In the News

Flanked by two Democrats, Republican Rep. Mike Johnson urged Congress Thursday to support a measure he helped craft to designate a day in July a National Day of Civility.

“I think that those who are held up as leaders need to model this and set the example for others,” Johnson said at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol. “As a father of four young children, it’s particularly important to me.”

Johnson and other co-sponsors of the bipartisan resolution expect it to pick up momentum in the wake of last Wednesday's shooting that left his colleague Rep. Steve Scalise in critical condition. Scalise’s condition has improved to fair, but he is expected to have a long recovery.

Scalise, the House majority whip and a Louisiana Republican, was shot in the hip while practicing with his Republican teammates for a congressional charity baseball game. Democrats and Republicans rallied behind Scalise and four others injured in the attack. 

“Maybe it’s appropriate that all of this follows what happened to him because he was one of the original encouragers of the idea,” Johnson said. “It just draws further attention to it. Hopefully it’s something we can encourage all-year around.”

The resolution would designate July 12 as the National Day of Civility.

Earlier in the year, Johnson authored a pledge dubbed the “Commitment to Civility" and led his colleagues on the House floor in speeches to support it. Most of the freshman class signed the pledge, which called for members of Congress to “set an example of statesmanship" for younger generations.

Scalise supported that effort, Johnson said.

“It truly has changed the tone, certainly among our class,” said Johnson. “We set that tone when we came in.”

Texas Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington was among the freshmen to sign the pledge, hoping to change what he called the “hyper-partisan culture” in Congress.

“None of us were making any apologies for being impassioned advocates for the policies that we care about…,” he said. “But you can be a passionate advocate and you can fight for the policy outcomes that you think will make this country, safer, stronger and freeer … but you don’t have to attack people.”

Rep. Charlie Crist, a freshman Democrat from Florida and co-author of the resolution, agreed.

“It is obvious that we need to be kinder, we need to be nicer. We need to do unto others as you would have done unto yourself,” said Crist, who joined Johnson at Thursday’s press conference. “We all learned that … as little kids growing up and yet somewhere along the way it seems to have been forgotten.”

“I think it’s important to have these reminders ….,’’ he said. “We need to do it every day, all 365 days.”

Crist ordered hundreds of yellow wristbands that read, "Practice the GOLDEN RULE every day." He plans to share them with his colleagues.

Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan, a Democrat from California, who also joined the press conference, said there are more behind-the-scene discussions between Democrats and Republicans than most people know.

“Last week’s events really highlighted our need to” do more of it, said Barragan, who said she was practicing with the Democrat’s congressional baseball team when news broke of the shooting. “My immediate response was, ‘He’s one of us. It wasn’t he’s a Republican. He’s one of them. It was he was one of us.' The bottom line is we need to learn to disagree better.”

Johnson and other lawmakers said they hope to pick up support from their Senate colleagues, including Louisiana Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy.

“I know there are a number of senators who feel the same way that we do about this, I would say probably most of them share these sentiments,” Johnson said. “It would be a good thing for the country to see that – certainly displayed across both houses of the Congress.”