Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT) is currently last in House seniority. But she’s no stranger to how Congress works — and often doesn’t.
Although Maloy has never held an elected position before, the Utah native worked in politics for years, most recently as the chief legal counsel for former Rep. Chris Stewart, whom she replaced in Congress after he resigned in September.
That experience helped Maloy navigate her quick transition to the Hill, she told the Washington Examiner in an interview, by providing insight and a deep knowledge base of how the legislative process works, all amid several standoffs and near-government shutdowns due to different spending priorities between the Republican majority House, the Democratic-led Senate, and Democratic President Joe Biden.

“On the campaign trail, I talked a lot about how [being] a staffer who represented this district would give me a leg up because I could hit the ground running,” Maloy said. “And now that I’ve been sworn in … I realize just how true that really is.”
When new members are elected, they attend freshmen orientation to learn the ropes of Congress before being sworn in. But Maloy had to undergo the transition without a cohort of new lawmakers alongside her when she was sworn in on Nov. 28, 2023, after a special election in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District, which covers central and western Salt Lake City and the Beehive State’s southwestern quadrant. It’s a deeply red district, where, in 2020, then-President Donald Trump would have beaten President Joe Biden 57% to 40%, despite losing the White House.
Making things more unusual, one of Maloy’s first votes as a member of Congress was to expel another lawmaker, something that hasn’t happened since 2002. On Dec. 1, the House expelled then-Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who months earlier was indicted on 23 federal counts related to financial fraud and corruption. A blistering House Ethics Committee report, which corroborated prosecutors’ narrative about Santos, sealed his fate. The House expelled him on a 311-114 vote, with Maloy voting yes. Santos was only the sixth House member ever expelled, and the third since the Civil War.
“I got sworn in on a Tuesday night, and then Friday, we had that vote,” Maloy said. “So, I didn’t have a lot of time to get up to speed, to get to know my colleagues, to learn the ropes. I didn’t have all my staff on yet.”
Despite the unusual entrance circumstances, Maloy said her House colleagues have helped ease the transition by filling in the gaps left by the lack of a proper orientation.
“People have gone out of their way to make sure that I feel welcome, to make sure I know who they are, and also to let me know what’s happening,” she said, citing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), a newcomer himself to the chamber’s top job, second in line of presidential succession behind Vice President Kamala Harris, on Oct. 15, 2023.
“Speaker Johnson has been really great at holding Republican conferences and making sure the body knows where we’re going and why,” Maloy said.
Those closed-door conference meetings have also been encouraging, Maloy said, because they give a peek into how the government actually works compared to perceptions portrayed by the media. Although the House can appear to be “slow and inefficient” from the outside looking in, Maloy noted she has been motivated by the discussions she’s had with her colleagues.
“I’ve been very encouraged by seeing the way members behind closed doors really are human with each other and look after each other,” she said. “We have disagreements. Those disagreements — I mean, you’ve seen them in the news, and they happen behind closed doors, too. But I’ve been really encouraged by the caliber of people that I’m serving here with.”
Maloy added, “I think most Americans would feel a lot better about Congress if they could see those closed-door meetings.”
Vacancies Abound
Maloy joined the House during a time of unusual flux and turnover. The chamber has rarely been able to keep all of its seats filled for more than a few months at a time.
The House was last at full 435-seat capacity in late November when Maloy won her special election and was sworn in to succeed her former boss, Stewart, who resigned on Sept. 15, 2023, due to what he called family health reasons. Then came Santos’s expulsion from the House.
More House vacancies soon ensued, with the Dec. 31 resignation of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was deposed after nine months in the chamber’s top job due to Republican infighting. Former Rep. Bill Johnson resigned on Jan. 21 to become president of Youngstown State University in Ohio. And Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY) resigned on Jan. 31 to become president and CEO at Shea’s Performing Arts Center in downtown Buffalo.
As for the New York seat Santos represented for 11 months, the northern Nassau County 3rd Congressional District, the Feb. 13 special election to succeed him is highly competitive. Though polls have shown former Rep. Tom Suozzi leading his Republican opponent. Suozzi represented a different version of the Long Island and Queens seat from 2017-23 before the most recent round of redistricting. If Suozzi wins, and when the safely red seats of former Reps. McCarthy and Johnson and the deep blue district of recently resigned Higgins are finally filled, the House will have a full membership of 221 Republicans to 214 Democrats (assuming there are no more departures — hardly a safe bet at this point.)
That’s one of the tightest House margins ever. It has Speaker Johnson at times relying on Democratic votes to pass legislation, since a swath of conservative dissidents mean Republicans may not vote uniformly for the party’s legislative agenda. And the close margin sets up a titanic struggle for House control in November, intertwined with the likely White House rematch from 2020 between Biden and Trump.
When the open New York seat is filled, Maloy will no longer be the most junior House member. It’s really a more symbolic thing anyway, with newer lawmakers learning the ropes in their initial committee assignments. Maloy, 42, is a member of the Small Business and Transportation and Infrastructure committees.
All of which will give Maloy a leg up on at least the new crop of lawmakers who will be elected to the House in November. It’s no small group, either, with 52 current legislators set to leave due to retirement, running for other offices, and other reasons.
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That puts Maloy in a position to guide the newly elected members because she understands firsthand what it’s like to be tossed into the deep end with little preparation. And the Utah congresswoman said she is more than willing to help out.
“First thing I would tell them if they’re reading this article, call me. Call my chief of staff. Come sit down with me,” she said. “Get to know your colleagues. This is a fairly exclusive club. Only so many people have ever belonged to it. And the people who are going to be the most helpful are the people who are here.”