Alaska – and every other state – has a fully fledged member of the U.S. House again. Along with the entire House of Representatives, Mary Peltola took the oath of office early Saturday morning.
The mass swearing-in followed a four-day fight among Republicans over electing Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker. It took 15 rounds of voting before McCarthy won over holdouts in his party.
Peltola, like all Democrats, voted all 15 times for Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. He’s now the House minority leader.
With the House organization underway, Peltola will soon get her committee assignments.
During her three month tenure in the last Congress, Peltola served on the Natural Resources Committee and the Education and Labor Committee.
“Now the work begins,” she said by tweet.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
