Rep. Kiley Leaves the GOP – Johnson’s House Majority is Even Slimmer

Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.) announced Monday that he will formally leave the Republican Party this week to become an independent.

Kiley had previously announced that he will run for reelection in the midterms as an independent. But he accelerated the process on Monday, saying he will file a letter with the House clerk immediately to drop his identification as a Republican for the remainder of the current Congress.

“I will be the sole independent member of the House of Representatives,” Kiley told reporters Monday during a virtual press conference. “We’re going to be submitting the letter to the clerk today.”

Kiley’s move comes after mid-decade redistricting dismantled his Republican-leaning district, forcing him to run in far more Democratic territory.

Optically, the switch is another setback for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP leaders, who currently have a paper-thin majority and are scrambling to defend it in November’s elections. 

In reality, however, Kiley’s move might not change the dynamics in the Capitol at all. Kiley said he’ll continue, as an administrative matter, to caucus with the Republicans, since he was elected as a member of the GOP. That affiliation would allow him to keep his positions on committees, with the leadership’s blessing. Kiley also said he won’t change his approach to legislation by joining Democrats to oppose rules that could prevent GOP priorities from hitting the floor. 

“I’ll have to consider every one on its own merits, but I’m all for giving people the opportunity to vote their conscience,” he said. 

Kiley said he did not talk to leaders in either party before dropping out of the GOP, but that he’d spoken with Johnson “briefly” over the weekend “to discuss the administrative part” of his switch. 

Kiley said his decision was prompted by his disgust with the gerrymandering battle that’s raging around the country, as legislators in red and blue states are racing to redraw their maps with an eye toward partisan advantage in the midterms. 

“I reached the 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 — then the best way to counter gerrymandering and its insidious impacts on democracy is simply to take partisanship out of the equation,” Kiley said.

That gerrymandering has hit Kiley directly. 

Kiley is among several California Republicans scrambling to remain in Congress in the wake of the Golden State’s decision to redraw the House map ahead of November’s midterms. The new lines, which were approved by a special ballot initiative championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), are expected to net as many as five additional seats for the Democrats in the next Congress. 

The California map was adopted in direct response to the mid-decade redistricting undergone by Texas state Republicans — lines that are designed to flip as many as five House seats to the GOP. The Texas decision was made at the request of President Trump, who is fighting to keep the House and Senate under Republican control in the next Congress, to prevent Democrats from gaining the power to block his legislative agenda and launch formal investigations into the many controversies swirling around his second term. 

Kiley currently represents California’s 3rd District, but he is jumping into the newly drawn 6th District as he seeks reelection in November. The 6th District is currently held by Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), but Bera is also switching districts under the new map, seeking reelection in the 3rd District.

The 6th District favors the Democrats, but Kiley is hoping the shift to independent will resonate with voters alienated by the gerrymandering of both parties. 

Kiley left open the possibility that, if he prevails in that race, he could caucus with the Democrats in the next Congress. 

“The appropriate posture as an independent is to say I’m going to do whatever serves my constituents,” Kiley said. “That’s a decision I’ll make at the time.”