(WXIN/WTTV) — A presidential endorsement has not yet convinced U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) that Mike Johnson deserves to remain Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday on his social media platform Truth Social that Johnson had his “complete and total” support.
Spartz responded on X, formerly Twitter, that she and other House Republicans needed assurances Johnson won’t “sell us out to the swamp.”
The holdout by the Noblesville Republican matters because the party holds just a four-seat majority in the chamber. Meaning just a small handful of GOP members could keep the Speaker’s gavel out of Johnson’s hands and potentially delay the work of the House in the New Congress that convenes next month.
This is at a time when Republicans will hold the trifecta of federal power: control of the Presidency, Senate and House.
What does Spartz want? Something akin to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’ in the mid-1990s.
“I think [Johnson] needs to publicly say how we are going to be doing our Constitutional job. How we are going to be doing appropriation, authorizations, off-sets and really, that’s the number one job of Congress,” explained Spartz.
In a remote interview, Spartz laid out the priorities she wants Johnson to articulate to the nation.
Among them is the ever-growing national debt, currently at about $36 trillion, with estimated annual federal budget shortfalls of nearly $2-trillion.
“We have to make sure we keep our taxes low, but we get our expenditures under control, and we cannot balance anything within 5 years. Let’s be honest, but we need to change the trajectories,” said Spartz.
Spartz’s top legislative issue is reforming healthcare. She says the national system is a major driver of the national debt.
She insists competition and innovation are the answers to lowering healthcare costs, “Unfortunately, Congress has been lobbied so much for so many years to subsidize oligopolies, create protections and immunities for them that no one can even enter that market.”
Spartz noted, “One in six Hoosiers (are insolvent due to) medical debt. We’ve had a 256% increase in price of healthcare and outcomes are going down.”
Questioned whether the narrow majorities in the House (219-215) and Senate (53-47) could deliver on such a complex and weighty issue like healthcare, Spartz said it’s an issue that should be bipartisan.
Spartz disclosed she has had conversations with the Speaker, and has explained what she’s seeking, adding, “If Speaker Johnson is not willing to publicly make that commitment there are going to be other people who will make it.”
