Cuellar wins a key nod to regain a top House Appropriations post

Aris Folley and Aidan Quigley, CQ-Roll Call on Dec 12, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to recommend reinstalling Rep. Henry Cuellar as the ranking member of the panel’s Homeland Security subcommittee, after President Donald Trump pardoned the congressman for alleged bribery schemes.

Trump’s “full and unconditional” pardon of the Texas Democrat and his wife, Imelda, announced last week, put Democrats in the awkward position of having to decide whether to reinstate Cuellar to his former plum Appropriations post without any trial being held on the bribery charges. Cuellar and his wife have denied the charges and maintain their innocence.

“We followed the rules of the caucus,” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the committee’s top Democrat, adding it is not the job of appropriators to set those rules.

But those rules appear to allow Democrats to decide as they wish. Caucus rules state that if “the charges are dismissed,” the previously indicted member automatically returns to the vacated position if he or she stepped down and could be reinstated within the same Congress. Cuellar, however, stepped down in the last Congress, shortly after he was indicted in May of 2024.

That time lag meant a vote to reinstate him was required under the rules, DeLauro said.

While the vote among appropriators marked a crucial initial step, the move needs to be approved by the Democratic Steering Committee and the full caucus to become official. Committee members did not disclose the vote tally.

Appropriators mostly kept mum about the process leaving the meeting early Thursday afternoon. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., who served as acting ranking member on the subcommittee, didn’t take questions after the meeting.

DeLauro sent notices to Democratic appropriators last week of plans for a vote on whether to restore Cuellar as ranking member of the Homeland Security subcommittee. Cuellar and his wife were charged with accepting roughly $600,000 in bribes from the government of Azerbaijan and a foreign bank based in Mexico City.

The Texas Democrat said there were no concerns about his return to the position that were aired at the meeting on Thursday. “We got ratified,” he said.

In announcing the pardon last week, Trump wrote on social media: “Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”

Less than a week later, Trump criticized the congressman for not switching parties at a time House Republicans are seeing a rising tally of members announcing retirements this year.

The decision comes at a critical time for appropriators as Congress stares down a tight time crunch to wrap up nine long-delayed fiscal 2026 appropriations bills by a Jan. 30 deadline. And some negotiators are already speculating about the prospect of another yearlong stopgap funding extension for the Department of Homeland Security.

While House Republicans have released their full-year funding proposal for Homeland Security, the Senate has yet to unveil its version.