Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., a 16-year veteran of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, was chosen Thursday as that committee’s next chair, beginning with the 119th Congress in January.
Wahlberg will join Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, in the top education leadership positions in the new Congress. Cassidy, 67, was named chair of that committee on Nov. 21.
Current House education committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who has served as the top Republican on the committee since 2017, will step down due to the expiration of a waiver that allowed her to lead despite GOP conference rules limiting the consecutive terms a chair or ranking chair can serve to three, which totals six years.
"Tim has been a lifelong fighter for education and literacy and truly believes in helping every American reach his or her God-given potential," Foxx said in a statement Thursday. "I have no doubt that he’ll hit the ground running and will work tirelessly to ensure students have the opportunity to learn and workers have the ability to succeed.”
Before coming to Congress, Walberg, 73, was a pastor in Michigan and Indiana. He also served as president of the Warren Reuther Center for Education and Community Impact and as a division manager for Moody Bible Institute.
He was a member of the Michigan House of Representatives from 1983 to 1999 and served on the chamber’s Education Committee.
"We have significant work ahead of us, from enshrining protections for parents to continuing to protect Jewish students on college campuses to rights providing more opportunity and flexibility to American workers,” Walberg said in a statement.
Walberg's congressional website said he favors parental rights, school choice, college affordability, expanding career and technical education, and reforming the Higher Education Act to reduce college costs and bureaucracy.
As ranking member of the Senate education committee, Cassidy led efforts to overturn the Biden administration plan to reduce student loan debt. He was elected to the Senate in 2014, and his early career was as a physician.
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