Florida Republicans did what Mike Johnson is too partisan to do — they showed disgraced Rep. Cory Mills the door

On Tuesday evening, Florida Republicans in the 7th district did something that House Speaker Mike Johnson so far has refused to do: they booted Rep. Cory Mills.

Mills lost to former news anchor Ryan Elijah. This came after the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Mills for allegedly violating campaign finance laws, misusing congressional resources and engaging in sexual misconduct or dating violence.

Last year, a judge hit Mills with a restraining order prohibiting him from contacting an ex-partner after she claimed that Mills threatened to leak nude videos and images to blackmail her.

Over time, he had become a liability and Republicans feared he could cost them the seat in hyper-Republican Florida. Tellingly, despite President Donald Trump having endorsed Mills back in February, he did not support Mills publicly before the primary. The day after, though, Trump claimed he told Mills to step aside.

“I told Congressman Cory Mills of Florida, a friend of mine, to get out of the Race, but he wouldn’t listen. He thought he could win, so who can blame him?” Trump said. “We now have a great candidate, Ryan Elijah, running in his place!”

This is laughable, considering Trump endorsed Mills in February, after the Ethics Committee opened its investigation, and reveals how Trump is trying to wash his hands of a night where multiple candidates he endorsed lost.

But Mills’s loss does show there still are limits to what voters will stomach — even Republicans.

Notably, Trump did not mention the allegations against Mills. And Johnson, who fashions himself as a straight-laced Christian conservative, has refused to say that Mills needed to go. He has done the same with Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, who faces domestic violence accusations from his ex-wife.

“The key word there is allegation,” he said last months. “I’m not in the business of commenting on investigations as they are in process.”

But Johnson also has a clear motivation to allow men accused of horrible acts to stay in the House: He only has 218 votes compared to Democrats’ 212, meaning he can barely afford any defections.

Where John Boehner forced out Chris Lee after the then-congressman posted a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist and Paul Ryan removed Dennis Hastert’s portrait from the speaker’s lobby after reports Hastert molested children, Johnson lacks the numbers to be a morality police.

That means he only pushed out Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, who faced numerous reports for months about an inappropriate relationship with a former staffer who died by suicide, when Democrats kicked out Eric Swalwell of California after a report Swalwell allegedly sexually assaulted a former staffer.

And Johnson called on Gonzales to not seek re-election after Gonzales admitted to an affair with his staffer — but only after he skirted around whether he did for months.

To be clear, Democrats have not covered themselves in glory when it comes to sexual misconduct from their members. Swalwell nearly became the Democratic nominee for governor of California even though rumors swirled for years until a woman came forward.

And Democratic voters in Maine picked Graham Platner to be the Democratic nominee despite his history of remarks downplaying sexual assault. They only dropped him when an ex-partner alleged her sexually assaulted her.

Still, within days, Democrats shoved Swalwell out — not only out of the governor’s race, but also out of Congress — and booted Platner as the Democratic nominee. At the time, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland explained to The Independent that the fact that about half of the Democratic caucus are women, meaning they have significantly more leverage than women on the Republican side, who are smaller in numbers.

Tellingly, only the right-wing bomb throwers like Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) went after Mills with vigor, going as far as to say he should expelled. Luna went as far as to endorse Elijah in the primary. The fact that the Republican congresswoman often dismissed as crazy wanted to dump Mills reveals a lack of leadership on Johnson’s behalf.

Ironically, Johnson – and Trump for that matter–should be grateful Republican voters have more nerve than he does.

Mills losing the primary all but guarantees it will stay in Republican hands, while Miller’s refusal to exit the race likely means that Democrats have a legitimate chance to flip what should be a solidly Republican district.

Sometimes temporary means long-term security. Republican voters saw it without needing Johnson’s thick black frame glasses.