Florida congressional Democrats are blasting the House GOP’s choice of Louisiana’s Mike Johnson to serve as the next U.S. House Speaker.
Here’s what some of them are saying:
“Mike Johnson is an election denying, LGBTQ+ hating, extremist conservative who wants to slash your Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and supports banning abortion so that women are forced to give birth to provide more “able-bodied workers” for our workforce,” Orlando-area U.S. House Democrat Maxwell Frost said in a written statement.
“He was the chief architect to overturn the 2020 election, voting to appease a seditious movement that aimed to destroy our democracy for personal gain.”
South Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz described Johnson on X as “Jim Jordan in a suit jacket.”
“The next GOP Speaker is an election denier, Social Security enemy who would criminalize abortion and take FL’s #Don’tSayGay law national,” said Wasserman Schultz. “@RepMikeJohnson is a far-right puppet. He’s not a serious leader; he just got seriously lucky.”
Palm Beach County based U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel echoed similar thoughts.
“With their vote today, Republicans have once again turned the House over to MAGA extremism,” Frankel said in a statement. “Mike Johnson was a central architect of the former President’s dangerous, shameful effort to overturn the 2020 election, has supported numerous bills to ban abortion nationwide, and proposed a budget to cut Social Security benefits.”
Tampa Bay area Rep. Kathy Castor also labeled Johnson “a far right MAGA extremist,” and said that Johnson “is an anti-choice extremist. He wants to ban ALL abortions without exception and turn doctors and women into criminals.”
Meanwhile the Florida GOP delegation, who had been split on earlier speaker candidates such as Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer, voted unanimously to support Johnson, and some of its most conservative members expressed enthusiasm in doing so.
Panhandle area Congressman Matt Gaetz, who used a rare congressional procedure to remove then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, instigating 22 days in Congress without a House leader, put out a message on X linking to The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper’s headline? “Matt Gaetz Sees Vindication in a Mike Johnson Win.”