Tennessee Rep. Mark Green announced that he has resigned from Congress to take a new mysterious new job — narrowing Republicans’ already ultra-slim majority by one seat ahead of messy fights such as the looming government shutdown battle in the fall.
The retired US Army officer had revealed his intention to step down last month after passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but had refrained from giving an exact date. On Friday, he tendered his resignation, which is effective July 20, per his letter to GOP leadership.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I say farewell,” Green said in a statement. “To my constituents across Tennessee’s 7th District—thank you. The trust you put in me is humbling. I will look back fondly on my years of serving as your voice in Washington.”
“While I cannot give the details here, I will be doing something specifically designed to help America compete against the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], but this time in business,” Green explained in his resignation video.
Shortly after his announcement last month that he intended to leave Congress, Notus reported that Green had been floating business opportunities in Guyana to lobbyists.
Now that he is stepping aside, Republicans will have a 219-212 majority in the House.
But that is set to further shrink when Democrats fill three vacancies for reps that died earlier this year during special elections in the fall. Democrats are heavily favored to reclaim all three of those seats.
Eventually, there will be a special election to replace Green, who had won Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-Tenn.) old House seat in 2018. Blackburn is now eyeing a potential run for Tennessee governor.
Green was also the chairman of the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, which played a critical role in developing the border security provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cleared the House last week.
With the Tennessee rep stepping down, Republican leadership will have even less room for error during key fights coming up later this year, such as a potentially nasty government shutdown showdown in the fall when Congress has to fund the government for the next fiscal year.
His departure also makes the math harder for other GOP goals, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) plan to pursue another reconciliation bill later this year — the legislative vehicle Republicans used to wrangle the One Big Beautiful Bill Act without Democratic support.
The Tennessee Republican declined to provide details of his next gig in the private sector.
Last September, Green drew national headlines after his wife accused him of having an affair. She filed for divorce and alleged that he was having a dalliance with a woman employed by Axios.
She later admitted to misidentifying the purported mistress, telling Politico, “I want to correct the record, because I misidentified someone in that message. My husband has never had a relationship with a reporter from Axios, and I regret having said that.”
The retired U.S. Army officer had previously announced that he wouldn’t pursue another term in the 2024 election cycle, but abruptly changed course about 15 days later.
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