Another ‘Florida man' scandal presents danger for Mike Johnson and the House GOP
Already, the House GOP leader is stuck with an unruly caucus whose disparate factions have made the passage of most legislation an arduous process typically involving Donald Trump bullying one or more groups of lawmakers into line.
The House of Representatives instead chose to cram many of the president's priorities into 'one big, beautiful bill' (a Trump nickname adopted by Congress) and passed it on a party-line basis in early July. The chamber came within a one-vote margin of the bill failing.
Now, the growing scandal enveloping Rep. Cory Mills, a Republican from Florida's 7th congressional district, threatens to turn that margin against Johnson and GOP leadership and make the passage of future bills an even greater hurdle for the president's party.
Mills, 45, is in his second term as a congressman. Having won re-election last year, the Seminole County representative was looking forward to a second term defined by his new chairmanship of a House subcommittee. Instead, he's being accused by the current reigning Miss United States of sextortion — she claims he threatened to release intimate images and videos of her after they broke up. Mills denied the allegations and argued in a statement on Wednesday that the woman's attorney, his former primary challenger, 'weaponized' the claim to damage his reputation.
But the scandal is just one of several buzzing around the congressman. He's also accused of racking up tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent and is under a totally separate House Ethics Committee investigation looking into whether he improperly benefited from federal contracts. An incident at Mills's DC residence also led to a police investigation of Mills for assault earlier this year, though both he and the alleged victim denied an assault occurred.
In short, Mills's baggage is becoming a problem. At the bare minimum, it's providing a target for Florida Democrats to go after as the 2026 midterms approach.
But if he's forced out sooner, Johnson's problems become a lot bigger. The Cook Political Report rates Mills' district as +5 Republican, giving the GOP an edge but no guarantee of victory in an election over the next two years.
Should Gov. Ron DeSantis be forced to call a special election, that could be a real issue for the GOP: Democrats have been consistently overperforming in special elections in 2025, even in districts with strong Republican bents. Three have already announced plans to run for the seat next year.
The drip-drip of headlines is already making Mills's colleagues nervous, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Mills's bad press marks the third time since the 2024 elections that a 'Florida Man' member of the House has caused headaches for Mike Johnson and the caucus as a whole, and earned the derisive label synonymous with chaotic, bad decision-making and trashy behavior.
First, the surprise resignation of Matt Gaetz just weeks after his successful re-election threw the House into a pre-Trump tizzy. The spat over his Ethics Committee report, which looked into allegations that he pursued underage girls for sex, led to Gaetz's failed bid to become Trump's attorney general and a special election, while casting a massive shadow over the president's transition. Gaetz denied the allegations, but dodging efforts to investigate them cost him his political career.
Then, another Florida congressman, Randy Fine, earned a condemnation from a fellow Republican, Marjorie Taylor Greene, after tweeting 'starve away' in response to reports of widespread famine and devastation in Gaza; Fine is one of Israel's most vocal supporters in the House, even among Republicans. Since joining the House, he's also made racist statements about Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim and Somali-American congresswoman from Minnesota. Those won't cause him much trouble with Republican leadership, who rarely punish that sort of thing, but could earn him a censure or even expulsion if they continue under a Democratic speaker in 2027 or beyond.
As Mike Johnson and Donald Trump look for ways to expand their single-digit majority with help from unprecedented gerrymandering attempts in Texas and other GOP states, one has to wonder whether the caucus would be served by examining why members from one reddening state keep giving them so much trouble.
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