Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he supported delaying House elections in his home state of Louisiana after the Supreme Court invalidated the state’s congressional map Wednesday.

“The governor has no choice but to suspend it,” Johnson said. “The court has ruled our map unconstitutional.”

He spoke as GOP Gov. Jeff Landry announced that Louisiana could not carry out elections under the current map and would be working “to develop a path forward.” Any new map is likely to threaten the seats of Democratic Reps. Troy Carter and Cleo Fields, who are both Black.

The Supreme Court ruling narrowed the impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the longstanding practice of requiring line-drawers to protect racial minorities’ voting power.

The exact timing of the rescheduled elections is “not my decision,” Johnson added, but said “the way it was typically done” was to hold an all-party “jungle” primary in November, with a runoff in December, and “it looks like it may be that way again.”

“But again, my fingerprints aren’t on it,” Johnson added. “It’s a decision of the state Legislature.”

He also encouraged other states with VRA-mandated minority districts to act quickly and potentially redraw their maps before November, even though many have their election processes well underway already.

“All states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully, and I think they should do it before the midterms,” he said.

Speaker Mike Johnson may have squeezed out a pair of legislative wins Wednesday, but his headaches are far from over as the legislative deals made now face snarls in the Senate.

After a chaotic, all-day vote series on the House floor, lawmakers approved a budget framework setting up a path to fund immigration enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for more than two months. They also passed a three-year extension of government spy powers known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Here’s where those measures now stand, as well as the farm bill that still remains on the House’s agenda as lawmakers try to wrap up before a weeklong recess:

— DHS FUNDING: House Republicans unlocked the first step to a party-line process to fund immigration enforcement after a debate-saturated five-hour long vote late Wednesday.

The question now is whether GOP leaders will attempt to clear a Senate-passed bill funding the rest of DHS Thursday under expedited procedure, as the measure is expected to pass with bipartisan support. GOP leaders earlier this week set up the procedural path that would allow the fast-tracked method of voting Thursday, but their plan is still unclear.

“I don’t trust anything right now. I have no idea what’s gonna pass. It’s so weird,” Republican Rep. Mike Simpson said about the Senate-passed DHS funding bill.

— FISA FIGHT AHEAD: After weeks of infighting, House members finally passed a three-year FISA reauthorization coupled with language to permanently ban the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already publicly warned Johnson that that currency provision garnered the measure “dead on arrival” across the Capitol.

Thune said Wednesday night Senate GOP leaders were preparing their own 45 day punt of the spy law, which is due to expire Thursday night, putting the new deadline in mid-June. But that plan faces some Democratic opposition, and Thune will need buy-in from all 100 senators to schedule an immediate vote and send the measure back to the House with just hours before the law expires.

— FARM BILL FIASCO: GOP leaders aim to vote on the farm bill and amendments to the measure Thursday after starting debate late Wednesday night.

Much of Wednesday was consumed by intraparty battles over the Johnson-backed plan to attach language to the bill allowing for the year-round sale of E15 ethanol-gasoline blend. But after hours of debate, a side agreement emerged that would involve decoupling the ethanol provision from the farm bill when the House returns from recess in May — and holding a standalone vote allowing E15 year-round sales, six people tell Blue Light News.

Notably, Johnson and GOP leaders told Republican hard-liners Wednesday their protests against the bill were unnecessary, as the House version of the farm bill is expected to stall in the Senate, according to four other people involved in the talks.

What else we’re watching: 

—MAXWELL’S EX-BOYFRIEND ON Blue Light News: Ted Waitt, the businessman and philanthropist who brought Ghislaine Maxwell to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, is set to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday. He could provide key details about the only convicted co-conspirator in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme, Maxwell, who was also once Waitt’s romantic partner.

— TILLIS NOT DONE WITH TRUMP NOMINEES: Sen. Thom Tillis is urging those around the president to take his latest ultimatum seriously — that he won’t confirm for attorney general anyone who excuses the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Tillis has major leverage as a member of the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have a one-vote advantage and he can exercise an effective veto.

Meredith Lee Hill, Jordain Carney and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

Thom Tillis took on President Donald Trump’s administration in a monthslong battle to quash the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — and won.

