Cannabis
Johnson has voted against every major piece of cannabis legislation — including the SAFE Banking Act, which would make it easier for weed companies to access financial services. That bill enjoys broad bipartisan support and is the top priority of the cannabis industry.
Johnson also voted against legislation to decriminalize cannabis that passed the House twice under Democratic control, and he voted against a bill designed to expand medical marijuana research that Biden signed into law earlier this year. Johnson’s home state of Louisiana has a limited medical marijuana program but no legal recreational sales.
Cybersecurity
Johnson has repeatedly used his perch within the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee to bash the White House’s efforts to fight health- and election-related disinformation and question its push to salvage one of the FBI’s key foreign surveillance tools.
Johnson’s election would likely herald stricter oversight of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — which he believes pressured social media platforms to censor conservative voices during the 2020 election, a charge the agency vehemently denies. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee’s panel investigating the politicization of the federal government, which published a fiery report bashing the agency earlier this summer. Last month, he joined 107 Republican colleagues in voting to slash the agency’s budget 25 percent.
The four-term lawmaker has long been a critic of the government’s use of a spy tool that the White House is fighting to protect: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law will expire at the end of the year absent congressional action, and the White House has argued it is increasingly important to thwarting criminal and state-backed cyberattacks.
In January 2022, Johnson co-wrote a letter with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, alleging several abuses the FBI has committed under the law.
Despite serving on both the Judiciary and Armed Services committees, he has signed onto little cyber-related legislation. One exception: In 2017, he introduced an amendment to that year’s National Defense Authorization Act to boost the cyber workforce readiness.
China
China hawks in the House say they expect Johnson to support their work to crack down on Beijing’s trade practices and industrial policies.
“My sense is that he is in the ‘smart hawkish’ position on China,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), chair of the House Select Committee on China. “I think he would be enthusiastic about a lot of the things we’re doing, but I have not yet had a chance to sit down with him.”
House GOP lawmakers focused on trade policy expressed similar optimism, though they also said they have yet to discuss the issue with the new speaker.
In 2020, as head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Johnson co-wrote a national security report with a section on China trade issues. That document advocated tougher sanctions on companies and individuals affiliated with the Chinese military, as well as the pursuit of bilateral trade deals with like-minded nations.
In particular, he has called for a U.S.-U.K. trade deal and advocated expanding trade with Indo-Pacific nations such as Taiwan, Indonesia, Mongolia and others in an effort to counter China in a “Conservative Playbook.” And he supported the U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal, the rewrite of NAFTA signed by former President Donald Trump that received broad bipartisan support.
Those policies largely fall in line with the trade agenda of former President Donald Trump, who was in office when the report was released. But the new speaker also broke with the president on the issue of tariffs, saying he preferred to use sanctions to penalize China for the theft of intellectual property, rather than the broad tariffs that Trump imposed.
Unions
Johnson has been a staunch conservative on labor issues. According to the AFL-CIO’s vote tracker, he has opposed union policy positions about 90 percent of the time, on par with the average for Republicans.
In 2022, the most recent year the AFL-CIO has publicly analyzed, he never voted with the labor organization’s stances, opposing such measures the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and a resolution supporting an expansion of sick leave for railroad workers.
The times when he has voted alongside the labor federation’s stances have generally been on legislation that had broad Republican support, such as certain coronavirus-related bills in 2020.
Immigration
Johnson has been a hawk on immigration. He has introduced legislation three times aimed at tightening the asylum system, including by raising the bar on undocumented immigrants to establish their claim of fear of persecution.
The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration, praised Johnson’s track record in a blog post Wednesday. “[I]f the new speaker is Mike Johnson, the man in the chair will also be one of the leading experts on that topic,” Center for Immigration Studies resident fellow Andrew Arthur wrote.
Climate and energy
Johnson, who hails from a top oil- and gas-producing state, has a thin record on energy issues, though, like virtually every Republican, he voted in favor of H.R. 1, the party’s response to Biden and the Democrats’ massive 2022 climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act.
The GOP messaging bill offered support to the fossil fuel industry by seeking to roll back parts of the IRA aimed at speeding the transition to clean energy and sought to ease permitting rules under the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act. But he has also been a critic of efforts to fight climate change, and in a 2017 op-ed written in the Shreveport Times, Johnson railed against the United States joining the 2015 Paris climate accord.
“Few Americans deny that the earth’s climate is changing. Indeed, evidence shows that cycles of climate change have always been a part of the earth’s history,” Johnson wrote, using a common argument that fossil fuel advocates use in a bid to deny the evidence that emissions from human activity are the main driver of climate change. He also touted the potential for growing natural gas production in his district to “help sustain the environment.”
Tech
Johnson is largely aligned with the majority of Republicans on tech priorities on the Hill. He opposed last year’s sweeping CHIPS and Science Act bill, which will pour billions of dollars into building out the nation’s microchip infrastructure. Johnson also voted against the 2021 infrastructure law, which doled out $65 billion for broadband expansion. He also largely favors reining in agency powers, signing onto an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to stop deferring to regulators on how to interpret their jurisdiction.
Still, Johnson has cheered federal broadband spending, such as the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which set aside millions of dollars for Louisiana. Telecom observers are also angling to figure out how Johnson might respond to the upcoming call from the White House to reup billions of dollars in funding for the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program, which helps low-income households pay for their monthly broadband bills. In a research note to investors Wednesday, New Street Research flagged that 29 percent of households in Johnson’s district are enrolled in that program.
Artificial intelligence: Johnson co-hosted a dinner for Sam Altman in May to meet with roughly 60 lawmakers the night before the OpenAI CEO testified before Congress. Apart from his membership in the House Armed Services Committee, Johnson is not part of any committees actively pursuing AI legislation. Still, Johnson chaired the Republican Study Committee when it produced a report in June 2020 on national security that mentioned AI once, warning lawmakers to pay attention to China’s growing capabilities.
Corporate monopolies
Johnson is on the House’s Judiciary Committee, which oversees federal antitrust enforcement from the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, and is a key gatekeeper for updates to antitrust laws. While Johnson has said little about his thoughts on competition policy, he voted against bills in 2021 that would have boosted antitrust enforcement in the tech sector, including a proposal to ban Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon from favoring their own products over competitors’. He also expressed skepticism over the direction of the FTC under Chair Lina Khan at a hearing in June.
John Sakellariadis, Maggie Miller, Juan Perez Jr., Michael Stratford, Gavin Bade, Olivia Olander, Brendan Bordelon, Mohar Chatterjee, Mallory Culhane, John Hendel, Josh Sisco, Connor O’Brien, Joe Gould, Katherine Ellen Foley, Alice Miranda Ollstein, Brian Faler, Meredith Lee Hill, Natalie Fertig, James Bikales, Kelsey Tamborrino, Ben Lefebvre and Zach Warmbrodt contributed to this report.
English (US)