Rep. Kevin McCarthy announced on Wednesday that he plans to leave Congress at year’s end, just months after he was ousted as speaker and his future in the chamber made uncertain.

McCarthy becomes the latest in a growing list of lawmakers, especially in the House, who have announced they’ll leave Congress in the near future, following an unprecedented period of chaos as the chamber stood speakerless for weeks after his ouster.

At least 30 other representatives have announced they’ll end their stint in Congress at the conclusion of their terms, as the lower chamber is set to grow far less experienced – and very likely far more politically polarized.

Just a day ago, Rep. Patrick McHenry, a pragmatic institutionalist and well-respected Republican voice on economic matters who leads the Financial Services Committee and served as a temporary speaker at McCarthy’s direction after his removal, announced that he would not seek reelection after nearly two decades in the chamber.

McCarthy wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that he plans to resign from the House at the end of the year to “serve America in new ways.” The California Republican celebrated that under his leadership, House Republicans “did the right thing,” which he said may appear “out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country.”

McCarthy in October became the first speaker to be successfully ousted from his post, when eight Republicans joined all Democrats to take away his gavel in a push that came after McCarthy relied on Democratic votes to keep the government open, angering the right flank of his party in the process. But the disdain for the former speaker seemed to run even deeper.

Indeed, McCarthy’s speakership was marred by mistrust from multiple sides. While he routinely pledged that he would “change Washington” and vowed to “never give up” despite consistent doubt – and sometimes underestimation – he largely remained at the mercy of House conservatives, as last-minute deals with the far right seemed to litter the bulk of House-passed legislation. But his occasional turns toward the center seemed to doom his standing with the group he so fervently served.

For the Bakersfield native who was first elected to the chamber in 2007, the road to the speakership was a lengthy one, perhaps first envisioned more than a decade ago when he became known as one of the three “young guns” expected to take up the helm of the party when the time came for a new generation. But in 2015, McCarthy’s speaker bid abruptly ended amid pushback from right-wing lawmakers who have long seen him as insufficiently conservative.

A similar group threatened to derail McCarthy’s speaker ambitions in January, taking him 15 grueling rounds before granting him the gavel – albeit by the skin of his teeth. Just nine months later, a small group of Republicans – many of whom were among those who initially opposed his bid – voted to oust him.

McCarthy’s ouster spurred a grueling process to elect his replacement, which descended the chamber into chaos without a leader. At times, as House Republicans squabbled to unite behind a new leader, it seemed McCarthy could make a comeback. He even briefly expressed openness publicly, suggesting that if it was the will of the chamber, he would regain the gavel. But when Speaker Mike Johnson became the caucus’ nominee with near unanimous backing from the party, McCarthy was relegated to his former-speaker status, without a clear future in the chamber.

Then, the former speaker made his way back into the headlines last month in unceremonious fashion, when Rep. Tim Burchett, who voted to oust McCarthy, accused the former speaker of elbowing him in a “clean shot to the kidneys” in a Capitol hallway.

But McCarthy seemed to try to move forward from the embarrassing incidents that have marred his last few months in Congress in his announcement on Wednesday, recalling what he helped Republicans to achieve during his 17 years in the chamber, while suggesting that going forward, the challenges the country faces are more likely to be solved outside of Congress.

“I go knowing I left it all on the field – as always, with a smile on my face,” McCarthy wrote. “And looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”