House rebukes Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia for succession scheme

The House on Tuesday voted to publicly rebuke retiring Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., over his ploy to handpick his Democratic successor for his Chicago-area congressional seat.

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday voted to publicly rebuke retiring Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., over his ploy to handpick his Democratic successor for his Chicago-area congressional seat.

On a 236-183 vote, the House passed a resolution authored by a fellow Democrat, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, disapproving of Garcia's actions this fall, which set up his chief of staff as the sole Democrat on the primary ballot to replace him in a deep-blue district. Twenty-three Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in voting yes on the resolution.

The Garcia rebuke came shortly after the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to force the release of the government's Jeffrey Epstein files. Some Democrats lamented that the disapproval vote highlighted Democratic divisions at a time when the party is unified behind the Epstein issue.

Gluesenkamp Perez: Rep. Garcia undermined ‘process of free and fair election’01:30Garcia's succession scheme had infuriated Gluesenkamp Perez, known on the Hill as MGP, and a handful of high-profile Democrats. Her resolution accuses Garcia of "undermining the process of a free and fair election” and, in a floor speech Monday, she characterized his actions as election subversion.

The prominent Democratic strategist from the Windy City, David Axelrod, blasted Garcia's move as "Chicago machine tactics" and "election denial." And Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., a former House colleague of Garcia, labeled his actions "undemocratic."