1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

Dump Johnson - he gives the houses power away. House Speaker Mike Johnson is in trouble with at least a segment of his GOP colleagues who are angry, frustrated and openly complaining about his leadership, The New York Times reported yesterday. This past week, congressional scholar SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor wrote for us about Johnson’s position and the controversial way he has wielded the power he holds (https://theconversationus.cmail19.com/t/r-l-tkiuukdk-nhuiliyljj-i/). Gaynor, who teaches at the University of Virginia, first gives a history of the speakership and how it has developed since it was first envisioned by the men who wrote what became the U.S. Constitution. When these men discussed the shape of the government they were designing, they disagreed about a lot of things, but they were agreed on the power of a new, representative legislative branch. “Article I – the first one, after all – details the awesome responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the Senate: power to levy taxes, fund the government, declare war, impeach justices and presidents, and approve treaties, among many, many others,” Gaynor writes. And the person leading that branch “ was meant to act as a nonpartisan moderator and referee.” That role was changed over the decades and centuries by speakers intent on amassing partisan power and exercising it on behalf of Congress. But now, writes Gaynor, Johnson has done something very different, putting Congress in the back seat when it comes to governing: “Johnson’s choice to lead by following President Donald Trump drifts the position even further from the framers’ vision of congressional primacy.”