Rep. Tom Suozzi was sworn in Wednesday evening on Capitol Hill, filling the seat once occupied by George Santos and further reducing the House GOP’s already razor-thin majority.

"Speaker, I never thought I'd be back here, but the Lord works in mysterious ways and God made a way when there was no way," he said.

After taking the oath, Suozzi, a Democrat, spoke from the House floor, and said on the night of his election victory that he would deliver a simple message to the chamber: "wake up."

"The people are sick and tired of the finger pointing and the petty partisan bickering. They want us to work together," he said.

Suozzi said there needs to be less chaos and more common sense.

"The last few months, I've talked to Democrats, Republicans and independents, and they all asked the same thing, "What about me? What are you doing for me?' he said. "People aren't paying us to make things worse. The people pay us to be in the solutions business."

New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of Queens and Nassau County, has been without a member of Congress since December, when the House voted to expel Santos, a Republican.

Santos’ 11 months in office were clouded by scandal and legal troubles. He is facing a 23-count federal indictment, with charges that include wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft. Santos, who has pleaded not guilty, is set to go to trial in September.

With Suozzi’s arrival on Capitol Hill, the U.S. House is now even more tightly split at a time Republicans have repeatedly struggled to pass their own legislation. The chamber’s make-up is now 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats.

Suozzi previously represented the district for three terms. He left Congress at the end of 2022, after pursuing an unsuccessful bid for governor rather than seeking reelection.

Shortly after Santos’ ouster, local party leaders selected Suozzi as the Democratic nominee for the special election to fill the seat. He faced off against Republican nominee Mazi Pilip, a Nassau County legislator.

During the race, Suozzi cast Pilip as inexperienced. He also attempted to turn the tables on one of the Republicans’ main lines of attack: immigration. Suozzi castigated the GOP for not taking up a bipartisan deal negotiated in the Senate. He won the special election by roughly 8%.

Ahead of Santos’ ouster, Suozzi had already announced a bid to win back his old seat in November.

New congressional maps approved Wednesday by lawmakers in Albany could make that re-election bid a bit easier for Suozzi. The current 3rd district backed Biden by approximately 8.2% in 2020. The new district would have backed Biden by roughly 11.4%.