That is . . . questionable. A committee has a certain number of chairs; whether or not that chair gets an acting substitute is at the discretion of the committee rules and more often than not, the committee chair. Keep in mind that committee and subcommittee assignments are worked toward for years, over the span of multiple elections, and McConnell’s own seats are among the most powerful and highly coveted, like Rules, which he chairs.

So sometimes they just sit open, and in this particular case McConnell is one of the most powerful senators in Congress who has friends that are rabidly guarding his assignments, not just for his sake but for purposes of control, with an eye to who will get them if/when an actual vacancy becomes real in legal terms. (They’re all lawyers anyway, now turned lawmakers, so it really is all about the letter of the law with them.)

Also, just as a friendly reminder, in the US we have a bicameral (two houses) form of government legislature and Mike Johnson can’t do shit in the Senate (the higher house). He’s Speaker of the House of Representatives (the lower house). The Senate has different rules and different leaders. Technically it’s JD Vance, the vice president of the US, and Chuck Grassley, president pro tempore, but they don’t actually have much to do with regular leadership. For leadership in actual day to day business it’s the Majority Leader, John Thune, one of McConnell’s besties and one of the Republican legislators swearing to have spent 20 minutes on the phone with him after his hospitalization.

Apologies, I know a detailed correction is probably not what you wanted to get back in terms of a reply, but it’s worth understanding how the power flows in practice.

Can you tell me where you’re getting your information that someone is voting for McConnell in committee? I’d like to know more.