In
a sign of mounting frustration among Republicans in Washington,
Representative Pat Tiberi of Ohio, a senior lawmaker with close ties to
his party’s leaders, is expected to resign and take up an executive post
with a business group in his home state, according to three Republicans
briefed on his plans.
An abrupt departure by Mr. Tiberi, who is an influential member of the House Ways and Means Committee, would signal a deepening level of discontent
among mainstream Republicans in Congress. Despite holding Congress and
the White House, Republicans have so far failed to achieve longstanding
policy goals like overhauling the tax code and repealing the Affordable
Care Act.
Mr.
Tiberi, 54, could announce his plan to leave Congress as soon as this
week, Republican officials said, though it is unclear when he intends to
vacate his seat. Two Republicans who were briefed on Mr. Tiberi’s
decision said he had indicated that he plans to join the Ohio Business
Roundtable, a business consortium that announced this summer that it was searching for a new president.
Mr.
Tiberi did not respond to a phone call or a text message seeking
comment on Wednesday night. But some of Mr. Tiberi’s colleagues said
that the grind of their jobs had gotten no better since Donald J.
Trump’s election last year, giving Republicans full control of
Washington.
“This
is a harder life in terms of being away from home and putting up with
the pace and the public battering that one sometimes must endure,” said
Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “And no raises in a
decade is hard on many members with families.”
A series of long-tenured Republicans have announced plans to leave Congress in recent months, including Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee
and some of Mr. Tiberi’s House colleagues, including Charlie Dent of
Pennsylvania, Dave Reichert of Washington State and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
of Florida. In most cases, they have voiced exasperation with
dysfunction in Washington and their party’s inability to deliver major
legislative victories, at times fuming at Mr. Trump for undermining
policy making in Congress.
Mr.
Tiberi, however, would be a particularly striking congressional
refugee. He was a close ally of John A. Boehner, the former House
speaker, and had considered challenging Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat
of Ohio, next year. Mr. Tiberi, who was first elected in 2000, had more
than $6.6 million in his re-election account as of the start of the
month.
Despite
losing a contest for the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee —
the job went to Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas — Mr.
Tiberi has remained a senior member of the powerful tax-writing panel.
A
sudden resignation would prompt a special election for Mr. Tiberi’s
seat, in a solidly Republican district outside of Columbus, the state
capital.
Several
other Republicans have headed for the exit since the summer, including
Representative Dave Trott of Michigan, a junior lawmaker who expressed
disgust at the state of play in Washington, and Tim Murphy of
Pennsylvania, who resigned this month after it was revealed that he had an extramarital affair with a woman whom he urged to have an abortion.
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