Former President George W. Bush is stepping up efforts to protect his legacy as Congress remains deadlocked on renewing a major global HIV/AIDS program he created in 2003.

Some Republicans claim the Biden administration is supporting abortion abroad by giving funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to overseas groups who also provide abortion, though Biden and Democrats deny it.

The George W. Bush Institute and 30 other faith, democracy, human rights and global health leaders wrote to Congress Wednesday, urging it to reauthorize the law governing PEPFAR, which lapsed on Oct. 1.

“We must continue this lifesaving program that symbolizes America at its best,” the group, which includes representatives of the Bipartisan Policy Center, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Carter Center and World Vision, wrote.

It’s the first time Bush’s institute, which promotes issues the former president cares about, has publicly supported the PEPFAR program reauthorization, though Bush wrote an op-ed last month urging his fellow Republicans to renew the law governing it for five more years.

Why it matters: While touting the estimated 25 million lives the program is credited with saving over its two-decade existence, the letter also reminds Congress that PEPFAR is an asset for the U.S. abroad as America competes with China and Russia for influence in Africa.

“Abandoning it abruptly now would send a bleak message, suggesting we are no longer able to set aside our politics for the betterment of democracies and the world,” the letter says.

PEPFAR will continue even if it doesn’t get reauthorized as long as lawmakers appropriate funding for it yearly.

But Mark Dybul, who led it in its early days and signed the letter, said that approach “will not cut it.”

“It will be the beginning of the end,” he said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event Monday, arguing that funding will inevitably dwindle.

What’s next? Before Republicans ousted their House speaker and started the search for a new one three weeks ago, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that oversees PEPFAR, had said he and others were working on a bill to extend the program, possibly for less than the typical five-year term.

In the Senate, Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in late September he would keep pushing for a five-year renewal, even as his colleagues called for a shorter extension to satisfy anti-abortion groups.

Rep. Barbara Lee of California, a coauthor of the law that created PEPFAR and the top Democrat on the Appropriations panel that controls the program’s budget, said at the CSIS event that there is bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill about renewing the program for five years and that she is fighting to see Congress reauthorize the program by the end of the year.

Twenty-two days. Fourteen candidates. Four nominees. Three floor votes (and counting).

Could House Republicans finally be on the cusp of a breakthrough in their search for a speaker?

It sure feels that way: Late Tuesday night, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) became the latest GOP conference nominee, and this time there was no backbiting, no ultimatums, no snarky comments to reporters — just cheers and an overwhelming sense of relief.

It’s not over yet. Three lawmakers voted “present” during a roll-call poll of the conference, and 22 GOP lawmakers were absent, so it’s possible there might be a decisive handful of “Never Mikes” hiding out there.

But the lack of vocal opposition and surfeit of genuine enthusiasm that was aired last night on opposing sides of the House GOP marked a significant shift after three weeks of chaos.

“Mike is … a straightforward leader who can unite us as Republicans!” wrote Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), one of a handful of centrists who engaged in hard-line tactics as the search played out.

Johnson is “the right guy at the right time,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a conservative firebrand who pushed hard in the other direction, per CBS. “He’s got his pulse, I think on where the American people are.”

Said Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker then helped block Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) from replacing him, last night on CNN: “I think he gets it tomorrow.”

Johnson wasn’t anyone’s first choice — far from it. On the first ballot Tuesday morning, he garnered only 34 votes.

But it turns out Johnson doesn’t have nearly as many enemies as some of his higher-profile colleagues. And, much to his benefit, Republicans decided — after the sudden, Donald Trump-assisted termination of Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s speaker candidacy yesterday — that they’re sick and tired of looking like total fools.

“Democracy is messy sometimes, but … this Republican majority is united,” Johnson asserted just before 11 p.m., surrounded by rowdy and relieved colleagues. Republicans would be “ready to govern,” he promised, running the House “like a well-oiled machine.”

Barring a surprise rebellion, Johnson’s ascension saves the House GOP from a parade of unorthodox and borderline unworkable alternatives.

Should he secure the needed votes Wednesday at an expected noon floor vote, out will go such ideas as empowering a caretaker speaker pro tempore, forging a bipartisan governing coalition with Democrats, or — in one fanciful brainstorm bandied about yesterday evening, per NBC — a power-sharing arrangement between McCarthy and Jordan.

Those scenarios will evaporate should Johnson win the gavel. What will fill that void are scads of questions about who Johnson is and how he plans to run the House.

