With the House of Representatives finally settling on a speaker of the House in Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., there are plenty of unanswered questions on Capitol Hill to reckon with in the weeks ahead.

Prior to his rise to become speaker, Johnson was a relative unknown, but Matt Motta, assistant professor of health law, policy & management at Boston University, said he was able to build enough consensus within his party by holding similar positions to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-OH, while being viewed as less of a "firebrand" among his colleagues.

"He was Jordan's protege," Motta said. "Some people have described him as 'Jim Jordan without the baggage,' a person who holds many of the same policy views as Jim Jordan, is a loyal Trump supporter, someone who rejects the validity of the 2020 election and holds staunchly anti-LGBTQ policy positions."

Johnson has caught criticism for his stances on same-sex marriage and reproductive freedom, and Motta said those hardline stances suggest the Republican Party is firmly cemented as the party of Donald Trump heading into the 2024 election cycle.

"There was a litmus test that had to be passed, you had to show loyalty to the former president," Motta said. "What this tells me is that the far right policies embraced by someone like Mike Johnson are certainly going to excite the further-right members of the Republican caucus without being so odious, without being so offensive to the members of the mainstream, that that person would end up being elected."

Going forward, Motta interested to see how Johnson handles the looming government shutdown and wonders how long he can keep his fellow Republicans satisfied.

"The new speaker of the House is going to be playing under the same rules as Speaker McCarthy, which means that a single member can decide that they no longer have confidence in his speakership and ought to make motions to remove him from the speakership," Motta said. "And one of the questions that I'll be asking over the next couple of weeks is, how long does it take before somebody ultimately takes this into their hands and decides Mike Johnson is not fit for the speakership?”

Motta believes the upcoming fight to keep the government open will be a test of Johnson’s leadership, as it was for Kevin McCarthy. The deadline to avoid a potential shutdown is Nov. 17.