Where Mike Johnson Stands on Key Issues: Ukraine, LGBTQ Rights and More

Speaker Mike Johnson, the little-known congressman from Louisiana who won the gavel on Wednesday, is deeply conservative on both fiscal and social issues, reflecting the G.O.P.’s sharp lurch to the right.

Mr. Johnson, a lawyer, also played a leading role in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, helping to push a lawsuit to throw out the results in four battleground states he lost and then offering members of Congress a legal argument upon which to justify their votes to invalidate the results.

He has a career rating of 92 percent from the American Conservative Union and 90 percent from Heritage Action for America.

Here’s where he stands on six key issues.

Government funding

Mr. Johnson is a fiscal conservative who believes Congress has a “moral and constitutional duty” to balance the budget, lower spending and “pursue continued pro-growth tax reforms and permanent tax reductions,” according to his website.

He voted in favor of the deal in May to suspend the debt ceiling negotiated between former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the Biden administration. But alongside 89 other Republicans, Mr. Johnson voted against the stopgap funding bill Mr. McCarthy put forth last month to stave off a government shutdown just hours before it was to commence. That bill ultimately passed with more Democratic than Republican support and cost Mr. McCarthy the gavel.

In a letter this week, before he was elected speaker, Mr. Johnson proposed a short-term funding bill to avoid a shutdown and an aggressive calendar for passing yearlong spending bills in the interim. But he did not specify what spending levels he would support in the temporary bill, and many Republicans have refused to back such measures without substantial cuts that cannot pass the Democratic-controlled Senate or be signed by President Biden.