The House Homeland Security Committee’s chairman, Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, announced Monday that he will retire from Congress once the House votes again on the sprawling tax and budget policy bill backed by President Donald Trump.
In a statement, Green said he was offered a private sector opportunity that was “that was too exciting to pass up” so he informed House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday of his retirement plans. The move comes more than a year after Green announced he wouldn’t run again in 2024, but changed his mind when fellow Republicans implored him to stick around.
Green’s next election would have been in 2026.
Green voted for Trump’s sweeping legislation when it passed the House last month. The bill is now in the Senate’s hands, and would need to return to the House for agreement on any changes. Trump wants the bill on his desk for his signature by July 4.
Green’s delayed departure could help with the GOP’s narrow margins in the House. Republican leaders need every vote they can get on their big tax bill, which they managed to pass last month by a single vote and will have to pass again once changes are made in the Senate. They now have a 220-212 majority.
“It was the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of Tennessee in Congress,” Green said. “They asked me to deliver on the conservative values and principles we all hold dear, and I did my level best to do so.”
Green’s seat will be decided in a special election. The timing will depend on when he leaves office.
Ahead of his 2024 reelection, Green had announced that February 2024 he would not run again. The decision was revealed a day after the impeachment of then-President Joe Biden’s Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
But many fellow Republicans had called on him to reconsider, and he jumped back into the running just two weeks later.
He was unopposed in the Republican primary and then defeated Democrat Megan Barry — the former Nashville mayor who resigned in 2018 in scandal — by more than 21 percentage points in November 2024.
Green, 60, has served since 2019 in the 7th Congressional District, which was redrawn in 2022 to include a significant portion of Nashville. The city was carved up three ways in the 2022 redistricting so Republicans could flip a Democratic district in Congress that had covered Music City, which they successfully did.
Green previously served as an Army surgeon and in the state Senate and is from Montgomery County.
Green flirted running for governor in 2017, but suspended his campaign after he was nominated by former President Donald Trump to become the Army secretary. He later withdrew his nomination due to criticism over his remarks about Muslims and LGBTQ+ Americans.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.