Virginia Foxx leaves education committee leadership

Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx has reached her final hours as the conference’s leader on education policy.

For 20 years, Foxx served on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. For the past two terms, when Republicans were in the majority in the House, she held the coveted speakership and was a ranking member when Democrats were in charge from 2019 to 2021. In fact, the 81-year-old congresswoman obtained an exemption. to lead the committee in the 118th Congress because Republicans limit their position as committee chairman to six years.

The Republican Steering Committee will elect the next chairman on Thursday.

Foxx told ABC News his top priority this session is lowering the cost of college by reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

Many K-12 topics on the former college instructor and community college president’s legislative agenda have become winning issues for Republicans. Parental rights, protections for women and girls in sports, and school choice policies – issues that reached the national stage during this year’s election campaign – were largely supported by Republicans under the leadership of Foxx.

Foxx is known for foiling the Biden administration’s higher education policies, including its student loan forgiveness program. She was called a “hero” by staff and a “force of nature” by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“She was a very loyal friend to me and a good role model to all of us,” Johnson recalled in an interview with ABC News. “Her work ethic is incredible. She is so passionate about what she does. She is a force of nature, but she also has a way of balancing it with humility,” Johnson said.

Dedication to education

Foxx’s dedication to education has been demonstrated by his committee’s crackdown on alleged anti-Semitism that has swept through college campuses over the past year. She led the collection of more than 400,000 pages of documents, historic subpoenas for documents and internal communications, and hearings that led to the resignations of Ivy League presidents who failed to protect Jewish students at American universities, according to the committee’s wide-ranging investigation. report.

“Our goal was and still is to ensure that Jewish students are safe on campus,” Foxx told ABC News, adding, “All students should be safe on campus, but it is Jewish students who have been threatened and harassed and, at times, assaulted.”

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik worked alongside Foxx for the past decade on the committee. Stefanik credits Foxx with being the driving force that put education at the top of the House agenda as Johnson addressed the issue of anti-Semitism earlier this spring.

“The great thing about Virginia is that she’s not going to slow down, and I think she’ll have other great chapters in Congress, but it’s been great to be on the committee with her, and I’m very proud of her, and she’s someone that so many people look up to,” Stefanik told ABC News.

Foxx’s work ethic dates back to his humble beginnings in Avery County, North Carolina, in the Appalachian Mountains. She told ABC News that she grew up very poor.

“I just never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be in Congress or have a portrait,” Foxx said when asked this fall about the painting of her that now hangs in the Education Committee hearing room on Capitol Hill. “I grew up in a town without electricity or running water.”

Foxx now mentors his colleagues, including Utah’s Stefanik and Burgess Owens.

“She’s a bulldog when it comes to what she wants to accomplish and that’s what we needed to put education at the forefront,” Rep. Owens told ABC News.

A former NFL player, Owens said he admired Foxx’s ability to build a team and compared the president to his legendary head coach Al Davis.

“I see what Dr. Foxx is doing the same way with education,” Owens said. “I think for the first time, education is becoming a priority, not only for those of us who are passionate about it, but also for Americans across the country who take it for granted,” he said. declared.

Who will be the next president?

A relative newcomer to the committee, Owens wants to follow in Foxx’s footsteps. He challenges Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, to succeed Foxx as speaker.

Owens told ABC News he looks forward to convincing his committee colleagues. Meanwhile, Walberg and Rep. GT Thompson of Pennsylvania are the second-longest-serving Republicans on the committee behind Foxx. After 16 years, Walberg said he believes he deserves the top spot.

Foxx said she loved chairing the committee, but it was just one of many highlights of her time on the Hill.

“My greatest accomplishment happens every day when we help another constituent, so my life is about more than the committee,” she said.