The Chuy Garcia Rebuke Shouldn’t Tear Democrats Apart
The fact that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to fight one another is sometimes described as a sign of vitality, particularly as compared to the enforced unanimity of the Trump-era GOP (give or take an MTG or Thomas Massie). But sometimes, fairly personal disputes are blown up into factional battles that really don’t merit an ideological interpretation. That seems to be the case with the vote of disapproval in the House yesterday for veteran congressman Chuy Garcia of Illinois.
Garcia recently chose to retire from the House due to distressing family and medical concerns, but he timed his announcement so close to the candidate filing deadline for the 2026 Democratic primary that only one would-be successor, his chief of staff, Patty Garcia (no relation to her boss), was able to file. This political-machine–type maneuver drew the attention of Washington Democratic congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who sponsored a resolution of disapproval aimed at Chuy Garcia. House Republicans were happy to come to her assistance and joined Gluesenkamp Perez and fellow habitual renegade Jared Golden on a procedural vote to table the resolution. On Tuesday, the House formally rebuked Garcia, with 23 Democrats joining their GOP colleagues.
What made the vote and the debate surrounding it fractious and emotional was Garcia’s history as a progressive icon and a Latino spokesman, along with MGP’s (and also Golden’s) status as lawmakers on the rightward boundary of acceptable Democratic opinion (both were among the six House Democrats who voted to reopen the federal government last week). The fact that it was a Democrat who brought this up, and that Garcia’s conduct was by all accounts legal, enraged more than a few House Democrats. Former House Democratic leadership fixture Steny Hoyer commented, “If we voted every day on if we didn’t like something a member did, I think we would be voting every day on only that.” It didn’t help that the vote came immediately after the near-unanimous House vote to force disclosure of the Epstein files, a big moment in the eyes of many Democrats.
But 21 other Democrats joined MGP and Golden on the actual disapproval vote, largely because of the unsavory aroma of Garcia’s maneuver, which he claimed was a last-minute decision, not a plan. They weren’t the only Democrats unhappy with the Chicagoan, as NBC News reported:
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.”
If House Democrats kiss and make up or simply retreat to their factional corners, perhaps this incident will fade from memory soon. But the habit of turning this sort of personal fracas into a “struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party” is just sad. If that’s the situation, it’s a pretty soulless party.