Meet the nominee

First elected to the House in 2016, alongside Trump, the 51-year-old Shreveport native came into elective politics after two decades as a constitutional litigator for various right-wing causes. In the House, Johnson quickly immersed himself in conservative policy circles, winning the chairmanship of the Republican Study Committee in his second term, which in turn served as a springboard to his current position as conference vice chair.

His strengths: As a former RSC chair and current chair of a Judiciary subcommittee, Johnson has a reputation as a bookish wonk with the sort of policy foundation that hasn’t been seen in a potential GOP speaker since Paul Ryan relinquished the gavel.

His lack of outward ambition means he has few avowed enemies inside the GOP. While Jordan, Emmer and Majority Whip Steve Scalise had each amassed a career’s worth of internal enemies, there doesn’t appear to be anyone who hates Johnson enough to sabotage his rise.

And his strong relationships with the hard right could give him a freer hand to govern than McCarthy ever got. (Note that a governing roadmap he circulated Monday floats passing a new continuing resolution, exactly the kind of bill that got McCarthy canned.)

His weaknesses: In terms of House service, Johnson would be the least experienced speaker elected in 140 years. Not only is he in just his fourth term, he has never served in a senior leadership position or as a full committee chair — meaning he hasn’t had a true front-row seat to power, let alone any meaningful relationships with top leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer or President Joe Biden.

As speaker, Johnson would be immediately tasked with hiring a much larger staff, and he’d be thrust to the helm of a massive national fundraising apparatus. In his short House career, he has been decent but not overwhelming on the cash front — raising an average of about $1.3 million per cycle for his recent campaigns, plus a little more for his modest leadership PAC. If elected, he’ll be tasked with raising hundreds of times that amount.

His baggage: Johnson has a contentious history that is going to get picked apart in great detail in the coming days should he manage to close the deal. One episode that is already moving front and center is the pivotal role he played in the GOP effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Drawing on his experience in constitutional law, Johnson was the lead organizer of an amicus brief, ultimately signed by 125 other House Republicans, backing the Texas-led lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the vote counting in key swing states Biden won. (The court declined to hear the case.)

Johnson was pressed on the brief Tuesday night — and was promptly and angrily shouted down by other Republicans. “Next question,” Johnson said to ABC News’ Rachel Scott.

And then there are his views on hot-button social issues such as abortion, civil rights, free speech and more — topics where he has spent decades speaking and litigating — or his approaches on foreign policy, federal spending and other governing flashpoints he’ll quickly have to start managing.

Asked about just one aspect of that — aid to Israel — Johnson declined to engage. “We’re not doing policy tonight,” he said.

Like this content? Sign up for POLITICO’s Playbook newsletter.

Maehgan Smith has always known something happened to her mother. It was the only explanation for why she had grown up without her, why she had not been seen or heard from since her mother left Massachusetts in 1983 and did not return.

That’s what Smith’s relatives always told her: Her mother would have come back to her if she could have. The belief was only recently confirmed without a doubt.

Smith’s mother, Lori Jane Kearsey, of Gloucester, Mass., was married to a member of a notorious Boston crime family. She was murdered some time in February 1984, her body found in a Davie canal.

Questions still surround why and how Kearsey ended up in Florida and under what circumstances. A killer has not been arrested.

Kearsey was an unidentified “Jane Doe” for nearly 40 years. Davie Police identified her in early 2023, giving way to the start of their investigation and search for the person responsible.

Maehgan Smith listens during a press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, at the Davie Police Department as they disclose to reporters that her mother, Lori Jane Kearsey, was the victim of a cold case murder in 1984. .(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Feb. 18, 1984

A passerby walking in the rural area near the 2600 block of Southwest 130th Avenue discovered a woman’s decomposing body floating in a canal on Feb. 18, 1984. The area at the time was little more than orange groves, Det. Eddy Velazquez told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

Kearsey was one of several cold case victims whose bodies were found discarded in canals in a years-long span at the time in that area, Velazquez said.

About a year after Kearsey’s body was found, the body of Carrie Weldgen was found in a canal on the northeast corner of Southwest 121st Avenue and Southwest 36th Court — about two miles away. In 1987, Marilyn Decker’s body was found in a canal in the the 3000 block of Flamingo Road, also a few miles away form where Kearsey was found. Decker’s and Weldgen’s murders are also unsolved.

“There was nothing out there,” Velazquez said. “It was easy access because that was considered back then kind of part of the Everglades.”

