U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, on Wednesday officially submitted his letter of resignation from Congress.
In a letter to Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox, Stewart said he would be stepping down as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives effective Sept. 15.
“It has been one of the great honors of my life to serve the good people of Utah in Congress,” Stewart said.
Stewart, a six-term lawmaker, announced his plans to leave Congress last month due to his wife’s illness.
His resignation would leave open a Republican seat on the House Appropriations and Intelligence committees — and reduce an already narrow GOP majority to just four seats.
Utah law states that the governor must call for a special election in the event of a House vacancy. Once Stewart makes his resignation official, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox will have seven days to set the time for a primary and special election.
The law requires those dates to be the same as municipal primary and general elections scheduled for this year, unless the state legislature appropriates funds to hold a separate election.
Though Stewart’s departure will mean one less Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, it is not expected to affect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ability to steer a tight Republican majority.
The district is reliably Republican and Stewart defeated a Democratic challenger by more than 30 percentage points in 2022.
I pray for his wife and their life together.
My only problem is this opens the possibility of losing a seat in the Republican Party just to give it away to a Democrat which in the end affects the majority of the house.