Mike Gallagher’s departure is a bad sign for democracy

U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher was a rising star in the Wisconsin Republican Party before Feb. 10, when he suddenly announced his plans to retire.

Heavily recruited to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, he was seen by top Republican strategists as “their best shot to block Baldwin for a third term,” according to Politico.

In a closely divided purple state, Gallagher looked like the rare Republican who could break out beyond the hardcore base and match Baldwin’s strength — garnering bipartisan support to win statewide elections. Young, friendly, a Marine Corps veteran with a forthright style and a reputation for seeking bipartisan consensus as the chair of a committee investigating China, Gallagher was widely perceived as the face of the Wisconsin Republican Party’s future.

But that was before last week’s failed vote to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — a political stunt Gallagher refused to join. He enraged his pro-Trump colleagues with his sensible rejection of their effort to pin the entire broken U.S. immigration system on Mayorkas. He knew Mayorkas had been working on the bipartisan border security deal with Republicans before they reversed course and shot the whole thing down at the behest of former President Donald Trump, who wants to use border security as a wedge issue in the 2024 election. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he explained why he didn’t believe in pursuing impeachment efforts aimed at “maladministration.” While repeating his party’s hawkish talking points on immigration, he pointed out that none of their complaints against Mayorkas rose to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Gallagher’s refusal to go along sank the impeachment effort, which lost by a single vote. Immediately, MAGA political consultant Alex Bruesewitz announced he was launching a primary challenge against Gallagher.

Gallagher denies there is any relationship between the challenge from the right and his decision to leave Congress. But all of the Republican candidates who immediately expressed interest in running for his seat are Trump loyalists.

Gallagher is no progressive. He supported the U.S. Supreme Court decision ending federally protected abortion rights, saying “the power to make abortion law should have always rested with elected officials,” and he has avoided stating his position on a national abortion ban. He was a staunch opponent of President Joe Biden’s efforts to help Americans struggling with student loan debt.

His district in northeast Wisconsin, while heavily Republican, is also home to increasingly Democratic Green Bay and Democrats had been considering mounting a serious challenge there for the first time in years, specifically focusing on the abortion issue, with OB-GYN Dr. Kristin Lyerly considering a run against Gallagher. When Gallagher stepped down, state Democrats put out a statement saying they “look forward to competing in the 8th and bringing some stability and competence back to the House.”

We’ll see how that goes — and whether the national Democratic Party decides to invest money in even more winnable House seats including the 3rd Congressional District in Wisconsin, which it failed to do last time around.

But the upshot of Gallagher’s departure is that Wisconsin is losing a voice of sanity within the increasingly Trump-captured Republican Party.

That’s bad news. Gallagher’s rejection of the Jan. 6 insurrection, which he memorably referred to as “banana republic crap,” was an important moment of truth and courage in a time of dangerous political cowardice.

Although he ultimately voted against impeaching Trump (and was accused by former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), a member of the select committee that investigated Jan. 6, of acting out of fear that a vote to impeach would ruin his chances of being reelected) Gallagher called out his colleagues who were spreading the Big Lie.

In a forceful video he posted while locked in his office during the Capitol attack, Gallagher addressed the Republican members of Congress who objected to certifying the 2020 presidential election.

“The objectors, over the last two days, have told me there is no problem having a debate: ‘We know we’re not going to succeed. So we’re just going to object. We’re going to have a debate,’” Gallagher said in the video, adding that other Republicans claimed, “There will be no cost to this effort.”

“This is the cost of this effort!” he declared, as protesters stormed the halls outside his office, clashing with Capitol Police, while Vice President Mike Pence was hustled to safety. “This is the cost of countenancing an effort by Congress to overturn the election and telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot of overturning the election today, even though you know that is not true,” Gallagher said.

He called on Trump to stop the insurrection. “Call it off,” he said. “This is bigger than you. It is bigger than any member of Congress. It is about the United States of America, which is more important than any politician.”

We are going to miss having a Republican member of Congress who still believes that.

This column was originally published in the Wisconsin Examiner.