U.S. Rep Filemon Vela (D-TX) will resign from Congress
Filemon Vela resigning from Congress is just weird. He was already retiring at the end of his term but, by suddenly resigning, he’s ensuring that the taxpayers will have to pay for a special election, along with the usual general election. He’s resigning to join a law firm but wouldn’t that firm be willing to wait until his term expired in just a few more months?
Vela’s putting Democrats in a bad position because the candidate to succeed him in November is Vincente Gonzalez, who is currently representing a different district. (The two districts will be combined by redistricting at the start of the next Congress.) If Gonzalez runs in the special election, he’ll have to resign from his current seat which will lead, however temporarily, to two empty Democratic seats at a time when the Democrats have a very slim majority. Chances are that the Democrats won’t seriously contest the special election so, for at least a few month, Vela’s seat will be occupied by the Republican who will be running against Gonzalez in the general. It’ll be a mess but I guess Vela was really eager to get out of Washington.
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