Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said he will not serve out the remainder of his term in the U.S. House and will instead resign in mid-April, cutting House Republicans’ already narrow margin over Democrats even further.
“After conversations with my family, I have made the decision to resign my position as a member of the House of Representatives for Wisconsin’s Eight Congressional District effective April 19, 2024,” Gallagher said in a post on social media Friday.
Gallagher is the second House GOP member in recent weeks to say he won’t even serve out the remainder of his term and will instead quit Congress midsession. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said he would not seek reelection and then moved up his resignation date to Friday.
After Buck’s resignation takes effect, there will be 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats in the House, with four vacancies. That is the bare minimum for a majority in a fully seated, 435-member chamber.
With Gallagher’s departure, the number of Republicans would fall to 217. Two seats are expected to be filled soon: a historically Democratic one in New York in late April, and a GOP one in California in May.
This combination would mean that, from mid-April to May, House Republicans could afford only one defection on party-line floor votes and still win them. With the vagaries of members’ illnesses, family obligations and other situations, which party could actually muster a majority on any given day would be up in the air.
Gallagher, who just turned 40 in early March, was considered an up-and-comer in his party, having notched a committee chairmanship with the top spot on a bipartisan panel examining the United States’ strategic competition with China.
He said that he had already consulted with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and looked forward to seeing Johnson name a new chair.
Quitting Congress in the middle of a session, or with the end in sight around the turn of the final year, is a relatively rare occurrence. But a recent…
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