Republicans have elected Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., to be speaker of the House, ending a three-week vacancy that brought legislative work to a halt and plunged the conference into disarray. The vote was 220-209 with all Republicans voting for Johnson.
"When our people are losing their faith in government, when they're losing sight of the principles that made us the greatest nation in the history of the world, we have to be mindful of that," Johnson said in a speech after the vote. "We are going to fight, we're going to fight vigorously over our core principles because they're at odds a lot of times now in this modern era. We have to sacrifice, sometimes, our preferences because that's what's necessary in a legislative body, but we will defend our core principles to the end."
