (14%) votes.
Early tenure
Johnson was sworn into office as a member of Congress on January 3, 2017. He has served as a deputy whip for House Republicans, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee. From 2019 to 2021, Johnson chaired the Republican Study Committee. Johnson served as vice chair of the House Republican Conference from 2021 to 2023. He was supported by the House Freedom Caucus PAC and frequently attended House Freedom Caucus meetings without formally joining the Caucus.
Johnson was among 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Johnson has worked closely with the Christian groups Answers in Genesis, Louisiana Family Forum, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Focus on the Family.
In 2022, Johnson wrote the foreword to Louisiana politics blogger Scott McKay's book The Revivalist Manifesto. The book uses homophobic slurs to refer to Pete Buttigieg and implicitly endorses the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Johnson promoted the book on his podcast, saying, "I obviously believe in the product, or I wouldn't have written the foreword. So I endorse the work." But after he was elected Speaker of the House, a spokesperson for Johnson told CNN, "The Speaker had never read the passages highlighted in the CNN story, which he strongly disagrees with. He wrote the foreword as a favor to a friend, supportive of the general theme of the book but not as an endorsement of all the opinions expressed."
After the 2022 midterm elections, Representative Andy Biggs proposed Johnson as a possible compromise candidate for Speaker of the House instead of Republican Conference leader Kevin McCarthy, after members of the House Freedom Caucus opposed McCarthy's bid for the speakership.
In 2023, Johnson became chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.
Committee assignments
The following is a list of Johnson's former committee assignments before becoming Speaker:
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government (chair)
Subcommittee on Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Committee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Readiness
Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems
Caucus memberships
Republican Study Committee
Congressional Taiwan Caucus
Congressional Western Caucus
Speaker of the House
Nomination
After Kevin McCarthy was removed from the position of speaker of the House on October 3, 2023, Representative Matt Gaetz floated Johnson's name as a potential replacement. On October 13, Johnson said that he would not run in the upcoming speaker election to succeed McCarthy and endorsed colleague Jim Jordan; on the same day, NBC News reported that Johnson was considering running if Jordan dropped out.
On October 21, after Steve Scalise and Jordan had made unsuccessful bids for speaker, Johnson declared his candidacy to become the new Republican nominee for speaker but was beaten by Representative Tom Emmer on October 24. Emmer defeated Johnson, 117 votes to 97, on the fifth ballot. Shortly thereafter, Emmer withdrew his candidacy for the speakership. Later on the same day, House Republicans voted to make Johnson their fourth nominee for speaker; he beat write-in candidate Kevin McCarthy and Representative Byron Donalds, 128 votes to 43 and 29, on the third ballot. Johnson's bid was endorsed by former U.S. president Donald Trump.
On October 25, the full House voted, 220–209, to elect Johnson as the 56th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives with every Republican member in attendance voting for him. Johnson was also sworn in as speaker on the same day. He is the first speaker in U.S. history from Louisiana. Johnson had served the shortest tenure of any House member elected speaker, at six years and ten months, since John G. Carlisle in 1883. Delivering his first remarks as speaker, he said, "I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us."
118th Congress
In the first half of the 118th Congress, when McCarthy was speaker, the House of Representatives had passed into law the lowest number of bills of any previous Congress, partially due to the unrest among members of the Freedom Caucus and McCarthy. McCarthy's removal had not put an end to the divided House, and Johnson sparked some anger over his handling of spending negotiations. An effort to oust him from the speakership in May 2024 failed with two-thirds of the House voting to keep him in office.
On October 26, 2023, Johnson met with President Joe Biden for the first time as speaker before attending a bipartisan briefing held at the White House on the administration's proposed funding requests for aid to Ukraine and Israel. On October 30, Johnson suggested rescinding IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to provide Israel $14.3 billion in aid. In November, Johnson proposed a two-tiered stopgap bill that continued spending at levels similar to then-current levels. House conservatives and the Freedom Caucus opposed the bill, but it passed the House on November 14 with the support of 209 Democrats and 127 Republicans. It passed the Senate the next day and was signed by Biden.
On November 17, Johnson announced that 44,000 hours of security footage from the January 6 United States Capitol attack, all of which had previously only been available upon request from criminal defendants and the media, would be released to the general public.
On December 1, the House expelled Republican congressman George Santos by a 311–114 vote; Johnson voted against the expulsion, and called it "a regrettable day".
On February 13, 2024, the House impeached Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas by a 214–213 vote. The impeachment resolution, championed by Johnson, had been already put up to a vote on February 6, but had failed due to a small Republican rebellion.
On January 7, 2024, congressional appropriators reached an agreement on the topline spending levels for 2024 that was not substantially different from the deal McCarthy negotiated during his tenure as speaker. Hardliners attempted to push Johnson to abandon the deal, initially claiming that he had done so before Johnson clarified that he had not. As negotiations continued over the full-year funding bills, conservatives pushed Johnson to instead endorse a full-year continuing resolution, which under McCarthy's deal would result in automatic spending cuts.
On March 6, 2024, the House passed a $459 billion "minibus" spending package containing six of the twelve appropriations bills. The rightmost faction of the Republican conference harshly opposed the deal, arguing it contained no substantial conservative policy wins. On March 22, the House passed a second $741 billion minibus to fund the remaining government departments; most Republicans voted against the bill, but it passed with Democratic support. The bill's passage, and the decision to rely on Democratic votes to get it through, led Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to file a motion to vacate Johnson's speakership. Greene could have forced a vote on the motion immediately, but initially chose not to, saying that she merely intended to send Johnson "a warning".