A Nancy Mace resolution filed Thursday would dissolve the Congressional Black Caucus, and it directs the Committee on House Administration to revoke and block the registration of any Congressional Member Organization or Congressional Staff Organization that sorts members by race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The measure would take down the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus at the same time.
The language reaches any group formed primarily or substantially on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin, any group that admits or declines to admit members on that basis, and any group that advocates for the perceived interests of one race, color, ethnicity, or national origin over others. Official registration is not ceremonial. It is what allows a caucus to operate inside the House with recognized standing, and pulling it is the mechanism Mace chose instead of writing a bill that would have to clear the Senate.
Mace called the caucuses “segregation sanctioned by the legislative branch” of the federal government in her announcement. She also said the groups “check your skin color at the door,” and argued that members of Congress represent every constituent rather than only the ones who share their background. That framing is the entire pitch, and it is the same argument she has run on all year.
The Nancy Mace resolution would also strip recognition from Republican affiliated groups including the Black Republican Congressional Staff Association, the GOP Latino Staff Association, and the Republican Asian American Staff Association. Her own party staffs those organizations. A rule written to end race conscious organizing in the House does not get to make an exception for the people who agree with her.
The chairs of the Tri-Caucus responded jointly. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke of New York, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat signed a statement alongside House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark, and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar. They called the proposal racist and said singling out a Tri-Caucus that represents nearly half of all Americans is an attempt to silence minority voices.
Their statement also pointed out that the House already recognizes dozens of bipartisan caucuses built around ethnic communities, regions, industries, veterans, and faith traditions, none of which the resolution touches.
The chairs went at Mace directly, calling the filing a cheap political stunt and a distraction from her failed primary. They added that the caucuses existed before she arrived and will still be standing long after she fades into irrelevancy.
Timing is the part worth sitting with. Republican redistricting across several Southern states has already shrunk the Congressional Black Caucus by eliminating or redrawing multiple Black majority districts held by CBC members. The maps reduced the number of members. The Nancy Mace resolution goes after the institution those members built.
The Congressional Black Caucus was founded in 1971 by thirteen members who understood that being in the room individually was not the same as having leverage collectively, and every legislative win the group has produced since then came from that collective posture.
Mace is on her way out. She lost her bid for the Republican nomination for South Carolina governor, passed on running for the Senate seat left open by the late Lindsey Graham, and endorsed Rep. Ralph Norman in that primary instead. She leaves office in January. Her final stretch in Congress has been a run of measures aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion programs, transgender athletes in women’s sports, and birthright citizenship. This filing lands as the closing entry in that sequence.
Whether it goes anywhere is a separate question. The proposal faces long odds even in a Republican controlled House, where it would draw universal Democratic opposition plus resistance from Republicans who have no appetite for dissolving their own staff associations. It is also unclear whether Mace intends to force a chamber wide vote before her term ends.
That does not make the Nancy Mace resolution harmless. Filed legislation sets precedent for the next member who wants to pick it up, and this one arrives with a ready made argument that recognizing a group is the same as endorsing separation. Jeffries, a CBC member, is positioned to become the first Black speaker of the House if Democrats take back the chamber in November. A resolution that strips his caucus of standing in the months before that vote is not a neutral piece of housekeeping.
The Congressional Black Caucus has spent fifty five years functioning as the closest thing the culture has to a permanent bloc inside the federal government. Stripping its registration would not erase the members. It would erase the structure that lets them move as one.
