WASHINGTON — Before House Speaker Mike Johnson was elected to public office, he was the dean of a small Baptist law school that didn’t actually exist.
The Judge Paul Pressler School of Law was supposed to be a capstone achievement for Louisiana College. Instead, it collapsed roughly a decade ago without enrolling students or opening its doors amid infighting by officials, accusations of financial impropriety and difficulty obtaining accreditation.
There is no indication that Johnson engaged in wrongdoing while employed by the private college, now known as Louisiana Christian University. But as a virtually unknown player in Washington, the episode provides insight into how Johnson has navigated challenging leadership moments in the past. It’s also a reminder of his longstanding ties to the Christian right.
Johnson’s tenure at the school is just the latest chapter of his life to be unearthed since the little-known Louisiana lawmaker’s improbable election as speaker last week by a House Republican majority riven by infighting since the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
That elevation has drawn an intense spotlight to Johnson’s career as a litigator for conservative Christian groups and a lawmaker.
With Johnson now second in line to the presidency, his instrumental role in a legal effort to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss has also drawn fierce criticism from Democrats who question what he would do as House speaker if the outcome of next year’s presidential election is in dispute.
Johnson’s office didn’t comment and would not make him available for an interview.
James Michael Johnson, 51, was born in Shreveport, La., the eldest of four children in what he has described as a “traditional Christian household.” Tragedy struck when Johnson was 12.
His father, Pat, a Shreveport firefighter and hazardous materials specialist, was critically injured in an explosion at a cold storage facility that killed his partner.
Johnson has said he was the first in his family to graduate college, enrolling at Louisiana State University, where he earned a law degree in 1998. He also worked on the 1996 Senate campaign of Louis “Woody” Jenkins, where he had an early brush with a contested election.
Jenkins narrowly lost to Democrat Mary Landrieu amid allegations of voter fraud, including ballots cast by dead people and voters who were paid. An investigation by the Senate’s then-Republican majority found no evidence “to prove that fraud or irregularities affected the outcome of the election.”
But in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss, the congressman offered a differing view.
“Even though we had all the evidence all wrapped up,” Johnson, told Louisiana radio host Moon Griffin in 2020, the Senate “put it in a closet and never looked at it again.”
Even though Jenkins lost, Johnson drew notice from conservative activists.
“The reality is Mike added value everywhere he went. And that was evident from the early days,” said Gene Mills, who now leads the Louisiana Family Forum.
Soon Johnson was representing the group and others during his roughly decadelong tenure as an attorney for the nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund, which presented itself as a bulwark for traditional family values.
In Johnson’s rapid rise there is one milestone that he does not typically mention: his two years serving as the dean of the Judge Paul Pressler School of Law at Louisiana College.
Johnson was hired in summer 2010 by a board of trustees that included Tony Perkins, his longtime mentor. And school officials had hoped it would someday rival the law school at Liberty University, the evangelical institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
But for several years, the college had been in a state of turmoil following a board takeover by conservatives who felt the school had become too liberal. They implemented policies that restricted academic freedoms. The school’s president and other faculty resigned, and the college was placed on probation by an accreditation agency.
Johnson struggled to draw an adequate amount of cash. Meanwhile, drama percolated behind the scenes, culminating in a flurry of lawsuits.
