Jago Times "English Edition" Best Online Newspaper
WASHINGTON — A low-level House leadership position is suddenly the hottest open job on Capitol Hill after the previous occupant landed a massive promotion.
Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elevated Wednesday from vice chair of the Republican conference all the way up to speaker, second in the line of succession to the president.
One of those seeking to take his old spot is Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Irving.
Republicans from across the party’s ideological spectrum coalesced around Johnson after nominating three other candidates, two of them with much higher ranks in leadership and the third the chairman of a powerful committee. None could achieve the near-unanimity needed given the party’s razor-thin majority.
Van Duyne was elected to Congress in 2020, defeating Democrat Candace Valenzuela.
“I was a homeless teen who paid my own way through college (ultimately paying off student debt) before becoming a young mother who fought insurance companies and bureaucratic red tape to get my daughter the surgeries she needed,” Van Duyne wrote.
She also touted her experience working in the private sector as a communications professional with clients that included Fortune 500 businesses.
Van Duyne served on the Irving City Council from 2004 to 2010 and as mayor from 2011 to 2017.
During that time Van Duyne stirred controversies that made national news, taking strong positions against Sharia law and sanctuary cities for unauthorized immigrants. At one point she asked state lawmakers to investigate the legality of an Islamic tribunal in North Texas.
Critics slammed her as intolerant, but the attention put her on the conservative radar.
President Donald Trump tapped her to be regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2017.
She was one of the 16 Texas Republicans in the U.S. House who voted not to certify all of President Joe Biden’s electors, though unlike the others, she split her votes, agreeing to count Arizona’s electoral votes but objecting to Pennsylvania’s.
She wrote in her pitch letter for vice chair that she “reduced illegal immigration” in Irving and made it one of the safest cities in the country.
House Republicans could pick a new vice chair of their conference as soon as next week. The contest could draw upwards of a dozen candidates.
Another contender is Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri, who was handing out glossy campaign push cards promoting his bid during Thursday’s House floor votes.
His materials touted his decades of on-camera experience as a television journalist, which included his time as a weekend anchor and reporter at KPRC in Houston in the 1990′s.
In her pitch letter, Van Duyne highlighted a large job fair she organized with other members from North Texas that connected 16,000 job seekers with hundreds of businesses.
“I hope to use my hard-fought experiences and my professional background to bring a perspective that expands our reach and helps empower more Americans to understand there are better, more prosperous ways to live their lives than what is offered by the Democrats,” she wrote.