‘Whatever She Tells You She Is Going to Do, Assume She Will Do the Opposite’

The turbulent rise of Victoria Spartz, an unusual threat to Mike Johnson’s Speakership

Young | Photo by Nathan Gotsch / Fort Wayne Politics

On Tuesday evening, as Speaker Mike Johnson faced mounting GOP opposition to his budget resolution that would set in motion President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda, Indiana Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz huddled at the back of the chamber with other GOP holdouts.

At one point, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler and Rep. Tom Emmer backed Spartz and her fellow rebel Rep. Thomas Massie against a wall.

Earlier that morning, Spartz had told reporters there was nothing anyone could do to prevent her, a longtime fiscal hawk, from opposing the multitrillion-dollar budget, including even a call from Trump himself. “I don’t change my mind,” she said.

But within minutes of that moment at the back of the chamber — and sometime after a special cloakroom call from Trump — Spartz indeed flipped. On the call, Trump reportedly yelled at her loudly enough for others in the room to overhear, calling her a “fake Republican” who was derailing his agenda and reminding her he was the president. (In a post on X, Spartz disputed that account, specifically that Trump raised his voice.)

This isn’t the first time the third-term lawmaker has held Johnson hostage. And it wasn’t hard to see coming. Last November, after it was clear Republicans would have a trifecta, she confided to some of her staffers in meetings that she planned to oppose the speaker whenever possible and was planning on “taking down Johnson.” In late December and early January, she held out support for his speakership reelection until the last minute, when she extracted a number of commitments from him to work on cutting waste and spending.

Spartz, who has increasingly garnered headlines about her high staff turnover, hardline stances on spending and personal connection to Ukraine, is known in Congress and at home in Indiana for her unpredictability and her disregard for standard operating procedure. She has a trail of burned bridges to show for it, stretching from Noblesville, her hometown in Indiana, to her office in Washington, where more than a dozen people have left since November, on top of the already frequent pace of resignations that helped label her Washington’s worst boss in 2022, according to the nonprofit LegiStorm.

In interviews, more than a half-dozen current and former aides — some who spoke with me before leaving their employment in recent weeks — and GOP officials described Spartz to me as a mercurial, combative individual who is determined in pursuing what she wants — often at the expense of relationships. Many of them were granted anonymity because they feared retaliation from Spartz or were fearful that speaking with media could harm their job prospects.

One former and one current staffer told me they also reported to the committee that Spartz has asked them to perform campaign-related tasks. (The Ethics Committee declined to comment, but the staffers said they were told that the committee did not pursue an investigation.) There are a number of congressional rules that prohibit staffers from doing campaign work for their bosses except under specific conditions, and one rule expressly prohibits members from “compelling” staffers to do such work. Several aides told me Spartz requested their help on campaign-related tasks, including pulling weeds and handing out champagne for a political fundraiser.

“I do not require my official staff to do any political activities at all and I am tired of you writing lies,” Spartz told me when presented with the reporting in this article. “I evaluate people and reward based on their performance of their official duties for my constituents.”

It’s not just her reputation as a manager that has rattled colleagues and staffers. Last year, in a separate matter weighed by the Ethics Committee, Spartz was charged with packing a .380 caliber handgun in her carry-on bag at Dulles International Airport on her way to a gathering in Europe of the Helsinki Commission (an agency that monitors compliance with U.S.-Canada-Europe security agreements), of which she is a member. The investigation and charges were later dropped. Observers and acquaintances have also been confounded by her unofficial trips to Ukraine and record of changing stances on the conflict there.

Her speaker-election maneuvering earlier this year, and her record of staff complaints and frustrated colleagues in Washington, have come as no surprise to the Republicans on her enemies list back home in Indiana. Now, these Republicans see her as a cause of the dysfunction she frequently calls out in Washington.

“You can keep calling the circus a circus, but … at some point in time, by taking the steps that you’re taking, you’re becoming the ringleader of the circus,” said Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen, a Republican who endorsed one of Spartz’s eight challengers in last year’s May primary.