The News
Thanks to a rash of early member departures, House Speaker Mike Johnson is now faced with the unexpected task of having to restaff key committee roles more than halfway into the 118th Congress.
In the coming weeks, Republicans will need to select new leaders for two prominent committees, as well as fill at least a half dozen current or forthcoming vacancies on panels that handle everything from foreign affairs to oversight of the U.S. intelligence community.
The Speaker’s office told Semafor they’ll decide on at least one replacement this week, but declined to say which one.
The House Steering Committee will play a hand in picking the replacements, with outsized input from Johnson, who holds more votes than the rest of the Steering Committee members.
“We’re working on all these things,” Johnson said when asked by Semafor last week about filling vacancies. “I’m not going to talk about it now, we’ve got to fund the government.”
Know More
With next month’s unexpected early departure of Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. will come vacancies on the House select committee on China (which he currently chairs) as well as the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. That will make two open GOP spots on the intelligence panel (Johnson never filled the seat left by former congressman Chris Stewart, who left Congress six months ago).
Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who left Congress Friday, leaves open seats on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. Other members are likely to jockey for those spots, given the prominence of the committees.
Tom Cole, R-Okla., the current chair of the House Rules Committee, said he would seek to replace Kay Granger as Appropriations Committee chair, after she announced plans to step down early from the post last week. Cole is expected to easily get the role.
It’s not clear that Cole’s changing role will force him to leave the Rules Committee. But if so, it may be a loss to the reporters of the House Press Gallery, who occasionally buttonhole members as they pass by on their way to his cigar-scented nearby office for a shot of bourbon.
It’s still unclear who would replace Cole as Rules Chair, but don’t expect a big fight. All Rules slots are Speaker-appointed positions. Most people are pointing to deputy whip Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa. to take over the post, but there are whispers the position could go to retiring Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas as a sort of stop-gap. That would let Reschenthaler avoid juggling a chairmanship and his crucial role assisting the House majority whip as Congress gets ready for contentious fights around the reauthorization of a key spying authority and a foreign aid package.