Meanwhile, I’m hearing that female House Republicans are livid after the House G.O.P. steering committee voted on its preferences to chair the big, exclusive committees. There’s not a woman to be found among the gavel-winners. A particular sore spot is Missouri’s Ann Wagner, who lost her bid to become Foreign Affairs chair to Florida’s Brian Mast.
While it’s too early to call this a total shutout—Virginia Foxx is still in contention for the gavel at Rules—the retrograde development got lots of ink in the morning newsletters. Barbara Comstock, a former House Republican member and Trump critic, posted on X, “Very Fitting in the MAGA Era—No Women Need Apply.”
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House Republicans have suffered the loss of formidable women in recent years. Up-and-coming Republican women lost reelection—that’s how Comstock, who was one of the more politically astute female members, left, as did Orange County’s Mimi Walters in 2018 and Michelle Steel this year. Republicans also ejected two of their most prominent female members—Liz Cheney and Jaime Herrera Beutler—for voting to impeach Trump after the insurrection.
More are on the way out. Energy & Commerce chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is retiring, along with Kay Granger, who already gave up her Appropriations gavel earlier this term. Elise Stefanik, the House’s No. 4 Republican, is headed to Turtle Bay pending confirmation as Trump’s U.N. ambassador.
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None of this is a new problem for House Republicans. The gavel blackout is a downstream effect of 20 years of party recruitment practice. (Rep. Wagner was a huge proponent of offering support to G.O.P. women 10 years ago, which had mixed results.) It simply boils down to this: The many, many earnest attempts to create a Republican counterpart to EMILY’s List pale in comparison to the Democratic women’s group and its strength in the Democratic Party. It’s long been the case that when EMILY’s List gets involved in a Democratic primary, it should be assumed that its endorsed candidate is a serious player, if not the outright frontrunner. For a sense of scale, Democrats this term boast 93 female House members, or nearly half of their caucus. Republicans have 34.
