A top House Republican announced he would leave Congress before the end of his term

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October 19, 2017 12:36 PM

Rep. Pat Tiberi, a longtime Republican House member from Ohio, said he would leave Congress by January 31.

A Republican House member from Ohio is resigning and will leave Congress by January 31.
Pat Tiberi has been a representative since 2001.
The New York Times says Tiberi is an "influential member of the House Ways and Means Committee."

Rep. Pat Tiberi, a Republican from Ohio, announced Thursday that he would not seek reelection and would leave Congress by January 31, before the end of his term.

The New York Times on Wednesday night first reported the news of Tiberi's resignation. In a statement, the congressman said he would leave the House by January 31.

Tiberi has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2001 and is an "influential member of the House Ways and Means Committee" with "close ties to his party's leaders," The Times reported. Tiberi was in the running to chair the tax-writing committee in 2015 but lost to Rep. Kevin Brady.

Tiberi said in a statement that he would leave Congress to head the Ohio Business Roundtable, confirming The Times' report. The position, he said, "will allow me to continue to work on public policy issues impacting Ohioans while also spending more time with my family."

Rep. Tom Cole told The Times that he was "happy for my friend, but Congress will be a poorer place without him."

Tiberi's resignation is surprising. He was reportedly weighing a campaign to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a state that Republican President Donald Trump won in 2016.

Tiberi had more than $6.6 million in his reelection account at the beginning of October, according to The Times.

However, Tiberi had been openly critical of the pace of progress in Washington this year, even with a Republican president and Republican-controlled Congress.

Of the investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election, Tiberi said in May, "It's the elephant in the room right now."

"The smartest minds in the White House know that, whether it's tax reform or anything else on the public policy front," he told Reuters. "It's hard enough to get things done in the US Capitol under the best of circumstances."