Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez succeeded in her effort to reprimand her retiring Democratic colleague, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, for carrying out a clever paperwork scheme to essentially clear the primary field for his chief of staff, who is currently running to replace him.
A procedural vote on the largely symbolic measure led to an ugly round of Democratic infighting Monday night, after Gluesenkamp Perez and Rep. Jared Golden of Maine crossed party lines to join with nearly all House Republicans to tee up a final vote on the measure.
The final vote was 217-210 on Tuesday, with 23 Democrats voting to denounce García’s paperwork maneuver.
García earlier this month announced his retirement plans — the same day as the candidate filing deadline — saying he had been urged by both his doctor and his wife to step away from politics due to health issues and family obligations.
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He had filed for reelection on Oct. 27, but withdrew it the day of the filing deadline at the same time his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, filed her petition for candidacy — guaranteeing that other candidates could not enter the race after his withdrawal.
The two are not related.
Ahead of the vote Tuesday, Rep. García’s office sent out a Dear Colleague letter urging House Democrats to vote against Gluesenkamp Perez’s resolution of disapproval.
“As many of you now know, I submitted petitions for next year’s election fully expecting to run. However, in the days before the filing deadline, my wife received the news that the MS she has been fighting for several years is getting worse. Meanwhile, I was told by a cardiologist to take it easy — or else,” García wrote in the letter, which was obtained by NOTUS.
“We received this bad health news as we were finalizing the adoption of one of our grandsons, who had been orphaned when my daughter passed away in 2023. Weighing these difficult health and family circumstances, I decided to retire,” he continued.
In the letter, the congressman added that he and his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, are not related and that he “did not circulate petitions for any Congressional campaign except my own.”
“Anyone, at any time before the filing deadline could have collected petitions and filed to run. Which is exactly what several candidates did, one of whom filed as a Republican and the other with the Working Class Party,” he added, referring to Lupe Castillo and Ed Hershey.
Rep. García had told the Chicago Sun-Times that his organization collected around 2,500 signatures for Patty Garcia. A person familiar with the matter told NOTUS that that did not contradict what the congressman said about signatures in his Dear Colleague letter because the congressman himself did not collect signatures, “people in his coalition” did.
On Monday night, Rep. García categorically denied helping his chief of staff with her petition — though Politico reported Tuesday morning that the lawmaker was Patty Garcia’s first signature, days before he announced his decision to retire.
In a post to X ahead of the vote, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that the way Rep. García went about choosing his replacement should first go before the House Ethics Committee before a vote is held by the full body.
“The House has an investigatory structure for this for a reason. If there was a complaint filed with Ethics or an investigation buried and then ignored, I’d understand. But that’s not the case here,” Ocasio-Cortez posted.
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