As Kansas’ Jake LaTurner quits DC, here’s a cheat sheet
Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are fleeing for the exits.
News broke last week that two-term U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner of Kansas, a shiny-cheeked lad of 36, would retire at the end of the year. He joins Reps. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Ken Buck of Colorado and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina in choosing not to run or resigning right away. Altogether, reports Axios, nearly 20 House GOP members have decided to leave the chamber without firm plans.
I’ve taken the liberty of composing a generic explanation for these departing politicians. Anyone else wanting to abandon the “increasingly chaotic” chamber can use it as a template, too!
Dear home state friends and voters, although mostly those donors who wrote gigantic checks to fund my election:
I write with a heavy heart today to announce that I will not run again for my beloved congressional seat. It has been my pleasure to serve the amazing, wonderful, awesome and totally hot people of Wisconsin or Colorado or Kansas. This of course is why I decided to work in Washington, D.C., so I did not have to see many of them.
For these past two years in Washington, all I could think about was my home state of Wisconsin or Colorado or North Carolina. Mainly about how good it felt not to be there.
Unfortunately, the time has come for me to depart from the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol. Actually scratch that. I’ll probably return to those halls sooner or later, but as a bigtime lobbyist making a lot more money and doing far less work.
Sure, some might say this has to do with the gridlock and dysfunction caused by Republicans having a narrow margin and a bunch of legislators who would rather talk about Jewish space lasers than making laws. But this isn’t true at all. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and myself all get along super fine. I would rather encounter their awesomeness at a safe distance. With security guards if necessary.
What accomplishments am I most proud of? Well, I did listen to Rep. Greene talking about those lasers for 45 minutes and didn’t throw my drink in her face. That counts, right? Also, I voted for whatever bills the speaker of the House told me to, whoever the speaker of the House happened to be that day. Whether he was Mike Johnson or Kevin McCarthy or anyone else who might have slipped in there for a minute or two, I respected and supported him.
Please know that we always wanted to do the best for Kansans or Coloradans or Wisconsinites. Like when we didn’t pass Ukraine aid for months and months and let Russian President Vladimir Putin come close to winning! That was great and something I’m totally proud of. So was the way that our Senate colleagues killed an immigration compromise with the Democrats for purely political reasons. Yay for us.
Don’t worry, though — we might suffocate even more important bills before my time is up.
I can’t close without paying tribute to the Big G, our lord and savior, the one who makes all this possible: Donald Trump. Ha ha, I kid (although not if you’re paying attention, Mr. President, sir). I of course mean Yahweh, the creator of all that surrounds us. He’s never led me wrong, except perhaps when he suggested that I should run for office during a time of corrosive partisanship and existential threats to the republic.
Naturally, attention now turns to my potential successor. Whoever follows me in representing North Carolina or Kansas or Colorado, I look forward to helping them in whatever way possible. As long as they’re a Republican and don’t talk about space lasers.
Also, whoever follows me in this job will have an incredibly awful time and find their soul being crushed every single day because of the horror that infests this place.
USA! USA! USA!