{"id":1398879,"date":"2022-03-24T15:45:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T19:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1398879"},"modified":"2022-03-24T15:45:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T19:45:23","slug":"rep-filemon-vela-to-leave-congress-early-for-law-firm-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rep-filemon-vela-to-leave-congress-early-for-law-firm-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Filemon Vela To Leave Congress Early For Law Firm Job"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frep-filemon-vela-to-leave-congress-early-for-law-firm-job%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1398879&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Democratic Texas Rep. Filemon Vela will leave Congress in the coming weeks to take a position at the Washington, D.C., law firm Akin Gump.<\/p>\n<p>Vela, the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/03\/22\/vice-chair-democratic-national-committee-dnc-filemon-vela-jr-retire-congress-texas-house\/\">announced<\/a> in March 2021 that he would not seek re-election. He had been expected to finish out his term, but will instead take up a position at the corporate law firm immediately. Vela filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/21489758-filemon-vela-statement-of-recusal\">letter<\/a> in January with the House Ethics Committee recusing himself from any matters involving the firm due to his \u201cnegotiation regarding future employment or compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Vela announced plans to retire last year but he now will not serve out the full term<\/p>\n<p>Vela just had the House pass a bill to adjust the border for the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park. He\u2019s hoping to see the Senate pass that first before he leaves, I\u2019m told<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/heatherscope\/status\/1506991908459003907?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 24, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Vela has served in Congress since 2013. His decision to leave was first reported by Punchbowl News, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2022\/03\/24\/filemon-vela-resign\/\">confirmed<\/a> by The Texas Tribune.<\/p>\n<p>A spokeswoman for Vela did not respond to the Daily Caller\u2019s request for comment on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, who currently represents Texas\u2019 15th District, has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2021\/10\/23\/vicente-gonzalez-congress-redistricting-2022\/\">filed<\/a> to slide over into Vela\u2019s 34th District. Following <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/10\/19\/texas-republican-district-map-greg-abbot\/\">redistricting<\/a>, the 34th District is expected to <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/redistricting-2022-maps\/texas\/\">remain<\/a> in Democratic hands.<\/p>\n<p>Vela will be the third member of Congress to leave before the end of his term to seek a business role. Republican Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers stepped down in May 2021 to <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/04\/19\/steve-stivers-announces-retire-congress-ohio\/\">lead<\/a> the Ohio Chamber of Congress, and Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes left Congress in January to serve as CEO of TRUTH Social, a social media platform founded by former President Donald Trump. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/12\/06\/california-rep-devin-nunes-retires-trump-new-media-outlet\/\">(RELATED: California Rep. Devin Nunes Announces Retirement, Plans To Join Trump\u2019s New Media Outlet)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A relative moderate, Vela was one of sixteen Democrats to <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2018\/11\/19\/nancy-pelosi-democrats-house-speaker\/\">force<\/a> Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi into a term-limits pledge in 2018. He was also one of nine Democrats to publicly <a href=\"https:\/\/cuellar.house.gov\/news\/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=406463\">criticize<\/a> the Democratic Party leadership\u2019s strategy of preventing a vote on the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act out of a desire to pass the still-unwritten Build Back Better social spending package.<\/p>\n<p>Akin Gump, a law firm with a highly-influential lobbying shop, employs many former lawmakers of both parties. Current and former employees include former Republican Florida Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.akingump.com\/en\/lawyers-advisors\/ileana-c-ros-lehtinen.html\">Ileana Ros-Lehtinen<\/a>, former Democratic Indiana Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.akingump.com\/en\/news-insights\/former-u-s-senator-joe-donnelly-to-join-akin-gump.html\">Joe Donnelly<\/a>, and former Republican Texas Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.akingump.com\/en\/lawyers-advisors\/lamar-smith.html\">Lamar Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democratic Texas Rep. Filemon Vela will leave Congress in the coming weeks to take a position at the Washington, D.C., law firm Akin Gump.Vela, the vice chair of the Democratic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1398879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}