Matt Gaetz, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are happy this morning because they got their guy installed as Speaker of the House. That guy is Mike Johnson, a little known congressman and attorney from Louisiana who had a big role in the attempted coup.  His plotting began shortly after the November 3, 2020 election.

Johnson’s role in seeking to overturn the 2020 vote was directly solicited by Trump, who tapped the lawmaker — first elected the same year that Trump was, in 2016 — to help spearhead efforts on Capitol Hill in support of a court challenge.

“President Trump called me last night and I was encouraged to hear his continued resolve to ensure that every LEGAL vote gets properly counted and that all instances of fraud and illegality are investigated and prosecuted,” Johnson tweeted on Nov. 9, 2020.

One month later, Trump called Johnson again and asked him to whip up support among House Republicans for a ludicrous challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to invalidate the elections in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin due to pandemic-related changes in those states’ election regulations.

To do this, Johnson, who had sway as head of the Republican Study Group — a conservative policy group in the House — assiduously allied himself with Trump. He used that connection in writing a Dec. 9, 2020, email with the subject line: “Time-sensitive request from President Trump.”

Johnson wrote that Trump had called him and “asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join on to our brief.”

…Johnson’s role was so central that the brief’s cover page reads: “U.S. Representative Mike Johnson and 125 Other Members of the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Two days later, the Supreme Court wrote “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” and tossed the Paxton/Johnson suit in the trash. Later on, Matt Gaetz would seek a pardon from Trump for “every Republican who signed the Amicus brief in the Texas lawsuit.”

Back in October 2022, the New York Times did a deep-dive on the 139 Republicans in the House who voted to dispute the Electoral College count on January 6th. One part of that article focused on a January 5 meeting organized by then-Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. She and far right Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy of Texas argued against challenging the results, but Johnson presented a different view.

Members could simply accept the results, as Ms. Cheney and Mr. Roy insisted, or they could vote to object because of the fraud concerns raised by the president and his allies. But Mr. Johnson argued that they could take a different path: object based on what he called “constitutional infirmity.”

The Constitution stipulates that state legislatures set election rules. Yet some state officials, without asking their legislatures, loosened restrictions on mail-in or early voting to deal with the pandemic. That was unconstitutional and grounds to reject the election results from those states, Mr. Johnson argued.

This was essentially the Paxton argument all over again. And it was obviously persuasive.

Bannon, Gaetz and Trump probably preferred Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for the speakership role, but Johnson has described his relationship with Jordan as “like Batman and Robin,” so I don’t think there’s any disappointment.

Yet, Johnson is a weak Speaker. Just like Kevin McCarthy before him, he is subject to a motion to vacate the chair that can be initiated by any single member of the House. Just like McCarthy, he has no way of getting his caucus to approve spending levels that are acceptable to the Senate or the White House. The government will shut down on November 17 if he doesn’t at least pass a continuing resolution to buy himself some time, but that’s precisely what got McCarthy booted. In fact, Rep. Roy has already indicated that “any bill avoiding a shutdown on Nov. 17 would need to impose something like the 30 percent slashing of government spending that House Republicans attempted last month.” With demands like that, Johnson will have to seek Democratic votes or voluntarily oversee a shutdown.

Johnson ascended to the top position more through exhaustion than enthusiasm, and the Republican appropriators who objected to Jordan are still deeply opposed to a shutdown, as are many at-risk centrists seeking reelection in competitive districts. For these reasons, the most likely scenario if Johnson can’t get a clean continuing resolution is that there will be a shutdown, but it will end (eventually) through a discharge petition.

A discharge petition is a way for a majority of the House to force a vote over the objections of the Speaker and the Rules Committee. Simply put, if Johnson doesn’t get near-unanimous Republican support for a clean C.R. and won’t go to the Democrats for help, then the only way to end a shutdown is for the functional majority in favor of opening the government to assert itself by taking control of the floor away from the Speaker.

Johnson may prefer this option since he knows what happened to McCarthy and doesn’t need that headache. But let’s be clear that it entails losing control of the proceedings of the House. When members of the majority sign a discharge petition, it amounts to rank insubordination and is usually subject to harsh punishment. No Speaker in any normal situation would welcome this type of rebellion, and I think it’s a good indication of how weak Johnson is as he begins his tenure with the gavel.

Now, if he wants to test his strength, he can demand a clean C.R. from his caucus and dare them to vacate the chair again. After seeing the chaos caused after McCarthy’s removal, perhaps he would win that fight. It would be a stupid result showing that McCarthy should never have been removed in the first place, but at least it would give Johnson some authority. But I don’t expect him to try that route.

I think we’re headed for a government shutdown, and it will last until the functional majority decides it has to end.