Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) announced she would not serve on committees and would boycott the GOP conference meetings next year, ridiculing the “circuses” that have dominated the House.
While Spartz said she would remain a member of the Republican Party, she said her time would be better spent working on President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing. I do not need to be involved in circuses,” Spartz wrote on X.
I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing. I do not need to be involved in circuses. I would rather spend more of my time helping @DOGE and @RepThomasMassie to… https://t.co/ZNju2jvNHk
— Rep. Victoria Spartz (@RepSpartz) December 16, 2024
The decision to step down confused some Republicans, but others suspected the move had something to do with the House GOP Steering Committee not giving her a coveted post on the House Ways and Means Committee, according to Politico. Some Republicans were also content with her decision, saying she spoke too much in internal meetings.
House Republicans will have a razor thin two-seat majority due in part to Trump’s picks for some of his Cabinet roles coming from House Republicans. So far, Trump has picked three House Republicans, including former Rep. Matt Gaettz (R-FL), and sitting Reps. Mike Waltz (R-FL) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY).
The last time Republicans held unified control of Congress and the White House was in 2017 when they passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act via reconciliation, which was one of Trump’s key accomplishments. At the time, they controlled 241 seats, a significantly wider margin than they’ll have next year. The House is on track to have a 217-215 breakdown with Trump’s nominations, so Republicans have little room for disagreement to get through key legislation Trump has promised in his second administration.
The 118th Congress was plagued by high levels of unproductiveness and GOP infighting. By the end of 2023, the House had voted 749 times but passed only 27 bills that became law. It was the lowest number of bills passed in the first year of a congressional session since the Great Depression, according to congressional records.
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“Shame on us, both parties. We sold the American public out on everything,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told reporters at the time.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also created chaos for weeks as Republicans had trouble electing a new speaker. While McCarthy’s vote took 15 tries, the path to electing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) took four votes, and he was the Republican Party’s fourth nominee for speaker.