Mike Johnson

James Michael Johnson (born January 30, 1972) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the 56th speaker of the United States House of Representatives since October 25, 2023.

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.

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.

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).

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.

A young-earth creationist, Johnson sat on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention between 2004 and 2012.

In 2004, he defended Louisiana Amendment 1, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman within the Louisiana Constitution, against legal challenges.

Johnson served from 2004 to 2012 on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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's political career began when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2015; he served in that body until 2017.

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.

From roughly 2015 to 2022, he was a guest host of Tony Perkins's radio talk show Washington Watch.

He was first elected to represent LA's 4th congressional district in 2016.

He has been identified as a member of the Christian right.

Johnson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the oldest of four children of 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 they had him.

They later divorced.

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.

A member of the Republican Party, he is in his fourth House term, having represented LA's 4th congressional district since 2017.

Johnson is a graduate of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University.

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.

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.