File photo U.S. Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, speaks during an Aspire Legislation Matters luncheon at Valle Vista Golf Club and Conference Center in Greenwood.
Rep. Greg Pence said Monday that six years in Congress was enough, and the political climate in Washington had played a part in his recently announced decision to retire.
“I always committed to six years and there’s a lot of people that know that,” Pence, R-Columbus, told a gathering of the Columbus Golden K Kiwanis Club. “… And then I like to mention this because I get asked this often, ‘What about the chaos … is that why you left, the chaos in the House of Representatives? And I said, ‘that certainly didn’t incentivize me to change my mind.’
“… We’re not able to get anything done because of, we call it the ‘chaos caucus’ among ourselves in the Republican Party, and we need to start getting some things done,” Pence said.
This includes the roughly 45 GOP members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus who are able to thwart the Republican majority in a narrowly divided House. “We will have to address the border when the border bill comes from the Senate … and so we need to get the budget behind us and address the budget, address the fentanyl crisis, which is enormous.”
But Pence said he believes that because House Speaker Mike Johnson has the support of former President Donald Trump, hardline conservative Republican members will be reluctant to remove the speaker as they did former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. That led to congressional paralysis as numerous speaker candidates failed to secure a majority of members’ votes.
“I don’t think we want to throw out somebody again,” Pence said. “That was ridiculous. That was absolutely ridiculous. I was there for September and October, I was supposed to be there for six weeks during those nine weeks, I was actually there for all nine weeks in the fall and got nothing done other than finally electing a new speaker. … I think everybody feels like, ‘Well, that wasn’t a good idea.’ ”
Pence, 66, announced earlier this month that he would not seek a fourth term in Congress and also cited the extensive travel he must do as a factor in deciding to retire. He noted he spent about 155 nights a year in Washington, leaving little time for family back home.
Pence is among a wave of congressional retirements. As of Monday, he is among 18 Republican House members — including four from Indiana — who have said they will not seek re-election, according to the U.S. House of Representatives. Likewise, 22 Democratic members have said they will not seek re-election in November.
The congressman, who will serve out the remainder of his term this year, also is considering a possible bid for Indiana lieutenant governor as he supports current Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch in this year’s competitive race for the Republican nomination for governor.
“I’m very behind the lieutenant governor,” Pence said in an interview after taking questions from Kiwanis members. “We’ll see how it goes. Nobody’s made any commitments to anybody. I think that’s important. I’ve even said to the lieutenant governor, ‘We’ll see you it goes. I don’t want you to feel I’m pressuring you or anything.’
“… Indiana works, you know, and when I’m out in D.C. and we’ve got all the dysfunction and all that, I come back here and talk to people and say, ‘Don’t confuse the state of Indiana’s government with Washington, D.C. And so continuing that is pretty important, and she obviously has the ability and the background to do that,” Pence said of his support for Crouch.
Still, Crouch faces a field of several well-funded candidates — including outgoing U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, ousted former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill and former Indiana Economic Development Corp. leaders Brad Chambers and Eric Doden — also seeking the Republican nomination for governor.
“I think it’ll probably get nasty here pretty soon,” Pence said of the race. Asked what his gut tells him, he said, “Depends on how nasty it gets between Braun and these other fellows. That’s my gut.
“… I think it’s gonna get real nasty. I just know their consultants,” Pence said with a laugh. “I’m not a negative campaigner, though. That’s for other people.”
Aside from campaigning for Crouch, Pence said he has no other political ambitions and he doesn’t plan to campaign for federal candidates in the upcoming general election that will feature a presidential race. He noted he had campaigned for his brother, former Vice President Mike Pence, before he abandoned his run for the Republican presidential nomination.
Likewise, he said he doesn’t expect to endorse a candidate in the Republican race to succeed him in House District 6. So far, State Rep. Mike Speedy, R-Indianapolis, is the only Republican candidate who has filed ahead of the Feb. 9, but Pence said about a half-dozen people have talked to him about possibly filing.
Pence said he plans to focus on his family business — he and wife Denise own the Exit 76 Antique Mall and other ventures. He said won’t miss the 40-some weeks out of the year that involved traveling to or from the nation’s Capitol.
A Kiwanis member asked Pence if he was optimistic for the country’s future, and he said he was, though he acknowledged optimistic perspectives don’t always get attention in politically polarized times.
“We’ve had worse times in our country than disagreeing on policy,” Pence said. “They’re not drafting our kids to get them to fight, right? We’re not fighting each other with bullets … I think there’s a lot more people in the House of Representatives that think, feel that … this antagonism has to go away. There’s a lot more people, unfortunately, social media and all that trending garbage … on both fringes … that we see and hear all the time.”
