JANUARY JOHNSON With the election fast approaching, we wanted to take a closer look at Speaker Mike Johnson’s role in certifying a potential Kamala Harris victory, given the unprecedented attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power the nation witnessed nearly four years ago. Now as then, Trump is planting seeds for the idea that the election will have been stolen if he does not win, and Johnson could well find himself in a crucial role: If Republicans hold onto the House majority and he keeps the gavel, he’ll be in a much stronger position to challenge states’ electoral votes, as he did for Arizona and Pennsylvania in 2021. We asked Johnson about various matters that could impact how the post-election period goes during our exclusive interview Saturday in Texas. He told us he will “follow the Constitution” and rebuffed suggestions he wouldn’t certify a “legal election.” Another amicus brief? When asked whether he could see himself leading a Supreme Court brief, as he did in late 2020, Johnson said, “Those circumstances would be impossible to duplicate this cycle.” The underlying case sought to challenge the results in various battleground states won by Joe Biden and could have effectively overturned the election if successful. Johnson, however, cast his involvement as narrower — saying he just wanted the high court to review whether it was constitutional for states to implement new, pandemic-related election procedures without the assent of their legislatures. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Texas did not have standing to bring the case. The high court “chose not to answer the question,” Johnson told us. “It is a fact that no one can dispute that the legislatures did not ratify the changes to the systems by which the electors were chosen. Now that cannot, by definition, happen in 2024 because the legislatures are the ones that made all the rules.” Non-citizen voting: In recent months, Johnson has embraced efforts in Trump world to raise concerns about non-citizens voting in federal elections — something that is already illegal and documented in only a handful of cases. But he backed a piece of GOP legislation, the SAVE Act, that would require states to collect proof of citizenship when registering voters and proposed attaching it to a stopgap spending bill last month. (The effort sputtered.) Johnson this weekend said he believed there would be “thousands upon thousands” of non-citizens voting this year — enough to possibly “change the outcome of the election in the majority.” He cited the six-vote victory of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) in 2020 to argue that even a handful of illegal votes could make a difference. Other concerns: Johnson echoed Trump in other ways, sowing doubt about election practices in some states that alleged “might open the door for fraud” including “unmanned ballot boxes in parks” and so-called “ballot harvesting,” where campaigns and political parties organize to collect absentee ballots. Both practices were central to GOP stolen-election allegations in 2020, but no widespread abuses were ever corroborated. Even if Johnson ultimately decides to intervene in January, it would be much more difficult for a speaker — or any other individual actor — to overturn the election in Congress. In the wake of Jan. 6, 2021, lawmakers updated the Electoral Count Act, significantly raising the threshold for challenging any state's electoral results and clarifying that the vice president’s role is strictly ceremonial, among other changes. There is one unknown: Does Johnson believe that the Electoral Count Act itself is constitutional and binding on Congress? Trump’s allies in 2020 said it was not, and Johnson has not made his position clear. What Democrats say: Those across the aisle from Johnson view the speaker as a leading election denier, given his role after the 2020 election and more recent refusals to explicitly say that Trump lost. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said he believes Johnson and Trump are setting the stage “to contest the outcome of this election” if it doesn’t go their way. “I understand Speaker Johnson is trying to keep his job, but his duty is to the Constitution, and he should act like it.” Johnson, for his part, described himself as “a rule-of-law person” and added: “We just pray and hope that this is a non-controversial election and that everything's fair and square. And that I hope the margin is large for whomever wins, so that there's no questions for anybody.” — Olivia Beavers and Jordain Carney GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Thursday, Oct. 10 where our ongoing thoughts are with the millions of Floridians impacted by Hurricane Milton. We hope power is restored as quickly as possible. ASSESSING MILTON’S FALLOUT Hurricane Milton left millions without power and prompted a renewed flurry of calls for Congress to come back to pass more disaster relief funding, but there’s no indication yet leadership is budging in their resolve not to recall lawmakers to Washington before the election. President Joe Biden spoke Thursday with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), whose district was hit hard by the storm. Both lawmakers urged Congress to come back afterwards, as did Luna’s Democratic challenger, Whitney Fox. “[Biden] agreed with me that Congress needs to come back and make sure that federal agencies — FEMA, SBA, HUD, the Department of Agriculture — are fully funded,” said Scott, who’s up for reelection, at a briefing in Fort Myers Thursday. His plea joins those of dozens of Democrats, led by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who have called for Congress to return. The demands are now bipartisan — even if leaders show no immediate sign of acting on them. “[Biden] is personally overseeing that FEMA does not create problems with the debris removal and is supportive of the 15 Billion in FEMA funds ONLY FOR Hurricane victims,” Luna wrote in a post on X. “If Congress goes into a special session we can get it passed immediately. This needs to happen.” (She later said she’d spoken with Speaker Mike Johnson who was “actively also working this issue.”) Johnson, speaking on Wednesday after touring storm-ravaged western North Carolina, noted that Congress included $20 billion for FEMA as part of its recent short-term spending patch and that lawmakers “will act in a bipartisan fashion to supply what is needed to help these communities recover” once states complete their individual damage assessments. The office of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did not respond to requests for comment on the calls for an early return to Washington. Disaster relief is not the only hurricane-related ask cooking, though. Large groups of House Democrats, led by Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), sent letters to the Postal Service and White House urging swift information sharing and emergency resources to help local elections officials in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee dealing with the aftermath of the storms. — Anthony Adragna EXCLUSIVE: LAWMAKERS CRY FOUL ON CASINO PROJECT A bipartisan group of two dozen California House lawmakers are crying foul over what they’re calling a lack of “meaningful consultation with local impacted tribes” over a proposed casino project out in the Golden State. At issue is a Sonoma County casino being proposed by a small, landless tribe, the Koi Nation. Lawmakers argue “a streamlined review process that has lacked meaningful consultation with local impacted tribes” might “set a dangerous and unsustainable precedent that will fundamentally change the nature of tribal gaming.” “We request again that the Department’s leadership meaningfully consult with each locally impacted tribe individually,” the House members wrote in a letter obtained by Inside Congress. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, has made boosting tribal consultations a major focus of her tenure in the executive branch. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has also come out against the proposed project. — Anthony Adragna and Daniella Diaz
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