From elevator-bound staffers to the top leaders in the House, no one is underestimating 82-year-old Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).

After Foxx chaired a nearly 22-hour House Rules Committee hearing ahead of House passage of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in May, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called her the “Iron Lady of the House.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called Foxx a “tough cookie” and a “straight shooter” in a press conference a few weeks later.

Now in her 11th term in Congress, Foxx is undeniably one of the most iconic figures in the House Republican Conference — a stature achieved not by making waves through social media or bombastic stances, but through being a workhorse and a team player.

“I am really, really focused on not wasting time,” Foxx said in an interview with The Hill in June. “If you see me when I'm waiting for the train, you'll see I go to the end of the platform so that I am on the first car, so when I get out, I'm as close as I can be to where I'm going.”

But while she is known for her toughness, Foxx also has a soft side — tearing up when talking about the American Revolution’s “barefoot soldiers who were willing to risk their lives for freedom.” She’s poured her energy through her decades-long career into helping people through education, just as it helped her rise up from poverty.

Fox in this Congress is the only Republican woman chairing a committee in the House, selected by the Speaker to lead the powerful Rules panel after she led Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for four terms.

Foxx, though, doesn’t see that statistic as evidence of bias against women in the GOP.

“I think a lot of the press tries to make it look like women are not respected in the Republican Party, but it's really a matter of tenure,” she said, adding: “The fact that I'm the only woman just means that we haven't had women stay as long as men stay or start earlier to be able to gain the seniority to become a chair. So it's just a matter of timing, more than anything.”

Foxx’s personal life story centers on the........

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