Rep. Kevin Kiley, the sole independent in the House, declared he will not caucus with Republicans next term if reelected, a move that could cost the GOP a seat it can barely afford to lose heading into the midterms.
Kiley made the announcement at a Semafor event on Wednesday, answering a direct question from reporter Nicholas Wu about whether he planned to continue conferencing with House Republicans. His answer was blunt: no. The Hill reported that Kiley said he is instead working to revise House rules so that independent members can receive committee assignments without formally aligning with either party.
The California congressman currently caucuses with Republicans, which under existing House rules is the only way he can hold committee seats. But Kiley framed the arrangement as a formality he wants to eliminate, not a political home he intends to keep.
Kiley announced in March that he would formally leave the Republican Party and become an independent. A few days before that announcement, he had already declared he would seek reelection as an independent in the midterms. He moved fast, filing a letter with the House clerk to change his party identification and holding a virtual press conference to make it official.
At that press conference, Kiley said he would be "the sole independent member of the House of Representatives." His stated reason for the split: disgust with gerrymandering battles across the country, with legislators in both red and blue states redrawing maps for partisan advantage ahead of the midterms.
At the Semafor event, Kiley laid out his position on the caucus question in detail. Asked by Wu whether he would still caucus with Republicans, Kiley responded:
"No. I'm working on changing the rules of the House to get rid of this crazy policy where you have to be formally affiliated with one caucus or the other simply to get committee seats."
He went further, describing the current system as a forced choice that undermines his independence. Republicans already face a series of warning signs heading into the midterms, and losing even nominal allies makes the math worse.
Kiley added:
"And so, I'm an independent member now, and yet the rules of the House force me to say, 'OK, as a formality, for the purposes of committee assignments, I'm going to conference with one side or the other.'"
Whether Kiley gets the chance to test his rule-change push depends on November. He faces Democratic challenger Richard Pan in California's 6th Congressional District, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has placed the contest in the solidly Democratic column.
That rating means Kiley is already an underdog, and his decision to abandon the Republican caucus strips away whatever institutional support the party might have offered. For House Republicans trying to hold or expand their majority, the practical effect is the same whether Kiley loses the seat outright or wins and refuses to count himself among their number. The internal dynamics mirror broader tensions: Senate Republicans have urged party leaders to focus on Democrats rather than internal feuds ahead of 2026, but defections like Kiley's make that harder.
Kiley has not specified which House rules he wants to change or what legislative vehicle he would use. He has not said whether he has introduced or co-sponsored any resolution to alter committee assignment procedures. The current rules, as he described them, require formal caucus affiliation for any member who wants to sit on a committee, a system that effectively forces independents to pick a side or lose their policy influence.
There is an irony Kiley has not addressed. He left the Republican Party, by his own account, because he objected to partisan gamesmanship in redistricting. But the rule change he now seeks, allowing independents to hold committee seats without caucusing, would require one or both parties to agree to dilute their own power. Neither party has an obvious incentive to do that. Cross-party maneuvering in the House has become increasingly fraught for both sides, and neither leadership team is eager to create new categories of unaligned members who owe nothing to the conference.
For now, Kiley holds his committee assignments because he still formally conferences with Republicans. If reelected and true to his word, he would walk away from that arrangement, and, under current rules, walk away from his committee seats along with it.
The gap between what Kiley wants and what the institution will give him is wide. He has said he objects to the system. He has not shown he has the votes, the allies, or the procedural path to change it. Meanwhile, Republican legal and political strategists are already positioning for 2026 and beyond, and every seat matters in that calculus.
Kiley's stand may be principled. It may even be popular in a district that Cook rates solidly Democratic. But principle without a plan is just a press conference, and the voters who sent him to Washington as a Republican deserve to know what, exactly, he intends to accomplish as a caucus of one.
