Two outgoing House Republican defense hawks in charge of high-profile national security committees announced Friday they will vacate their respective chairmanships before the end of the year.
House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, and Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., had already announced they would not seek reelection this November amid a slew of Republican retirements.
But Granger said Friday she would vacate her committee position while serving out the end of her term. At the same time, Gallagher said he would resign in April, further narrowing the House GOP’s thin majority and creating a vacant position atop the China-focused panel.
Granger announced she would step down as the Republican appropriations leader shortly after the House voted 286-134 to pass the fiscal 2024 government funding package — including the $825 billion defense spending bill — nearly six months overdue. The Senate must still vote to pass the bill, with funding for the Defense Department and several other agencies to expire at midnight.
“Recognizing that an election year often results in final appropriations bills not getting enacted well until the next fiscal year, it is important that I do everything in my power to ensure a seamless transition before the FY25 bill development begins in earnest,” Granger wrote in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “I, therefore, respectfully request that as soon as possible, the GOP Steering Committee and Conference select a new Chair of the Appropriations Committee to serve out the remainder of the 118th Congress.”
Granger, who chaired the defense spending panel before becoming the Appropriations Committee chairwoman, wrote that she would remain as chair emeritus to advise and counsel colleagues.
Conversely, Gallagher — who also chairs the Armed Services Committee’s cyber and information technologies panel — announced he would resign April 19. As chairman of the China committee chairman, Gallagher championed policies to “arm Taiwan to the teeth” to deter a possible Chinese invasion, while framing the Sino-U.S. rivalry as a “new Cold War.”
“I’ve worked closely with House Republican leadership on this timeline and look forward to seeing Speaker Johnson appoint a new chair to carry out the important mission of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party,” Gallagher said in a statement.
Gallagher’s early departure will reduce the embattled House Republican majority to a one-vote margin given the resignation of Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., on Friday. Buck announced his resignation date earlier in March. The Colorado special election to replace Buck is slated for June 25.
As one of his last acts, Buck became the first — and so far only — Republican to sign a discharge petition that would force a House vote on the $95 billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which the Senate passed 70-29 in February. The discharge petition would need to gather 217 signatures for House lawmakers to force a vote on the package.
Johnson has so far refused to put the bill on the floor amid opposition to Ukraine aid from former President Donald Trump and the right flank of his caucus. Traditional Republican defense hawks like Granger and Gallagher have found themselves increasingly sidelined in the House by Trump’s America First wing of the party.
Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.
