House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has a new issue on his hands for the next Congress, according to a report Monday — who to put in charge of the House Rules Committee.
And it's going to force him to navigate a fine line between the seniority of GOP leadership and gender politics.
All of this comes at a moment when the House GOP is facing one of its most razor-thin majorities in history, likely to face significant dissension over how best to pass President-elect Donald Trump's agenda — and how even smaller issues like whether to release a major ethics report on a resigned congressman have caused turmoil.
The Rules Committee has a massive influence on how legislation advances through the House, and there are a number of potential candidates, the report continued.
The most likely choice at the moment appears to be Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), "the outgoing chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and a senior member of the House Republican conference. The North Carolina lawmaker, known for her no-nonsense demeanor, told The Hill she informed Johnson about her interest, and he had a 'positive' reception."
She is perhaps best known for yelling "shut up" at a reporter who tried to ask a GOP press conference about attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
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But other candidates have been trying to push for the seat, including prominent Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy (R-TX), who has often been a thorn in the Rules Committee's side for voting down key measures, but promises he would not do this as chair; second-most senior member Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), a former chair of the committee who is billing himself as able to bridge the gap between the often-combative Freedom Caucus and leadership.
There's another complication on top of trying to balance all these competing claims to the chair, the report continued: "House Republicans are poised to have no female committee chairs in the 119th Congress after Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO.) lost to Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) in the race to be chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee ... That dynamic could benefit Foxx or Fischbach who, if selected as Rules chair, would dispel the appearance of an all-male committee chair roster."
Johnson appears to be aware of this, the report noted, as he "hinted at a potential female selection earlier this week when asked about the absence of any women in top committee posts."