WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday voted to publicly rebuke retiring Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., over his ploy to handpick his Democratic successor for his Chicago-area congressional seat.
On a 236-183 vote, the House passed a resolution authored by a fellow Democrat, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, disapproving of Garcia's actions this fall, which set up his chief of staff as the sole Democrat on the primary ballot to replace him in a deep-blue district. Twenty-three Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in voting yes on the resolution.
The Garcia rebuke came shortly after the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to force the release of the government's Jeffrey Epstein files. Some Democrats lamented that the disapproval vote highlighted Democratic divisions at a time when the party is unified behind the Epstein issue.
Garcia's succession scheme had infuriated Gluesenkamp Perez, known on the Hill as MGP, and a handful of high-profile Democrats. Her resolution accuses Garcia of "undermining the process of a free and fair election” and, in a floor speech Monday, she characterized his actions as election subversion.
The prominent Democratic strategist from the Windy City, David Axelrod, blasted Garcia's move as "Chicago machine tactics" and "election denial." And Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., a former House colleague of Garcia, labeled his actions "undemocratic."
This fall, Garcia filed paperwork to run for re-election in 2026, then announced he was retiring after the filing deadline. Meanwhile, his own campaign operation had quietly begun collecting signatures for his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, to qualify for the ballot, he later told the Chicago Sun-Times. Patty Garcia filed her own paperwork to run for her boss's seat just hours before that same Nov. 3 deadline, ensuring that she would be the only Democrat on the ballot.
The two are not related.
Garcia has publicly acknowledged that he set the stage for his top aide to run for his seat but noted that what he and his chief did was legal. He has also said a series of recent setbacks caused him and his wife to re-evaluate his re-election bid after he had filed paperwork to run again.
Garcia, 69, said he had a conversation with his cardiologist, who told him his life was at risk unless he got serious about his health. Then his wife of nearly 50 years told him the next day that she didn’t want him to run; she has had multiple sclerosis for 15 years and her condition is deteriorating. Their daughter died two years ago, leaving four children behind, and they just completed the adoption of one of them, an 8-year-old boy, he said.
On Monday night, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip, offered a motion to table Gluesenkamp Perez’s resolution, which would have effectively killed it. But the motion was defeated 206-211, with Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, joining Gluesenkamp Perez in voting to keep the resolution alive.
After that vote, Gluesenkamp Perez debated Democrats who support Garcia.
“And the question at hand is, do we condone a subversion of an election because it is playing by the rules?” she said on the House floor. “That’s not what we’re here to do.”
Garcia rose to defend himself, saying he “wasn’t expecting to stand here to debate my retirement.”
The Illinois Democrat said he “decided that it was time to dedicate more of my time to the people who have sacrificed the most,” rattling off the names of his wife, children and grandchildren.
Gluesenkamp Perez responded: “I feel deeply for the sacrifice that it’s taken him to serve his community. That does not legitimize the way in which he left his seat and choosing his successor and refusing to be forthright with his constituents.”
