The House on Tuesday officially rebuked Representative Jesús García, Democrat of Illinois, for maneuvering to hand-select his successor, as nearly two dozen House Democrats broke with their party to back a measure that prompted a bitter intraparty spat.
The vote was 236 to 183 to pass a resolution by Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, that called the behavior of Mr. García “beneath the dignity of his office and incompatible with the spirit of the United States Constitution.”
The measure was a rare instance of a lawmaker spearheading an effort to formally condemn a member of her own party, and it opened an angry rift among House Democrats. Most of them denounced Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez for introducing it, arguing that she was dividing their caucus at a time when they needed to focus their attacks on President Trump.
But 22 of them crossed party lines to join Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez in support of her resolution. Another three Democrats voted present, declining to register a position.
The measure is symbolic and will not affect Mr. García’s standing in the House. But Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez maintained that Mr. García’s actions could not go without reprimand, and urged her colleagues to look beyond party loyalty and recognize his conduct as “election subversion.”
At issue was the timing of the announcement this month by Mr. García, known as Chuy, that he would be retiring from Congress after three terms. Mr. García, 69, had submitted paperwork to run for re-election in 2026, and no other Democrat had filed to run against him. Only after the Nov. 5 filing deadline in the race did he announce that he actually planned to retire, not run again. By that time, his chief of staff, Patty García, who is not related to him but knew of his plans, had submitted her name for the ballot, the only Democrat to do so in time to run for the Chicago-area district that is all but certain to elect a Democrat.
“If you’re not going to run, you don’t get to choose your successor, no matter how noble the work you have done beforehand,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez said on Monday during initial debate on the resolution, as fellow Democrats booed and scoffed.
Mr. García denied wrongdoing.
“I followed the rules of Illinois and its election law,” he said during the floor debate, backed by fellow Democrats, who shook his hand and offered words of encouragement and applause. He said personal considerations had driven the timing of his announcement.
“As I looked ahead, I had to be honest about what the next term would demand, and what my family needed,” Mr. García said. “I saw the big picture: supporting my wife as she managed her illness, taking better care of my own health and being present for the grandson that we just adopted two weeks ago.”
But he told The Chicago Sun-Times, his hometown paper, about how he orchestrated the handoff, even helping Ms. García to quietly collect enough signatures to qualify to run.
Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez said that amounted to election manipulation. Democratic leaders tried and failed on Monday to kill the resolution.
Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez represents a district that Mr. Trump won three times. She has made a name for herself by going against her party, criticizing Democrats for dismissing working-class voters. She has also called for cognitive standards for members of Congress, contending that aging members who stay in office even as they suffer mental decline weaken public trust in Congress.
She warned her fellow Democrats that failure to condemn Mr. García’s actions would similarly wear away at the integrity of the legislative branch.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the culture of D.C., of political complacency, or believing that your opponents are so broken that the ends justify the means,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez said. “But you cannot win the right to represent people through subversion. All you do is engender distrust in the government and apathy in citizens of this great country.”
Still, the majority of Democrats said her resolution was a divisive distraction at a time when the party should be focusing on projecting a united front against Mr. Trump.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called Mr. García “a progressive champion in disenfranchised communities for decades, including during his time in Congress,” and said he had “made life better for the American people.”
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said it “stands firmly” with Mr. García, who is a member. And on the House floor, Democrats praised Mr. García for standing up to the Trump administration as Border Patrol agents descended on Chicago. They dismissed the resolution, calling it a character assassination.
“He fights for not just everyone in his district, but for people across this country, because he is a man of principle and he is a man of morals,” said Representative Becca Balint, Democrat of Vermont. “And it is so disheartening to see his name dragged through the mud.”
Mr. García is not the only lawmaker to orchestrate a succession plan for his congressional seat. Last year, Representative Bill Posey, Republican of Florida, opted not to seek re-election just before the primary filing deadline and endorsed Mike Haridopolos, who went on to win the seat.
Megan Mineiro is a Times congressional reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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