Victoria Spartz will not join the House Republican Conference committees

U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., announced this week that she will not participate in the House Republican Conference and its committees during her upcoming term.

“We need to govern for a change and we need to make some changes. “Thankfully my party will be in charge next year, but unfortunately they don’t want to make the changes,” Spartz said in an interview with the USA TODAY Network’s IndyStar.

“I want President Trump to be a great president because I want my party to walk the talk and deliver,” Spartz told IndyStar.

More:Congress is avoiding a serious government shutdown — for now — after lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal

Who is MP Victoria Spartz?

Spartz is a congresswoman who represents Indiana’s 5th District, which covers an area northeast of Indianapolis, including Anderson and Marion. She will be sworn in for her third term in January.

Spartz’s announcement is part of a long series of protests she has made against the federal government’s activities in Washington, DC, since she was first elected in 2020. In one example, Spartz threatened to resign from Congress at the end of 2023 if lawmakers did not establish a commission to investigate the national debt.

In early 2023, Spartz announced that she would not seek a third term, but reversed that decision shortly before the filing deadline in early 2024. She gave herself three months to make her case to voters while also facing off against eight other opponents in the GOP primary.

Spartz won the May primary with 39% of the vote. In November, she defeated Democratic, Libertarian and independent opponents, receiving nearly 57% of the vote.

Republicans have a narrow majority in the House of Representatives

The decision not to attend the House Republican conference or committees could exclude Spartz from the Republican debate on legislation and priorities in the next Congress.

Republicans will hold a trifecta in the White House and Congress next session, but their lead in both chambers is slim. The GOP expects a 220-215 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate. The majorities were larger, but some Republicans in Congress were tapped for leadership roles in Trump’s new administration. With such narrow majorities, the party needs to be unified to pass its priority legislation, but members have historically been divided on certain issues.

Some Republicans expressed concern about losing their razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Indiana Democratic Party criticized Spartz’s move.

“After she won, she chose not to do much of the work she was elected to do. Central Indiana deserves better,” the party said in a post on X.

But former U.S. Senator and Indiana Governor-elect Mike Braun defended Spartz’s position.

“When I heard that Victoria was thinking about just focusing on all the waste and all the inefficiency, that would be a lot more worthwhile than being in a system now where most of the laws are actually made behind closed doors by senior executives, which do not guarantee a regular order. “We would probably be a lot better off if she had influence there than what most representatives and senators routinely do, which is to let the actual legislative machinery not function,” Braun said during an appearance on News Nation on Tuesday.

Contributor: Sudiksha Kochi

Kinsey Crowley is a featured news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.

Related Posts

Snoop Dogg’s daughter Cori Broadus opens up about her struggles with lupus and depression

Travis Kelce just broke an NFL all-time record

Joe Rogan is asking to take Rachel Maddow’s job if Elon Musk buys MSNBC

Leave a Reply Cancel reply