Kearsey was found wearing jean shorts, naked from the waist up, according to a Sun Sentinel news report from March 1984. She had been strangled. Detectives estimated she was between 24 and 30 years old with blond hair, about 5-feet-4-inches tall and about 120 pounds. She had a distinctive gap between her front teeth that may have been filled in. A simple sketch of the woman accompanied the short article, but no other details.

An article appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel on March 2, 1984, reporting that Davie Police were seeking help to identify the body of a woman who was found in a Davie canal on Feb. 18, 1984. (Newspapers.com)

Velazquez said the initial investigation uncovered little to no information at the time, without knowing who the woman was.

“There was no leads, no witnesses,” he said. “There was nothing.”

Getting a name

Davie Police reopened the cold case in 2022, after identifying another cold case victim from 1975 as Carolyn Dunn Moudy, who was also found dead in a canal. The process used to identify Moudy is similar to how Kearsey was identified.

First, the police department asked Louisiana State University’s Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory, abbreviated as FACES, to create a forensic digital photo of the unidentified woman, which was based on photos taken by Heather Walsh-Haney, an anthropologist who leads the Forensic Studies Program at Florida Gulf Coast University.

A forensic digital image created by LSU’s FACES Laboratory shows what the woman who was found dead in a Davie canal in February 1984 was believed to have looked like. She was later identified as Lori Jane Kearsey in early 2023. (Courtesy/Davie Police Department)

The next step was extracting DNA from Kearsey’s bones. Marshall University’s Science Forensic Center performed the extraction and sent the resulting DNA to a technology company called Parabon for genome sequencing.

Then, the company’s chief genetic genealogist CeCe Moore put together a family tree with names of possible relatives of the victim, the police department said, and Davie Police Crime Scene Investigator Bertha Hurtado and Velazquez began making calls. The first call they made was to Kearsey’s sister.

Smith said she heard from Hurtado and Velazquez this February, almost exactly to the date of the 39th anniversary of her mother’s body being discovered. Within days, she submitted a DNA sample to the Gloucester Police Department, which was processed by the private DNA laboratory Bode technology and confirmed the match.

“I think once everybody saw the pictures and composites, we knew 100% it was her,” Smith said.

Few answers

Kearsey gave birth to Smith when she was 17 years old. She and Smith’s father were not married.

She later married the member of the Boston crime family, who she met in 1982 while working at nightclub in Massachusetts called New York, New York, Smith said. Neither Smith nor Velazquez would release the identity of Kearsey’s husband or his family name.

She was 23 years old when she was killed.

Her family last saw her about the time of Thanksgiving 1983. The story Smith has heard of how her mother left Massachusetts differs, she said.

Maehgan Smith attends a press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, at the Davie Police Department. Her mother, Lori Jane Kearsey, was identified as the “Jane Doe” in a 1984 cold case in early 2023. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

One of Smith’s aunts has told her that Kearsey’s best friend’s husband dropped her off at the airport. Another of Kearsey’s relatives has said Kearsey was picked up by people who claimed they were law enforcement. Some had heard that she may have been entered into the federal witness protection program.

“There’s a lot of rumors …  I don’t think anybody remembers it,” Smith said. “Nobody knew it was going to be the last time they ever talked to her.”

Kearsey was never reported missing in Massachusetts or Florida, Smith said.

It is not known who took Kearsey to the airport, if she went directly to Florida or elsewhere first, if she was alone or with someone, why she was leaving or when exactly she got to Florida. Velazquez said these are all questions they’re still trying to answer.

Without sharing details, Velazquez said they have identified people of interest who are still alive. He would not say whether they are in Massachusetts or Florida because of the active investigation.

The man Kearsey married is still alive, but Velazquez would not say whether he is a suspect or where he is. They are still working leads, awaiting other DNA test results, he said.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, at the Davie Police Department, Lori Jane Kearsey was identified as a victim of a cold case murder from 1984. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Smith sat at a table inside the Davie Police Department on Tuesday afternoon, the digital composite image and two family photos of her mother projected on a screen behind her baring a striking resemblance. Kearsey held Smith on her hip as an infant in one photo.

“I actually never knew how much I needed that closure until it happened,” Smith said.

She now has her own daughters, ages 18 and 21. Seeing them near the age that her mother was when she was murdered is a poignant reminder.

“My whole life I knew something happened to her, but now to have the closure,” Smith said. “She was a kid. She could have grown up … She never got a chance.”