US Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin who broke with most of his colleagues by refusing to vote for the impeachment of US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, said he would not seek re-election in November.
Gallagher, chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has faced a party backlash after helping halt the impeachment effort and landing US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson with an unexpected defeat on Tuesday.
Gallagher, 39, was once considered a rising star in the party. He dove into the select committee on the CCP, saying he wanted “identify the bipartisan center of gravity” where Republicans and Democrats could agree on how to ensure US supremacy in the competition with China in sectors such as critical technology.
Photo: AP
His announcement closely follows the retirement of Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce who on Thursday said she would not for re-election after almost 20 years in Congress.
House Financial Services Chairman Patrick McHenry, a key ally of the cryptocurrency industry, plans to retire when his term ends in January next year.
Gallagher, a four-term House member, ran afoul of his caucus on the Mayorkas impeachment — a vote spurred by a record number of migrants at the southern US border and former US president Donald Trump’s elevation of immigration to a main theme of his presidential election campaign.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Gallagher said impeachment would not resolve the “border crisis” he blamed on US President Joe Biden and “would also set a dangerous new precedent that would be used against future Republican administrations.”
Gallagher emerged as an outspoken critic of China on Capitol Hill, seeking to curb the flow of American investor money into China by focusing on sectors of the Chinese economy rather than individual businesses.
Yet his committee’s lack of legislative authority means its proposals are at the mercy of other committee chairs.
In a report in December, the panel recommended raising tariffs on goods from China and further restricting investment into China.
Gallagher’s announcement on X cited the intentions of the framers of the US Constitution.
“Electoral politics was never supposed to be a career and, trust me, Congress is no place to grow old,” he said.
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