About that 46th House retirement

Mar 27, 2024

With assists from POLITICO’s Congress team

Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.).

Despite reports that the 67-year-old Annie Kuster is leaving because of the dysfunction, she said in the interview she had planned to leave Congress before her 70th birthday. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP

KUSTER’S LAST DANCE

There’s at least one lawmaker quitting Congress for normal reasons and not due to the House’s state of constant pandemonium.

Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) on Wednesday became the 46th House member to announce this would be their last term in the chamber (shoutout to the press gallery’s so-called “casualty list”). In an interview with us, she said she didn’t want her decision to not run for reelection to be lumped in with the deluge of members quitting Congress during the last chaotic 14 months.

That’s not the main reason, anyway. Despite reports that the 67-year-old Kuster is leaving because of the dysfunction, she said in the interview she had planned to leave Congress before her 70th birthday.

“For me, it's time. I always said I wasn't going to be there forever. And it's not even related solely to the dysfunction at this Congress,” Kuster said.

On Ukraine aid and the motion to vacate: Despite the gridlock of this Congress — and an upcoming ouster threat against Speaker Mike Johnson by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — Kuster was hopeful about the possibility of a foreign aid package, including cash for Ukraine, finally coming to the House floor.

“I had a great conversation with Speaker Johnson last week about bringing the Ukraine bill to the floor right after the break,” Kuster said. “I said: ‘We're the ones that vote with you when you get anything done.’ And it's basically where we stand right now.”

“I think that [Johnson] will realize she's a paper tiger. She doesn't have the votes to push him out of the speakership,” she said of Greene. Democrats have hinted that they might help Johnson in such a vote, particularly if he grants a floor vote on Ukraine aid.

Despite that potential bipartisan olive branch, Kuster said she plans to use her remaining months in Congress to try to flip back the House. Her own retirement could be a point that makes that slightly more difficult, since her bluish seat isn’t a guaranteed win for Democrats.

Still, Kuster said she’s not worried and believed the late news of her retirement had “caught the Republicans unaware.” And she hinted that she knows who’s going to run in her place: “It's someone from Team Kuster way back.”

As she’d been gearing up for her own reelection while juggling her electoral efforts for the centrist New Democrat coalition and its political arm, she said she “suddenly realized, I can't be in two places at once.

“This is a critical moment in our national history. And I want to be there for that. I want to leave everything on the field and elect Hakeem Jeffries the speaker and Katherine Clark as the majority leader,” she said.

On a more fun note: We asked Kuster what she’s going to do in January 2025 when she’s finally done with Congress. She replied: “Go skiing.”

— Nicholas Wu and Daniella Diaz

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GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Wednesday, March 27, where we are vibing to the rave music Andy Ogles (or his team) remixed into his Fox Business hit.

COLE CLINCHES CARDINAL SUPPORT

Almost every single top House Republican appropriator is throwing their support behind Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to succeed House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas), who announced plans last week to give up her gavel early.

Every so-called cardinal — with the exception of Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), who’s considering his own bid for the gavel — have signed onto a recent letter endorsing Cole for the job.

While Aderholt hasn't officially said he's running, he distinguished himself from his GOP colleagues by voting against the spending package last week. He said it was due to his opposition to earmarks tucked in by Senate Democrats, saying they would flow to abortion-related services, among other areas.

Conservatives have not formally mounted any opposition to Cole’s bid for the appropriations gavel, with some seeing it as pretty much inevitable.

In their letter, the cardinals say Cole has been an “impactful leader” on the committee, currently serving as vice chair. He also has experience leading the Labor-HHS-Education, Transportation-HUD and Legislative Branch subcommittees, in addition to a long tenure on the Defense spending panel.

Cole “has always been a trustworthy team player within our conference,” they write. “We always know that we can depend on Chairman Cole to show up for important votes and provide counsel to those who seek it.”

— Caitlin Emma, with an assist from Olivia Beavers

NRCC: DRAWING CONCLUSIONS FROM ALABAMA SPECIAL ELEX IS ‘ABSURD’

House Republicans’ campaign arm doesn’t think what happened in Alabama Tuesday — Democrat Marilyn Lands flipping a State House seat after campaigning on access to women’s reproductive rights — is a warning headed into November.

“Drawing broader conclusions from a low turnout special election for a state representative seat is absurd,” National Republican Congressional Committee National press secretary Will Reinert said in a statement Wednesday.

The election was closely watched due to the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent controversial decision on in-vitro fertilization, an issue Lands emphasized alongside abortion rights in her campaign. The district she won was narrowly carried by former President Donald Trump in 2020.

Democrats are expected to continue tying IVF into broader reproductive rights themes headed into November, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee signaled as much in a Wednesday statement. Spokesperson Viet Shelton said GOP positions on the issue are “unpopular with the American people.”

“And their extreme anti-freedom policy is going to cost them the House Majority,” Shelton said.

— Daniella Diaz

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CLUB FOR GROWTH’S TRUMP ALIGNMENT

The influential Club for Growth is endorsing Brian Jack, a close ally and former political aide to Donald Trump who is running for an open congressional seat in west-central Georgia.

That endorsement is the latest move in the growing rapprochement between the former president and the conservative anti-tax group after they spent much of the last year at odds. Both also aligned in the Ohio Senate GOP primary, with the Club backing Bernie Moreno after Trump did.

— Ally Mutnick

HUDDLE HOTDISH

Stumpy content has gone too far.

Fox News mistakenly labeled John Fetterman as a Republican.

In honor of Kuster saying she’s not running for reelection, here’s a fun SNL parody of her.

QUICK LINKS

Living abroad, Jim McDermott finds his liberal utopia, from Ariel Cohen at Roll Call

He's just Ken: Ex-Rep. Buck talks Boebert and his Freedom Caucus firing, from Olivia Beavers

Threats against politicans are prevalent. The FEC wants to let campaigns pay for security, from Zach Montellaro

TRANSITIONS

Mollie Timmons is joining the American Petroleum Institute as comms manager. She previously was comms director for Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), and is a Rob Portman alum.

Alex Howard is now an assistant press secretary at DHS. He most recently founded Alpha Hotel, a strategic comms firm, and is an AT&T and Bloomberg Industry Group alum.

TOMORROW IN CONGRESS

The House is out.

The Senate will convene a pro forma session at 10 a.m.

THURSDAY AROUND THE HILL

Quiet.

TRIVIA

TUESDAY’S ANSWER: Ben Howard was the first to correctly guess that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first sitting U.S. president to fly in an airplane.

TODAY’S QUESTION, from Ben: What did Franklin D. Roosevelt establish as “Shangri-La” and where did he get the inspiration from?

The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@politico.com.

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