As committee chair, Virginia Foxx championed issues that became winners for the GOP

Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx has reached her final hours as the conference's leader on education policy.

For 20 years, Foxx has served on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. For the last two terms while Republicans were in the majority in the House, she's held the coveted position of chairwoman and was ranking member when Democrats were in control from 2019 until 2021. In fact, the 81-year-old congresswoman was granted a waiver to lead the committee for the 118th Congress because Republicans limit their top committee position to six years.

The Republican Steering Committee will elect the next chair on Thursday.

Foxx told ABC News that her top priority this session was reducing college costs through reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

Many of the K-12 topics on the former college instructor and community college president's legislative agenda became winning issues for Republicans. Parents' rights, protecting women and girls in sports, and school choice policies -- issues that reached the national stage on the campaign trail this year -- were widely supported by Republicans under Foxx's leadership.

Foxx is known for foiling the Biden administration's signature higher education policies, including his student loan forgiveness program. She's been called a "hero" by staffers and a "force of nature" by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

"She has been a very faithful friend to me and a good model for all of us," Johnson recalled in an interview with ABC News. "Her work ethic is incredible. She is so passionate about what she does. She is a force of nature, but she also has a way to balance it with humility," Johnson said.

Dedication to education

Foxx's dedication to education was exhibited by her committee's crackdown on alleged antisemitism engulfing college campuses over the last year. She spearheaded the collecting of more than 400,000 pages of documents, historic subpoenas for documents and internal communications, and hearings that led to the resignations of Ivy League presidents who failed to protect Jewish students at U.S. universities, according to the committee's wide-reaching report.

"Our goal was and is to make sure that Jewish students are safe on campus," Foxx told ABC News, adding, "All students should be safe on campus, but it was the Jewish students who were being threatened and harassed and, at times, assaulted."

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik has worked alongside Foxx for the last decade on the committee. Stefanik credits Foxx with being the driving force pushing education to the top of the House's agenda as Johnson took up the antisemitism issue earlier this spring.

"The great thing about Virginia is she's not going to slow down, and I think she will have other great chapters in Congress, but it's been great to be on the committee with her, and I'm very proud of her, and she is someone that so many people look up to," Stefanik told ABC News.

Foxx's work ethic can be traced back to her humble beginning in Avery County, North Carolina, in Appalachia. She told ABC News that she grew up very poor.

"I just never imagined, in my wildest dreams, being in Congress or having a portrait," Foxx said when asked this fall about the painting of her that now hangs in the Education Committee's hearing room on Capitol Hill. "I grew up in a town with no electricity and no running water."

Foxx is now a mentor to her colleagues, including Stefanik and Utah's Burgess Owens.

"She's a bulldog when it comes down to what she wants to get accomplished and that's what we've needed to actually bring education to the forefront," Rep. Owens told ABC News.

A former NFL player, Owens said he admires Foxx's ability to build a team and compared the chairwoman to his legendary head coach Al Davis.

"I see what Dr. Foxx is doing with education in the same way," Owens said. "I think for the first time, education is becoming a priority, not only for those of us who have a passion for it, but for Americans across the country who just took it for granted," he said.

Who will be the next chair?

A relative newcomer to the committee, Owens wants to follow in Foxx's footsteps. He is challenging Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, to succeed Foxx as chair.

Owens told ABC News he's feeling anxious about winning over his colleagues on the committee. Meanwhile, Walberg and Rep. G.T. Thompson of Pennsylvania are the second-longest serving Republicans on the committee behind Foxx. After 16 years, Walberg said he believes he deserves the top position.

Foxx said she has loved chairing the committee, but it's just one of many highlights during her time on the Hill.

"My greatest achievement comes every day when we help another constituent, so my life isn't just tied up in the committee," she said.