California Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa died at 65 after 13 years in the House, House leaders announced Tuesday, bringing the House GOP majority to 218-213.
LaMalfa, who served on the Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Transportation Committees, was in the California state assembly and Senate before being elected to the House in 2012. His unexpected death narrows Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) House majority, which fell earlier this week to 219-213 when leadership critic ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) resignation took effect.
Johnson can lose just two votes on any party-line bill and still pass it, assuming full attendance in the chamber. That cushion is even thinner in reality, with fiscal hawk Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) regularly voting against the Republican majority. Democrats will almost certainly gain a seat in late January, when a special election to replace late Texas Democrat
LaMalfa is the fourth House lawmaker to die during the 119th Congress, following Democratic Reps.
Republicans will be favored to win the LaMalfa seat in a special election to complete the remainder of his term in a northern California district that favored Trump by 25 percentage points in the 2024 election, according to Bloomberg Government data.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) would set the special election and could choose to make it coincide with the regularly scheduled primary to save money. The regular-term election, starting with the June 2 primary, will be held under the newly redrawn map that changed LaMalfa’s district to lean Democratic.
LaMalfa chaired the prominent Western Caucus and was long a leading House Republican on the topic of forestry. He was one of just a handful of House Republicans to continue holding public town halls late last year, after leaders urged lawmakers to stop following protests by angry constituents.
(Updates with details throughout)
Greg Giroux in Washington also contributed to this story.
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