As we discussed in three separate articles, the right to life movement hit a home run when Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) was chosen to be the next Speaker of the House. We asked Ben Clapper, executive director of Louisiana Right to Life, for his take. He wrote
We are THRILLED that our friend, Congressman Mike Johnson, has been elected the U.S. Speaker of the House!
Without a doubt, Speaker Johnson is a strong ally and friend of Louisiana Right to Life and has served the pro-life mission for decades.
Together with his wife Kelly, Mike has led many pro-life efforts with us, including our Life March in Shreveport that garners thousands of participants each year. Prior to becoming a State Representative, he served as our Legal Counsel.
Pro-life champion Rep. Chris Smith hailed the selection.
He is a man of deep faith and principle who knows how to get things done. As an attorney for nearly 20 years, Mike helped with landmark legislation at the state and local level. In the Louisiana Legislature, he served as Vice Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and on the Select Committee on Leadership.
But, of course, pro-abortionists hated the selection. To be expected.
I should have anticipated, but didn’t, that a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner would write “New House Speaker Mike Johnson is the polar opposite of Nancy Pelosi,” who was Speaker of the House for years and years. To put it mildly, Marc Sandalow is a big fan of Pelosi.
Sandalow pointed out the obvious—that the two differed not only in ideology (to Rep. Johnson’s great credit) but also in that “Pelosi was a creature of the House. She pursued and planned for the speaker’s post for nearly a decade before she took the gavel. She was a fundraising juggernaut, distributing campaign cash to hundreds of appreciative Democrats.”
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Sandalow continued rolling out the compliments:
Pelosi’s excelled in leadership due to her pragmatism, enabled by her credibility with the left wing of her party. She could tell the most liberal members of her caucus that she had done all she could, but they had to accept a compromise — and they trusted her.
Pelosi the pragmatist? Pelosi the seeker after “compromise”? Who knew that this ruthless woman could be so accommodating.
True, she might not be formally a member of her party’s “left wing,” but in policy terms, she was every bit as far to the left as Sandalow claimed Johnson is to the right.
On October 25th, when he was elected Speaker of the House, NRLC said
He is a constitutional law attorney widely recognized as a leading defender of the right to life. He has served as vice chair of the House Republican Conference and, as an active champion of pro-life issues, Congressman Johnson has co-sponsored multiple pieces of pro-life legislation and is the lead sponsor of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act.
National Right to Life President Carol Tobias congratulated Johnson who “is committed to the right to life, and he will make the right to life and protecting women and their unborn children a priority in Congress.”
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
