‘Unfortunate’

GOP Women Lose Ground as House Chairs Set to Be All-Male

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said it’s “unfortunate” that no women have so far been selected.

It seems that leadership of House committees will be dominated by men for the first time in almost a decade, Bloomberg Government reports. While Republicans are still selecting their picks for chairmen for the 119th Congress, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) called the so far largely male-dominated choice “unfortunate.” “We’ve never been the party that was about checking boxes or identity politics,” she continued. “But the difference is we have women that are qualified to be chairs, and I don’t know why there wasn’t one who was able to become a chairperson of a committee.” After Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) lost the Foreign Affairs chairmanship to Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), Bloomberg writes that there’s “virtually no avenue” for a Republican female committee leader to make it to leadership roles. Two women in some of the party’s highest-ranking committee chairs, Energy and Commerce Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Education and Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), are respectively retiring and nearing their term limit.