House Republicans have picked their next leader. Here’s what you need to know.

On Wednesday, Congress finally reopened. After more than three weeks without a speaker, the elevation of the previously obscure Mike Johnson of Louisiana to lead the House was a signal that finally the chamber could get back to governing. In the next day, members forced votes next week on two resolutions of censure and one of expulsion. In other words, things aren’t getting less weird anytime soon.

But they won’t be returning to the status quo under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, either. There will now be a new normal as Congress has to deal with pressing issues. The government will shut down at midnight on November 18, Israel and Hamas are at war after the horrific attack Hamas launched on October 7, much of Ukraine is still occupied by Russia, and lawmakers are grappling with how to address the near-record numbers of undocumented immigrants entering the country.

The winner of the game of House Speaker musical chairs is ... Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), who won the job Wednesday with unanimous GOP support.

After a 22-day struggle among Republicans to agree on Kevin McCarthy’s replacement, the right-wingers and the mainstream members in the conference decided to settle on Johnson, despite — or perhaps because of — his limited experience in leadership and lack of a national profile.

Republicans’ search for a new speaker of the House has gone back to square one.

After Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) fell short of the votes he needed on the House floor a third time, House Republicans voted to ditch Jordan as their party’s speaker nominee. Jordan lost the closed-door secret ballot vote 112 to 86, per CNN.

Speaker Jim Jordan. The phrase would have long been unthinkable, even laughable, to most Republicans in the House of Representatives.

But though he’s long been considered a firebrand, an attack dog, and even a “legislative terrorist” (per former Speaker John Boehner), Jordan was the GOP’s nominee when the House of Representatives voted on a speaker this week.

If at first you don’t succeed, get the guy who succeeded to quit, and then try again.

That’s how Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) won a vote among House Republicans to be the party’s newest nominee for speaker of the House Friday.

For a brief moment, many Republicans hoped the party’s nomination of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) for speaker of the House could quickly unite their fractious conference.

That was a pipe dream that ended suddenly on Thursday night, when Scalise told his colleagues he was withdrawing his name from contention.

The vote to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week was another clear indicator that the House of Representatives is becoming something un-American. It’s not that the vote inherently undermined national security, nor did it somehow betray the fundamental values that have underpinned the US political system for nearly 250 years. Instead, it was a stranger turn. The vote was downright parliamentary.

It was a de facto no-confidence vote offered by eight dissident Republicans and backed by House Democrats as a bloc. It is not unusual in a parliamentary system for a gang of rebels joining with the opposition to bring down the party leader, but in American politics, it is a foreign concept.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) narrowly won a vote among House Republicans to be the party’s nominee for the next speaker of the House Wednesday — but whether he can lock down enough votes to actually get the job isn’t yet clear.

According to multiple reports, Scalise prevailed over Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) by a secret ballot vote of 113 to 99. But that’s just step one in the speaker election process. Step two, in which the speaker election is conducted publicly by the full House of Representatives, is more difficult.

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a conservative firebrand and the powerful chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to be the next House speaker.

In a Friday post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said Jordan “is STRONG on Crime, Borders, our Military/Vets, & 2nd Amendment ... He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House.”

Now that California Rep. Kevin McCarthy has been removed as speaker of the House, the search is on for a successor who can unite divided Republicans.

On Tuesday, a total of eight Republicans joined all present Democrats in voting for a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) was appointed interim speaker as Republicans work to figure out who will lead their caucus, and the House, from here.