Jeffries Says No Democrats Will Vote for Johnson as Speaker

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House Democrats saved Johnson’s speakership in May.

WASHINGTON—No Democrats will support House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) keeping the gavel, said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

“I can say with a relatively high degree of confidence that no Democratic votes will be forthcoming for any Republican Speaker candidate on Jan. 3,” Jeffries told reporters on Dec. 11.

With 219 seats, Johnson can only afford to lose one seat. His caucus has unanimously nominated him to remain speaker, indicating that he has the votes to keep the gavel. Winning the speaker’s race requires 218 votes, or a simple majority, on the House floor.

It is likely that House Democrats will instead vote for Jeffries for speaker as they did in January 2023, when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) won the gavel after 15 rounds of voting.

McCarthy was ousted the following October after introducing a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. Johnson succeeded him after a weeks-long battle, and all Republicans voted to support him.

House Democrats saved Johnson’s speakership in May when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) brought forth a motion to oust him. The tally to shelve the motion was 359–43. Thirty-two of those votes came from Democrats.

Greene’s motion to vacate was in response to Johnson introducing legislation to assist Ukraine amid its war with Russia.

“If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” said Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Conn.) and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) in a joint statement in April.

“From the very beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have put people over politics and found bipartisan common ground with traditional Republicans in order to deliver real results.”

Jeffries initially would not say if Democrats would bail out Johnson.

“I believe a reasonable number of Democrats would not want to see the speaker fall for doing the right thing,” he said.

Johnson said he did not ask for Democrats to come to his rescue.

“I’ve never requested assistance from anyone at all,” he told reporters.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus were behind the GOP resistance to McCarthy’s bid to be speaker, but most of them acquiesced after McCarthy agreed to many of their demands, including lowering the threshold to put forth a motion to vacate.

However, don’t expect something similar come January, said the caucus’ leader, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.).

“He’s delivering on what he said he was going to deliver,” Harris told The Epoch Times last month. “And I think that if he continues to deliver on that, that it won’t be an issue.”