Mike Johnson fought to keep alcohol from being legally sold two decades ago in a Louisiana town near his home, years before being elevated to House speaker.
Minden, a town of just under 12,000 people but boasting more than 20 Baptist congregations, still forbade the consumption of alcohol back in 2003, when local business leaders began pushing to allow restaurant patrons to enjoy drinks with their meals. Opponents hired Johnson to push back, reported Rolling Stone.
"This history — which reads like a prohibitionist sequel to Footloose — does more than underscore Johnson’s abstemious character," wrote Tim Dickinson for the magazine.
"The kind of day-late and dollar-short legal arguments that Johnson mustered in Minden’s fruitless fight against liquor would resurface years later when Johnson, as the region’s congressman, championed Donald Trump’s baseless challenges to the 2020 election. And they may yet haunt the 2024 election cycle, as leading Republicans are already signaling a willingness to dispute any new Trump defeat."
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Civic leaders had worked with the state legislature to adjust Louisiana's "local option" liquor law that would allow a vote on restaurants serving alcohol, and the city council approved that bill for the ballot in August, but local attorney Graydon Kitchens Jr. and his group the Minden Family Forum warned that booze sales would lead to video gambling and strip clubs in town.
Johnson filed a lawsuit on behalf of five residents to remove the measure from the ballot, but a judge quickly ruled that the challenge had been filed too late and ordered the vote to go forward — and 57 percent of Minden residents approved the sale of alcoholic drinks at restaurants.
The future House speaker, however, vowed to challenge the result in court within the week, but his challenge wasn't actually filed until the start of the next year. That effort fell flat as well.
Minden eventually loosened its liquor laws even further, and at least four liquor stores have opened since Johnson's prohibition effort failed.
