Cathy McMorris Rodgers announces she won’t seek reelection to Congress this year

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, R‑Washington, a pow­er in the “oth­er” Wash­ing­ton, announced Thurs­day that she will retire at the end of her tenth term in Con­gress. She is leav­ing at the top of her game, cur­rent­ly chair­ing the influ­en­tial House Ener­gy and Com­merce Committee.

“It’s been the hon­or and priv­i­lege of my life to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of East­ern Wash­ing­ton in Con­gress: They inspire me every day,” McMor­ris Rodgers, fifty-four, said in a state­ment. “They are part of the strength and soul of Amer­i­ca – the great­est exper­i­ment in self-gov­er­nance the world has ever known.”

She fol­lows two oth­er top-rank­ing Repub­li­cans who are not seek­ing reelec­tion, House Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee Chair Kay Granger (R‑Texas) and House Finan­cial Ser­vices Chair Patrick McHen­ry (R‑North Carolina).

The Repub­li­can Par­ty has a ten­u­ous hold on the House, its nar­row major­i­ty hav­ing expe­ri­enced fierce infight­ing. Rebel­lious ultra MAGA mem­bers deposed House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy last fall. The par­ty may well lose con­trol of Con­gress’ low­er cham­ber in the Novem­ber election.

McMor­ris Rodgers is a con­ser­v­a­tive who has rep­re­sent­ed a con­ser­v­a­tive region of the Ever­green State. She grew up in Ket­tle Falls, attend­ed then-unac­cred­it­ed Pen­saco­la Chris­t­ian Col­lege in Flori­da, worked in her family’s orchard and fruit stand, and joined the state leg­is­la­ture by appoint­ment at the age of twen­ty-five. In Olympia, she became a vocal oppo­nent of mar­riage equal­i­ty. She vot­ed against adding “sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion” to Washington’s anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion law.

In Con­gress, McMor­ris Rodgers has repeat­ed­ly called for repeal of the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, sig­na­ture achieve­ment of the Oba­ma administration.

She has vot­ed to make deep cuts in fed­er­al food assis­tance despite rep­re­sent­ing sev­er­al of the state’s poor­est coun­ties. She has described Tik­Tok as “an imme­di­ate threat from the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty.” She backed Pres­i­dent Trump’s deci­sion to take the Unit­ed States out of the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment. She was a co-chair of Trump’s 2020 reelec­tion campaign.

As chair of Ener­gy and Com­merce, she cham­pi­oned a sweep­ing bill enti­tled the Low­er Ener­gy Costs Act. Passed on a par­ty-line vote, the leg­is­la­tion directs the U.S. Depart­ment of Inte­ri­or to sell new leas­es to drill on fed­er­al lands and in fed­er­al waters. It also elim­i­nates the Biden Administration’s methane reduc­tion pro­gram that charges pol­luters for releas­ing the green­house gas.

It was pro­nounced dead on arrival in the Senate.

Although com­ing from a dis­trict strick­en by wild­fires and heat waves, McMor­ris Rodgers has cham­pi­oned fos­sil fuel production.

Upon becom­ing com­mit­tee chair last year, she said: “The intro­duc­tion of coal, oil and nat­ur­al gas over the last sev­er­al cen­turies has improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and peo­ples’ stan­dard of liv­ing across the world.”

While serv­ing as House Minor­i­ty Leader in the Wash­ing­ton Leg­is­la­ture, McMor­ris Rodgers caught the atten­tion of for­mer Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Slade Gor­ton, who was oust­ed by Maria Cantwell in 2000. McMor­ris Rodgers won a com­pet­i­tive pri­ma­ry in 2004 and began a quick rise in Con­gress, join­ing lead­er­ship as Repub­li­can Con­fer­ence Chair. She gained nation­al atten­tion when picked to deliv­er Repub­li­cans’ response to Pres­i­dent Obama’s 2014 State of the Union speech.

Two years lat­er, McMor­ris Rodgers was a final­ist to become Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or in the Trump cab­i­net. She didn’t get the job, but became a cham­pi­on of the Trump Administration’s 2017 tax scam, which deliv­ered the bulk of its ben­e­fits to the country’s rich­est citizens.

Democ­rats mount­ed two seri­ous chal­lenges to McMor­ris Rodgers dur­ing her tenure: in 2006 with future Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Peter Gold­mark and again in 2018 with future Spokane May­or Lisa Brown. In both cycles, McMor­ris Rodgers pre­vailed, even as Repub­li­cans were los­ing con­trol of the House.

McMor­ris Rodgers has stirred con­tro­ver­sy at times. She has tak­en up the cause of civil­i­ty in pol­i­tics, preach­ing that House mem­bers should get along, while at the same time prac­tic­ing right-wing partisanship.

She has been an out­spo­ken repro­duc­tive rights oppo­nent, for years speak­ing at the annu­al March for Life in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., on the anniver­sary of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade deci­sion. She applaud­ed the Ali­to Court’s Dobbs deci­sion that over­turned Roe, allow­ing states once more to out­law abor­tion care.

Dur­ing one Spokane town hall meet­ing, CMR said Planned Par­ent­hood should be inves­ti­gat­ed and hint­ed that the orga­ni­za­tion had been sell­ing fetal tis­sue for prof­it. “We need to bet­ter under­stand what they’re doing,” she told con­stituents. “From what I’ve seen, there are ille­gal activ­i­ties in which they are involved.”

Of her ener­gy bill, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer observed: “It’s not dif­fi­cult to see that the Repub­li­can pro­pos­al is noth­ing more than a wish list for Big Oil mas­querad­ing as an ener­gy package.”

Pres­i­dent Biden described it as “a thin­ly veiled license to pol­lute” and promised a veto if the bill were to ever reach his desk.

McMor­ris Rodgers made no men­tion of her future plans, nor rea­sons for her retire­ment oth­er than to say it came after “prayers and reflection.”

She did promise to serve her con­stituents “in new ways.” The announce­ment came as a sur­prise, since McMor­ris Rodgers was tapped to nom­i­nate Louisiana Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike John­son to become Speak­er of the House.

Washington’s 5th Dis­trict is solid­ly Repub­li­can ter­ri­to­ry, and has been for thir­ty years since the 1994 defeat of Speak­er Tom Foley, last Demo­c­rat to hold the seat.

Democ­rats hope McMor­ris Rodgers’ retire­ment gives them an opening.

“At every turn, Cathy has turned her back on the needs of work­ing peo­ple, repro­duc­tive rights, and refused to pro­tect clean air, clean water, and a sus­tain­able cli­mate,” said Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Chair Shasti Conrad.

“I look for­ward to work­ing with the peo­ple of the 5th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict to elect some­one who shares their val­ues of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and per­son­al free­doms. Cathy was the lone Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can to vote against the impeach­ment of for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump for his incite­ment of insur­rec­tion and is a strong ally of cur­rent MAGA Speak­er of the House Mike John­son. Her brand of leg­isla­tive chaos will not be missed in our state’s con­gres­sion­al delegation.”

McMor­ris Rodgers is the sec­ond mem­ber of Washington’s del­e­ga­tion to be leav­ing Con­gress this cycle. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer is also depart­ing the House, hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed the 6th Dis­trict since 2013.