{"id":15596,"date":"2025-11-13T01:01:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T01:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/fellow-democrat-takes-aim-at-chuy-garcias-undemocratic-retirement-gambit\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T01:01:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T01:01:46","slug":"fellow-democrat-takes-aim-at-chuy-garcias-undemocratic-retirement-gambit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/fellow-democrat-takes-aim-at-chuy-garcias-undemocratic-retirement-gambit\/","title":{"rendered":"Fellow Democrat takes aim at Chuy Garc\u00eda\u2019s ‘undemocratic’ retirement gambit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A fellow Democrat moved to sanction Illinois Rep. Chuy Garc\u00eda Wednesday for a gambit in which he retired and functionally guaranteed<\/a> that his chief of staff would be the only Democrat on the ballot to succeed him.<\/p>\n

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington went to the House floor as lawmakers prepared to debate legislation reopening the government to introduce a resolution accusing Garc\u00eda of \u201cundermining the process of a free and fair election\u201d and calling on the House to disapprove of his behavior.<\/p>\n

Gluesenkamp Perez read her resolution aloud in its entirety, which calls Garc\u00eda\u2019s maneuver \u201cbeneath the dignity of his office and incompatible with the spirit of the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Garc\u00eda did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

A seemingly angry House Minority Whip Katherine Clark was seen making an impassioned case to Gluesenkamp Perez on the floor before she sought recognition and offered her resolution. She then spoke with Perez after she had finished.<\/p>\n

Other Democrats reacted to the move with confusion and some hand-wringing about her decision to sow party disunity amid a big legislative moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are other ways to handle it, and I don\u2019t think this is the best moment if it\u2019s something you feel compelled to do,\u201d said Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.). \u201cWe’re in a messaging battle for all Americans right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gluesenkamp Perez\u2019s resolution has special standing because it was offered as a \u201cquestion of privileges of the House\u201d and could see action in the House next week.<\/p>\n

In her two terms on Capitol Hill representing one of the most swingy congressional districts in the country, Gluesenkamp Perez has made a name for herself by going against the grain. Earlier this year, she called for the new ethics standards to ensure that lawmakers were able to do their jobs \u201cunimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gluesenkamp Perez, in a statement, slammed Garc\u00eda\u2019s move as \u201cfundamentally undemocratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans bled and died to secure the right to elect their leaders. We can\u2019t expect to be taken seriously in the fight for free and fair elections if we turn a blind eye to election denial on our side of the aisle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fellow Democrat moved to sanction Illinois Rep. Chuy Garc\u00eda Wednesday for a gambit in which he retired and functionally guaranteed that his chief of staff would be the only Democrat on the ballot to succeed him. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington went to the House floor as lawmakers prepared to debate legislation reopening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}