After three years chairing the New York State Republican Party, Nick Langworthy is settling into a new role: congressman.
The Western New Yorker has landed prime committee assignments, and is starting to roll out legislation.
“What I'm relishing is the opportunity to have a policy portfolio,” he said in an interview with Spectrum News 1 as he neared the 100 day mark in his new job.
In the House, Langworthy is assigned to the Agriculture, Oversight, and Rules committees.
On the Rules Committee — an appointment he says came “directly from Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy” — he gets to touch nearly every piece of legislation just before it heads to the full House for a vote.
“It's one that's helped me to develop my legislative acumen as we get started, as someone that hasn't been in the legislative process directly myself before January,” he said.
Langworthy has so far been a loyal vote on major House Republican initiatives, such as the party’s energy bill to increase domestic drilling.
“The inflation in America is fueled by high energy costs. And we're tackling that as a conference,” he said.
He has also sponsored a handful of bills himself, including bipartisan legislation to modernize milk pricing and another to deter the construction of wind turbines in the Great Lakes.
“Our lake is too important to our community to wreck it with not just these eyesores,” he said, arguing that in order to install such turbines, “we would have to bore in through some very, very polluted sediment.”
He also has teamed up with his Western New York neighbor Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democrat, advocating for keeping in place training requirements for airline pilots.
Higgins says they have a “very positive” working relationship. “I applaud his efforts on this issue and others of local interest. We have different political philosophies, but we’re professional in our relationship,” he said.
Reflecting on Last November
Nov. 8, 2022 was a good night for Langworthy — in more ways than one.
He himself won a seat in Congress. He also led the New York GOP as it flipped four congressional seats held by Democrats, helping national Republicans win control of the U.S. House.
Since election day, however, the New York GOP has faced a headache: Rep. George Santos, who is embroiled in scandal in part over misrepresenting large parts of his resume.
Langworthy has called for Santos to resign.
Asked if he has any regrets, as the former state party chairman, that Santos was not more thoroughly vetted, Langworthy said, “These endorsements come at the local level. And I think that there's a unique set of circumstances that brought us to George Santos.”
Langworthy points back to Santos’s first bid for Congress in 2020 — a race, Langworthy says, was not competitive and thus Santos avoided proper vetting.
“The concept that a party leader or anyone would have to ask for credentials on an education based on someone that went from an institution that’s — it's not exactly the Ivy League,” Langworthy said. “God bless Baruch College, but it’s not like people are creating that as a lie.”
Langworthy said he suspects that going forward, party leaders will “look a lot deeper into resumes and tighter into references” for potential candidates.