Suozzi rules out another term in Congress

House Ways and Means Committee Democrat Tom Suozzi announced this week that he will not run for re-election to Congress in 2022 and will instead seek the Democratic nomination to be governor of his home state of New York.

A former mayor and county executive, Suozzi was first elected to Congress in 2016 and has been on the Ways and Means Committee since 2019.

One of his more high-profile policy priorities as taxwriter has been advancing legislation to minimize the impact of a provision in 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97) that capped the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) at $10,000. Most recently, he has been active in efforts to add SALT relief to the Build Back Better legislation (H.R. 5376) that cleared the House last month and is now awaiting consideration in the Senate. (See separate coverage in this issue for additional discussion of the Build Back Better package and the debate over how to address the SALT cap.)

Suozzi is the second Democrat on the House taxwriting panel to signal his intentions to leave Capitol Hill at the end of the current term. (Ways and Means Democrat Ron Kind of Wisconsin announced in August that this would be his last term in Congress.)

Among the Ways and Means Committee’s Republicans, ranking member Kevin Brady of Texas revealed his retirement plans in April and Rep. Tom Reed of New York nixed a re-election bid in March.

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