A GOP congresswoman announced Monday that she will refuse to sit on committees or participate in the Republican caucus next year to avoid the “circuses” of her own party.
While she waits on GOP leadership to prove it is capable of “governing,“ Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) said she will instead focus on helping Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s efforts to take a chainsaw to federal government spending.
“I will stay as a registered Republican but will not sit on committees or participate in the caucus until I see that Republican leadership in Congress is governing,” she wrote, in a post on X. “I do not need to be involved in circuses. I would rather spend more of my time helping [the Musk and Ramaswamy-led Department of Government Efficiency] and [Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)] to save our Republic, as was mandated by the American people.”
Spartz, aligning herself with the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus, said earlier Monday that she supported the group’s proposal to immediately move forward on President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to crack down on immigration and deport migrants before addressing other issues like taxation and energy.
Republican members of the House and Senate have already begun to clash on how they should enact legislation in line with Trump’s proposed policies, with some arguing for a more sweeping reconciliation bill that would tackle multiple priorities at once.
Spartz’s decision to eschew the traditional work of a party representative—or “skip a member’s most important work,“ in the words of Western Connecticut State University political historian Kevin Gutzman—could impact the razor-thin lead Republicans hold over Democrats in the lower chamber.
Politico reported that some Republicans were outright confused by her decision, while others were relieved because she apparently talks too much during internal GOP meetings. Her decision may have related to being snubbed for a post on the House Ways and Means Committee, the news outlet said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
It is unclear how she plans to work with Musk and Ramaswamy’s DOGE, which will have a House subcommittee of its own—quarterbacked by Trump loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—underneath the Oversight Committee.
DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, is a planned advisory commission that Trump has said he will convene to advise him on how to slash public expenditures.
Musk has pledged to find as much as $2 trillion in spending to be cut—which economists and experts have dismissed—while Ramaswamy has mused about “deleting” entire government agencies.
Spartz, meanwhile, has had trouble keeping her office staffed, with turnover of 3.5 times the 2024 House average, according to congressional database Legistorm. Earlier this year, she reportedly faced allegations of staff abuse at the House Ethics Committee. A campaign adviser denied Spartz had been contacted by the panel’s staff.
The congresswoman was also subject to a misdemeanor charge after bringing an unloaded gun in her carry on luggage to Washington’s Dulles International Airport in July. Her office said the gun had been in her bag “accidentally.”
