Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) has reversed his earlier decision to retire and will seek reelection this year.
A congressional source with direct knowledge of the lawmaker’s plan confirmed the change to The Epoch Times on March 1, saying that the House Committee on Homeland Security chairman would again look to represent Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District for a fourth term. He was elected to represent the district in 2018.
The news comes after Mr. Green announced just weeks ago on Feb. 14 that he would not seek reelection, with the lawmaker saying in his announcement, “I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do. I wanted to get a great border security bill done. We did that. And I wanted to hold the administration accountable, and we just impeached, for the first time, a sitting cabinet secretary.”
Mr. Green’s decision to reverse his resignation follows former President Donald Trump’s Feb. 29 message from the border, pushing his plan for border security.
Mr. Green spearheaded the Republican attempt to impeach Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The effort was prompted by several issues, chief among them being border security. Mr. Mayorkas was found guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” due to his actions while in office, according to the committee’s final report.
After a campaign that Mr. Green led over several months, the House of Representatives voted 214-213 in favor of impeachment. The only other sitting cabinet official to face impeachment before Mr. Mayorkas was Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.
Following the vote, Mr. Green said, “Today, with the House having passed H.R. 2 and Secretary Mayorkas impeached, it is time for me to return home.”
Mr. Green did not share his plans for the future at the time, but he did hint that he would be taking on a new position sometime soon. He also used the occasion to criticize areas in which he believed the federal government had failed.
“In the last few months, in reading the writings of our framers, I was reminded of their intent for representatives to be citizen-legislators, to serve for a season and then return home,” Mr. Green said. “Our country, and our Congress, is broken beyond most means of repair.”
The lawmaker went on to assert that he didn’t believe his colleagues, as a whole, were working in the nation’s best interest. “I have come to realize our fight is not here within Washington, our fight is with Washington. As I have done my entire life, I will continue serving this country, but in a new capacity,” he said.
Before being elected to the Tennessee State Senate in 2012, Mr. Green was a surgeon in the U.S. Army. After receiving President Trump’s nomination to become secretary of the army, he put his 2017 campaign for governor of Tennessee on hold. However, in the aftermath of criticism over his statements about Muslims and the LGBT community, he was forced to rescind his nomination.
He justified his withdrawal at the time by saying that the president had become distracted by his nomination. He added that there were “false and misleading attacks” on him because his remarks had been twisted.
