Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., questions witnesses throughout a Home Oversight and Authorities Reform subcommittee listening to on Feb. 12, 2025, on Capitol Hill.
Rod Lamkey/AP
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Rod Lamkey/AP
The brand new prime Democrat on the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform committee is prepared for a struggle.
“I believe I obtained elected as a result of I’m aggressive,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., mentioned in an interview. “I believe that we have got to be fighters on this second.”
In June, Home Democrats picked Garcia, a sophomore congressman, over a number of extra senior colleagues to guide their social gathering on the committee. At 47, the California native is the youngest rating member in Congress.
Identified for its raucous hearings and investigations into among the most outstanding and divisive areas of American politics, the Home Oversight Committee is among the many most excessive profile arenas in Congress. The committee chair has the facility to subpoena witnesses and the broad authority to dig into nearly any subject — that has included the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults, steroid utilization in Main League Baseball, and the federal government’s dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Garcia succeeds the late Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who died in Might following a battle with most cancers, and Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who briefly crammed the function for Democrats on an performing foundation.
He involves the job at a second when Democrats are craving extra direct confrontation with President Trump and Republicans in Congress, however as rating member, he faces inherent challenges. In contrast to the GOP chair, he is unable to set the agenda for the committee and lacks subpoena energy.
That does not faze Garcia, who mentioned he is able to lean into the fray.
“Persons are simply pissed off at what’s occurred with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, the Home Republicans,” Garcia mentioned. “And other people need to see an excellent struggle.”
Garcia already has a status for doing simply that.
In February, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., tried to censure Garcia for his feedback on CNN saying Individuals need Democrats to “deliver precise weapons to this bar struggle” whereas referencing Elon Musk’s authorities work. Days later, Garcia obtained a letter from the Division of Justice which mentioned it takes “threats towards public officers very severely.”
Garcia mentioned his phrases weren’t a menace, and that he would not be intimidated.
“You bought to face as much as bullies,” Garcia mentioned. “I’ve accomplished that my entire life.”
From Peru to Lengthy Seashore
Garcia was born in Peru and immigrated to the USA as a younger little one together with his mom.
“My mother, once we first obtained right here, she cleaned homes. I keep in mind watching her and my aunt going to those houses,” Garcia mentioned. “I keep in mind considering, ‘Wow, it could be so good to dwell in a spot like this.'”
His household settled east of Los Angeles in Covina, Calif., as undocumented residents. On the encouragement of his mother, Garcia utilized to California State College, Lengthy Seashore, the place he obtained his begin in politics as pupil authorities president.
“Once I was in faculty, more often than not I used to be not a citizen,” Garcia mentioned. “And I keep in mind considering, ‘Wow, I am getting these alternatives to symbolize all these of us. I can not even, like, vote in an election myself.'”
Then-student authorities president Robert Garcia (center) stands with fellow college students Likelihood Decker (left), Casey Mercer (left of heart), Sheryl Mauricio (proper of heart) and Wayne Stickney-Smith (proper).
Picture Courtesy of California State College Lengthy Seashore, College Library
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Picture Courtesy of California State College Lengthy Seashore, College Library
In the end, Garcia turned a citizen in his 20s, alongside together with his mother, due to the amnesty regulation signed by President Ronald Reagan.
After commencement, Garcia began a neighborhood information website known as The Lengthy Seashore Put up, however earlier than too lengthy, politics would come calling once more. He received a seat on the town council, after which at simply 37 years outdated, received election as mayor.
Throughout Garcia’s second time period as mayor, the pandemic hit Lengthy Seashore and the world.
“Each my mother and my stepdad died as a consequence of COVID, which is horrific, clearly,” Garcia mentioned. “And I used to be the mayor on the time. And so that actually had a profound influence on me. Notably what Donald Trump was saying and doing in that first time period.”
He mentioned this motivated him to run for nationwide workplace in 2022, when a Home seat representing the Lengthy Seashore space opened up.
At his swearing in, Garcia turned the primary overtly homosexual immigrant to serve in Congress.
‘A bully pulpit to refute’
Throughout his first time period, Garcia rapidly rose up the Democratic ranks, gaining a seat on the Oversight Committee after being recruited to the panel by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former rating member himself.
Raskin mentioned Garcia is the suitable decide for this explicit second on the Oversight panel.
“I believe that what we see shaping up on this century is a battle between proper wing authoritarian populism and progressive multicultural populism,” Raskin mentioned. “And he’s very in contact with the entire new actions of our day and never in any form of dogmatic or politically right method. However it’s a part of who he’s.”
As rating member on the committee, Garcia is taking over a key function amongst Democrats and bringing a youthful perspective to social gathering management at a second when many citizens are calling for generational change.
And though his powers within the minority will probably be restricted, he is nonetheless in search of solutions from the administration.
“We nonetheless have the facility to analyze even within the minority,” Garcia mentioned. “We’re asking Homeland Safety and Secretary [Kristi] Noem for solutions on a wide range of questions and demanding that members of Congress be allowed their oversight duty.”
Raskin mentioned Garcia’s greatest weapon as a rating member will probably be his elevated visibility.
“What Robert will get is a bully pulpit to refute and rebut the entire propaganda and disinformation coming forth from James Comer and the GOP,” Raskin mentioned, referring to the panel’s GOP chairman. “So he’ll be taking part in offense and protection on the similar time.”
When requested if there are any present areas of widespread floor between Republicans and Democrats on the committee, Garcia mentioned no.
“These of us should not occupied with bipartisanship,” Garcia mentioned. “And so I do not see plenty of locations there that there is plenty of shared pursuits.”
Now, Garcia mentioned he is working to flip the Home. And if he turns into chairman of the committee underneath a Democrat majority, Garcia mentioned he is aware of who he’d examine.
“Of us like Stephen Miller, of us like Elon Musk,” Garcia mentioned. “These are folks that have to be held accountable for what they’ve accomplished to the general public, regardless of how a lot cash they’ve or how highly effective they could be, or near the president they could be.”
