House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is failing to carry out his "basic duties" as a cascade of lawmaker scandals engulfs his caucus, according to David Graham, writing for The Atlantic.

Graham pointed to what he described as a glaring inconsistency in Johnson's leadership: the speaker's team pushed out Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) after an Ethics Committee report documented his serial harassment of female staffers, yet Johnson has declined to intervene in the severe domestic abuse allegations engulfing Rep. Max Miller (R-OH). While the Speaker of the House exercises considerable sway over caucus members through committee assignments, campaign support, and public pressure, formal disciplinary authority is constrained — expelling a member requires a two-thirds vote of the full chamber, and the Ethics Committee operates with institutional independence from direct leadership control.

"There's all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time. It's not my business to get engaged in it," Johnson said.

"This raises the question of what Johnson does think the speaker's business is," Graham countered. He noted that Johnson presents himself as a staunch social conservative and defender of morality, while Miller stands accused of domestic abuse against his ex-wife and toddler daughter, as well as illegal drug use.

The episode, Graham wrote, is "a big distraction from any midterm messaging that the Republican Party might wish to do in the last 100 days before elections." He added that if Miller refuses to let the Ohio GOP replace him on the ballot, a normally safe Republican seat would become genuinely competitive — a scenario complicated by state ballot replacement deadlines that narrow the window for party substitution as Election Day approaches.

"If Johnson doesn't think that his job includes protecting the moral reputation of the House, his small and endangered House majority, or the prospects of the Republican Party more broadly, he must have some other idea about his role," Graham wrote. "What that might be is mysterious," he added, noting that Johnson's caucus has also passed historically low volumes of legislation.

Miller, for his part, has requested his own Ethics Committee probe this week — a move critics have characterized as a stalling tactic. House Ethics Committee investigations routinely take months to complete, meaning a self-requested probe could extend well past Election Day without producing public findings. He has denied the abuse allegations while acknowledging past illegal drug use, which he says has since ceased. Appearing on CNN, Miller claimed: "Speaker Mike Johnson, everyone else — they're standing behind me."