Now he’s urging those around the president to take his latest ultimatum seriously — that he won’t confirm for attorney general anyone who excuses the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

“Hopefully they’ll take me at my word when I say anybody who equivocated on the Jan. 6 rioters, I just can’t support,” the North Carolina Republican said about Justice Department nominees.

Tillis has major leverage as a member of the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have a one-vote advantage and he can exercise an effective veto.

That’s exactly what Tillis did in the Senate Banking Committee with would-be Powell successor Kevin Warsh — until Wednesday, when he cast a vote allowing Warsh to move to the floor for confirmation next month.

He did so only after a three-month stalemate over the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Powell lied to Congress during a Senate hearing last year — a probe that Tillis warned was an attempt by Trump advisors to target the independence of the Federal Reserve.

A flurry of 11th-hour negotiations led to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announcing last week she was closing the probe, with Tillis describing in an interview how he “spoke to people in DOJ several times over the course of a few days” around the time of the announcement. He also said he was “also sort of bouncing off where Chair Powell was, too,” though he declined to say if he spoke directly to Powell.

It was a rare instance of a sitting senator successfully using leverage against an administration of his own party and coming out on top.

“Every single member of the conference has the same option,” Tillis said about whether other GOP colleagues could replicate his model. “I’ve seen people do silly things like blanket holds and stuff like that that are not sustainable.”

In the hours after the committee vote Wednesday, Tillis again spoke out against the whitewashing of Jan. 6, recounting Wednesday how he was the last senator to leave the chamber the day a mob of Trump supporters temporarily suspended the counting of the 2020 Electoral College vote. He previously sank Ed Martin’s U.S. attorney nomination because of his previous comments related to the riot and his work defending those who took part in it.

“I’ll scrub it when a nominee comes forward, and I’ll apply the Martin standard,” Tillis said of any pick to succeed ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi. “By the way, I don’t think Martin is employed by the DOJ anymore, either, is he?”

There are some differences between the situation with Powell and the vacancy atop the Justice Department.

Hanging over the Fed chair negotiations was a May 15 end date for Powell’s term, Trump’s determination to replace him and the administration’s realization that TIllis was not about to back down from his pledge to keep his hold as long as the criminal investigation was ongoing.

“I think they understood if we didn’t get it done today, tomorrow, this week, that he wouldn’t be seated by the time the term expires,” Tillis said of the administration.

There is not the same pressure to fill the AG post. Todd Blanche, who was confirmed last year as deputy attorney general, is now serving as acting attorney general, and he is free under federal law to serve at least into late October.

Some argue he could essentially serve indefinitely, with many pointing to the tenure of former Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su, who served as acting secretary for nearly two years under former President Joe Biden.

That could effectively mean Trump could wait out Tillis, who is retiring and will relinquish his seat in January — though that would also risk a potential Democratic midterm takeover of the Senate majority.

Tillis said Wednesday he would be sticking to his principles regardless of how the attorney general vacancy plays out. He said his fight to protect Powell and how it was resolved this week was “very important” for ensuring the Federal Reserve’s independence.

Tillis also linked the months-long fight to another hotly debated topic: the fate of the chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster that Trump wants to see axed. Like most GOP senators, Tillis wants it to stay.

“Then a simple majority would have been enough to discharge [Warsh] from committee,” Tillis said, noting that the organization of the Senate — including the makeup of committees — is done by consensus due to the filibuster.

Tillis is in a unique position. Due to his impending retirement, he is free of political consequences, and he’s on a host of key committees that give him an outsized role in several of the administration’s priorities. He has been increasingly outspoken about decisions within the Trump administration and from corners of the party he disagrees with — though he’s been careful to stress that he believes he has a respectful relationship with Trump and wants him to be successful.

Trump, for his part, suggested Tillis had already left the Senate in a Fox News interview last week where he was pressed on the Warsh blockade: “You know Thom Tillis is no longer a senator, right? He quit.” Tillis quipped back at the time, “I’m not dead yet.”

On Wednesday, Tillis urged the administration to share more information with Congress on its Iran strategy, questioned whether a “first-semester law student” would believe the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey was credible and urged the House to “recognize reality” and end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

“We own the shutdown right now because we can’t get the House to vote on something that 100 senators voted on,” Tillis said. “The American people are not dumb, and they know that the holdup now is not Democrats in the House. It’s Republicans.”