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WASHINGTON, DC – After weeks of chaos and dysfunction, House Republicans turned to one of the more extreme members in their caucus to lead them, electing Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) as their latest nominee for House speaker late last night. 

Rep. Johnson, perhaps best known for leading an amicus brief in a long shot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from key swing states in the 2020 election, previously served as senior spokesperson for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that has worked to force a radical legal agenda through the courts. Johnson has clearly carried ADF’s key anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion priorities with him to Congress; he led the introduction of a national “Don’t Say Gay” bill and earned an A+ ranking from the far-right anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which stated that he “has voted consistently to defend the lives of the unborn and infants,” including by “stopping hard-earned tax dollars from paying for abortion.”

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From his desperate efforts to overturn the 2020 election to his time at known hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, Mike Johnson has a long history of undermining democracy and rolling back Americans’ rights. Alliance Defending Freedom will stop at nothing to strip Americans of their critical rights and freedoms. Now, one of their own is poised to lead the House. A Speaker Johnson would only mean more extreme attempts to force a far-right agenda on everyday Americans," said Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone.

Alliance Defending Freedom rose to prominence as a key conservative group using the courts to impose an unpopular agenda on Americans everywhere — especially since 2020, when the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority was established. 

ADF played a key role in recent landmark Supreme Court cases such as the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis Court case that allowed businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission decision that opened the door to discrimination based on religious freedoms. In its new term, the Supreme Court is set to take up a critical abortion access case in which ADF is working to restrict access to a widely-used abortion pill for women everywhere.

Accountable.US launched its Monitoring Influence database to document and track the dark influence network made up of dangerous groups like Alliance Defending Freedom. Learn more at MonitoringInfluence.org.

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