Mike Johnson Rebuked in Blistering Home State Newspaper Column: 'Extreme'

Newly-elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Friday was criticized in a blistering op-ed column published by a newspaper in his home state of Louisiana.

Johnson, who has represented districts in Louisiana since 2015, was elected speaker on Wednesday, receiving rare unanimous support from his Republican peers after weeks of turmoil. After Representative Kevin McCarthy of California was removed from the office by a floor vote on a motion to vacate, the House GOP struggled to find a candidate who could muster the needed votes from the polarized caucus. Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio failed to reach 217 votes on the floor, while Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota dropped out only hours after being named speaker-designee.

While Johnson received the vote of every House Republican and has been hailed as a more level-headed GOP leader, critics have taken strong exception to his views on issues like abortion and gay marriage, among other things, and his involvement in former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. In addition to voting against the certification of the election results, Johnson spread numerous false claims about voter fraud during public appearances, echoing conspiracies about Dominion-produced voting machines that landed Fox News in legal trouble.

On Friday, Stephanie Grace, a reporter for Louisiana's largest daily newspaper, The Advocate, published an op-ed column about Johnson, titled "Mike Johnson's soft touch masks hard-line views," deriding his "ability to put a friendly and legalistic face on some extreme opinions," and his active hand in the efforts to contest the last presidential election.

"His most significant contribution to the cause was a legal theory challenging results in states where governors, secretaries of state, or judges were involved in changing the rules to allow fuller voter participation during the pandemic," Grace wrote. "Johnson rallied his colleagues to sign a friend of the court brief in a Texas suit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate results in four swing states that Joe Biden won, on the theory that only legislators could do so."

Grace also highlighted Johnson's past stances on issues like "LGBTQ rights and impeachment [and] also abortion and Ukraine and guns." While he recently told Sean Hannity that he accepts the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of gay marriage, he has supported legislation to allow "wide official license to discriminate against these couples, under the guise of religious freedom," the column noted. Johnson also supported the GOP's efforts to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden, which Grace dismissed as "nakedly political."

"Johnson's agreeable demeanor, on top of the obvious fatigue of his caucus, took him this far, and it helped get him through that first speech as well as some apparently pleasant meetings with Biden and other national leaders," Grace added. "Given the divisive times and Johnson's own record, I predict we're seeing only a brief cease-fire in the GOP's civil war."

Newsweek reached out to Johnson's office via email for comment.