Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, one of three House Republicans who voted against the ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week, announced he will not seek re-election.
“Eight years ago, when I first ran for Congress, I promised to treat my term as a high-intensity deployment,” Gallagher, who will retire in January 2025 after his fourth term, said in a statement Saturday.
“Through my bipartisan work on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, chairing the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and chairing the Chinese Communist Party Select Committee, we have accomplished more in this deployment than I could have ever imagined,” he said.
“But the framers intended for citizens to serve in Congress for a season and then return to their private lives. “Electoral politics was never supposed to be a career, and believe me, Congress is not a place to grow old,” the representative said.
Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher announced Saturday that he will not seek re-election and will retire from Congress at the end of his fourth term in January 2025. REUTERS Gallagher was one of three House Republicans who voted against to remove Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly failing to enforce federal immigration law and lying to Congress. AP
“And so, with great regret, I have decided not to run for re-election,” Gallagher said. “Thank you to the good people of northeastern Wisconsin for the honor of a lifetime.
“Four terms serving you have strengthened my conviction that the United States is the greatest country in the history of the world. And while my title may change, my mission will always remain the same: to deter America’s enemies and defend the Constitution.”
Gallagher informed House Republican leaders weeks earlier that he would vote against the impeachment resolution they were pushing, and defended his decision in a Wall Street Journal op-ed the day after it failed.
“Not only would impeachment fail to resolve Mr. Biden’s border crisis, it would also set a dangerous new precedent that would be used against future Republican administrations,” he wrote.
“Last night was a setback, but democracy is a disaster,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters about the failed impeachment vote. “We will pass those articles of impeachment. We will do it in the next round.” AP
“The person primarily responsible for the chaos and devastation that has been unleashed at the border is Mr. Biden, not Mr. Mayorkas,” Gallagher said. “If Mr. Mayorkas were removed, his replacement would also implement Mr. Biden’s disastrous border policies.”
He also told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview that he did not decide to withdraw because of the negative reaction to his vote against impeachment.
Gallagher joined outgoing Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) in voting Feb. 6 against two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas for allegedly failing to enforce federal immigration law and lying to Congress about the US border being “secure.”
With Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) absent while receiving treatment for blood cancer, House Republicans could only afford to lose three votes and still remove the top border enforcement official. of President Biden. REUTERS
With Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) absent while receiving treatment for blood cancer, House Republicans could only afford to lose three votes and still remove the top border enforcement official. of President Biden.
The majority calculation was also based on the absence of Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who had also been absent from Congress while recovering from intestinal surgery.
But as time ticked down, Green appeared in a wheelchair on the House floor to oppose impeachment. The measure ended up failing in a vote of 214 to 216.
Gallagher joined outgoing Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) in the Feb. 6 vote against two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas. fake images
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and others tried to pressure Gallagher to change his vote without success, forcing Republican conference vice chair Blake Moore (R -Utah), to change their vote and join the majority in order to offer a motion to bring the resolution back to the floor at a later date.
House Republicans are expected to take up their impeachment effort again on Tuesday.
“Last night was a setback, but democracy is a disaster,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters the day after last week’s vote. “We live in a time of divided government. We have a very narrow margin here and every vote counts.”
“Sometimes when you’re counting votes and people show up when they weren’t expected to be in the building, that changes the equation,” he added, referring to Green’s appearance. “We will pass those articles of impeachment. We will do it in the next round.”
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) also voted against impeaching Mayorkas. REUTERS
On Sunday, Mayorkas said on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” that neither he nor President Biden bore “responsibility for a broken system” that has allowed the flood of migrants, although he acknowledged that the situation at the border is a “crisis.”
Biden and the secretary of Homeland Security had urged House Republicans to pass a bipartisan border bill in the Senate, with additional aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but it was rejected in the upper chamber last Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Scalise’s office issued a statement last Thursday announcing that the majority leader was “in complete remission” from cancer after having “successfully completed his autologous stem cell treatment” and would “return to Washington next.” week to vote.”
Gallagher served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Armed Services and was chairman of the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. fake images
With Scalise’s return, House Republicans must also prevent members who were on the fence about whether to impeach Mayorkas from changing their votes, including Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) .
Gallagher served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Armed Services and was chairman of the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
He briefly considered challenging Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin for her congressional seat last year but decided against it, citing her work on the China committee and saying she intended to seek a fifth term in the House.
House Republican leaders are considering Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), another member of the China panel, to replace Gallagher as chairman if the party maintains its majority, a source told The Post.
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