Rep. Kevin Kiley Announces He’s Leaving the GOP, Effective Immediately

Rep. Kevin Kiley of California announced on Monday that he is dropping his affiliation with the Republican Party, effective immediately, though he plans to continue caucusing with the GOP.

With the decision, he is set to become the only independent member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Kiley last week filed for reelection under “no party preference,” a decision he said Monday was spurred by Republicans’ decision to launch a redistricting war in a number of states in an attempt to maintain control over Congress.

“It is no secret I’ve been frustrated, at times disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress. In the last year it’s led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, a massive increase in healthcare costs, and of course, a pointless redistricting war,” Kiley said in an X post on Friday. “The epidemic of gerrymandering has spread from Texas to California to states all across the country. Both parties are complicit.”

Kiley held a press call on Monday where he further explained his decision.

“In trying to think about what I could do to try to make the situation better, I reached a decision that, since gerrymandering seeks to elevate partisanship above everything else in our politics and governance, seeks to make it the sum and substance of our politics, that the best way to counter gerrymandering and its insidious impacts on democracy is simply to take partisanship out of the equation,” Kiley said on the call.

Gerrymandering has affected Kiley personally, forcing him to choose between two different districts after the passage of Proposition 50 in California.

“Today, I’m asking the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives to have that reflected in the official roster and all associated courts and designations officially associated with the House of Representatives, so I will be the sole independent member of the House of Representatives,” he said.

Kiley said he is only caucusing with Republicans for administrative purposes to maintain his committee seats.

“This idea that you have to be administratively caucusing with one party or the other to get committee assignments — that is not the way it should work. And so that’s something that I’m going to try to change,” he said.

Kiley said he did not talk to anyone in Republican leadership before making this decision.

“I think that the appropriate posture as an independent is to say, I’m going to do whatever serves my constituents,” he said.

Kiley’s decision to step away from the Republican Party adds to the setbacks the party is facing with its thin House majority — after Kiley’s defection, there are now 217 Republicans and 214 Democrats in the lower chamber. With full attendance, Republicans can only lose two votes when passing legislation with a simple majority, which has been an ongoing challenge for Speaker Mike Johnson.

Despite the dwindling majority, Johnson has continued to project confidence when it comes to passing legislation.

“We’ve been demonstrating for the entirety of this Congress what can be done with a small majority,” Johnson said previously. “It’s the same challenges every day around here. I got to build consensus, and we don’t have many votes to spare. On some days, we have no votes to spare. So we get everybody to ‘yes’, that’s what we do.”