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MADISON, Wisconsin – U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a key Republican congressman who led the House backlash against the Chinese government, announced Saturday that he will not run for a fifth term. The announcement comes just days after he angered his fellow Republicans by refuse to accuse The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.
The Republican Party has been seeking to unseat Mayorkas as a way to punish the Biden administration for its handling of the US-Mexico border. The House impeachment vote on Tuesday was just one vote short. Gallagher was one of three Republicans who opposed impeachment. His fellow Republicans surrounded him in the House in an attempt to change his mind, but he refused to change his vote.
Record numbers of people have been arriving at the southern border as they flee countries around the world. Many seek asylum and end up in American cities that are not prepared to serve them while they wait for court proceedings. The issue is a powerful line of attack for Donald Trump as he works to defeat President Biden in the November election.
Gallagher wrote in a Wall Street Journal An op-ed published after the vote said impeachment would not stop migrants from crossing the border and would set a precedent that could be used against future Republican administrations. But the failure of the impeachment vote was a major setback for the Republican Party. Wisconsin Republicans began reflecting this week on whether Gallagher should face a primary challenger.
Gallagher did not mention the impeachment vote in a statement announcing his retirement, saying only that he does not want to grow old in Washington.
“The framers intended for citizens to serve in Congress for a time and then return to their private lives,” Gallagher said. “Electoral politics was never supposed to be a career, and believe me, Congress is not a place to grow old. That’s why, with a heavy heart, I have decided not to run for re-election.”
He said he Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the violent reaction to the impeachment vote did not influence his decision.
“Honestly, I feel like people understand it and can accept the fact that they don’t have to agree with you 100%,” he told the newspaper, adding later in the interview: “The news cycle is so short that I just don’t believe let that last.”
Voicemails left at The Associated Press offices in Washington and Wisconsin on Saturday were not immediately returned.
Gallagher, a former Marine who grew up in Green Bay, has represented northeastern Wisconsin in Congress since 2017. He spent the last year leading a new House committee dedicated to countering China. During the committee’s first hearing, he framed the competition between the United States and China as “an existential struggle over what life will be like in the 21st century.”
Tensions between the two countries have been high for years, with both sides enacting tariffs on imports during Trump’s tenure as president. China’s opaque response to COVID-19, aggression toward Taiwan and the discovery of a possible spy balloon floating over the United States last year have only intensified lawmakers’ intent to do more to block the Chinese government.
Chinese officials have lashed out at the committee, accusing its members of bias and maintaining a Cold War mentality.
Gallagher was one of the highest-profile Republicans considering a run for the U.S. Senate this year against incumbent Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin. But he abandoned the idea in June. He later said that he wanted to focus on countering China through the committee and that he planned to run for a fifth term in the House.
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