The House Republican Steering Committee on Thursday recommended Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) as the next chair of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and Rep. French Hill (R-AR) as the next chair of the House Financial Services Committee, selecting two lawmakers with records in support of the Jewish community and Israel for leadership roles on committees with authority over critical portfolios.

The steering committee’s recommendations effectively determine the committee leadership, though the decision must be ratified by House Republicans.

Walberg, a longtime member of the Education Committee, has been active in the committee’s investigations of and hearings about antisemitism on college campuses, including leading a letter to Harvard University President Alan Garber in July criticizing the recommendations Garber’s task force on antisemitism had put forward.

Walberg has also been consistently vocal in calling out issues on campuses around the country. He voted in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

“The debate that’s going on can be good at times. Demonstrations are normal on college campuses,” he said in an appearance on Newsmax in April. “But when it moves toward violence, and causing certain students — in this case, Jews — to feel in danger in going to the classroom, or in danger of their academic life if they’re  a student that wants to stand up for a peer of theirs who happens to be a Jew, that’s a problem.”

In his state, he condemned the recent antisemitic vandalism and harassment targeting University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker, saying that such activity “cannot be tolerated” and “the perpetrators must be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

And he said he would “work in lockstep” with President-elect Donald Trump to combat the “deep rot within higher education that is promoting hatred and bigotry.”

It remains unclear how Walberg plans to pursue efforts to combat antisemitism in the next Congress; the committee largely concluded its current investigations of a series of elite schools with a sweeping report published at the end of October.

Walberg mentioned antisemitism among his priorities in a statement on his new role, saying the committee will “empower parents, encourage education freedom, combat antisemitism and anti-Americanism on campuses, and bridge the divide between the skills taught and skills required in the modern economy.” 

Hill, who also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has long been active on Middle East issues. In his new role, he’ll have a part to play in efforts to cut off the Iranian regime’s financing and that of its terrorist proxies.

Since Oct. 7, Hill has led bills to require reports to Congress on the assets of top Iranian allies and proxies, sanction producers of the illicit drug Captagon, which helped finance the Iranian and Syrian regimes and cut off Iran’s access to International Monetary Fund financing.

The Iran reporting and Captagon bills passed into law as part of the national security supplemental bill earlier this year.

Hill also led a letter calling for sanctions on United Nations Relief and Works Agency employees who participated in the Oct. 7 attack.

“Iran’s attacks on Israel are the latest example of their terror that continues to plague the world. The Iranian regime is the top sponsor of terrorism who enables terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to carry out their brutal attacks against innocent civilians in the Middle East and beyond,” Hill said after the House passed his bill on Iranian leaders’ finances. “The United States must take action to assess the finances of Iran’s authoritarian leaders and crack down on financial institutions that are connected to their funds to hinder their terror financing abilities.”

Hill is the co-chair of the congressional hostage task force, in which role he has hosted and met with the families of hostages being held in Gaza and has led legislation and a vigil in support of the hostages. Prior to Oct. 7, Hill told Jewish Insider he had pressured Palestinian officials in person on the Palestinian Authority’s martyr payments.”

Hill, a strong supporter of cryptocurrency, has downplayed the need for stronger regulation of the digital currencies to prevent their use in terrorist financing. In a hearing earlier this year, he pushed back on the notion that cryptocurrency had been a significant financing method for Hamas’ attack on Israel.