Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) announced that he will not seek reelection on Saturday, becoming the latest Republican to opt out of running again.
Gallagher, who currently leads the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said he would be exiting public life for the private sector. His new career will coincide with the national security and defense policies that he made the focus of his congressional tenure.
“Eight years ago, when I first ran for Congress, I promised to treat my time in office as a high-intensity deployment,” Gallagher said in a statement. “Through my bipartisan work on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, chairing the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and chairing the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, we’ve accomplished more on this deployment than I could have ever imagined.”
He continued: “But the Framers intended citizens to serve in Congress for a season and then return to their private lives. Electoral politics was never supposed to be a career and, trust me, Congress is no place to grow old. And so, with a heavy heart, I have decided not to run for re-election.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Gallagher said his exit aligns with his advocacy for term limits in Congress, claiming that a career in politics was not what the founding fathers had intended. But he will remain active in defense and foreign policy.
The 39-year-old congressman was first elected to Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District in 2016. After just four terms, the congressman made waves as an up-and-coming conservative who was even considered a strong contender for the United States Senate. He was also the youngest committee chairman in recent history.
