After a record 15 votes to elect a House Speaker, Massachusetts’ 4th District Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss was sworn into the 118th Congress. Auchincloss is serving his second term in the House of Representatives, having succeeded Joe Kennedy III in 2021.
“This morning, I have been sworn into Congress after days of dysfunction. Two years on from the insurrection of January 6th, and the House GOP is still groveling to the extreme right, rather than governing for the exhausted majority. It is unacceptable.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of the Massachusetts 4th, where I grew up and where I’m now raising my children. The 117th Congress, in which Democrats had the same margin that so confounded Republicans this week, saw generational bipartisan accomplishments: we achieved my day-one priority of getting kids back into the classroom; invested in infrastructure and science; and lowered healthcare costs for millions while simultaneously making the largest clean energy investment in history. There is much work ahead to deliver results for working families at a time when costs are too high. There are also epochal challenges to the free world from Russia and the Chinese Communist Party that must call my generation to action.
“Unlike last Congress, Republicans now hold the gavel in the House. With that gavel comes the initiative. If they decide to build on the bipartisan progress of the last Congress in lowering costs and achieving clean energy independence, then I am ready to be a good-faith partner in legislating. If they choose, instead, to continue the ineptitude of this past week and spend the next two years engaged in extremist theatrics, then I am prepared to fight back. We will not yield in our commitment to democracy, women’s rights, gun-safety measures, and clean energy.”
Committee assignments for the 118th Congress are pending and will be announced soon. Congressman Auchincloss will continue maintaining district offices at their current locations in Newton and Attleboro in addition to keeping office hours in Fall River. His Capitol Hill office will remain located in 1524 Longworth House Office Building.
