Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Tuesday secured the top Democratic seat on the powerful House Oversight Committee, winning a vote of the full Democratic Caucus in the crowded race to replace the late-Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who died last month of esophageal cancer.
Garcia bested another committee Democrat, Rep. Stephen Lynch (Mass.), in the closed-door, secret-ballot vote in the Capitol basement.
The 150-63 vote puts Garcia on the dais of one of Congress’s most potent committees, one with subpoena powers and a sweeping jurisdiction that covers virtually every facet of the federal government. While the minority Democrats have no authority to dictate the panel’s direction in the current Congress, they have a good shot at flipping control of the House in next year’s midterms — a scenario that would put the gavel in Garcia’s hand and lend him broad powers to investigate the many controversial actions of the second Trump administration.
Garcia’s victory is extraordinary for a lawmaker so green, as he’s only in his third year on Capitol Hill. And it’s especially striking in a caucus that has a long tradition of rewarding seniority, and the experience that comes with it, when choosing committee leaders. Indeed, Connolly in December had easily won the seat over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — a clear victory for seniority that had dissuaded Ocasio-Cortez from seeking the seat again after Connolly’s death.
Yet the preference given to committee veterans has eroded gradually in recent years, as Democrats have sought a generational shift to a younger crop of leaders after decades with more senior members at the helm.
That shift seemed to diminish the advantage of Lynch, 70, the most senior of the four candidates who has served as the interim ranking member of the committee since Connolly’s deteriorating health forced him to step out of that role in April. A former iron worker and union leader, Lynch had argued that his long experience in the Oversight trenches made him best suited to take the seat permanently.
But his pitch wasn’t enough to overcome the challenge from Garcia, who was endorsed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which he is a member, and appeared also to get a boost from his colleagues in California, which boasts the largest Democratic delegation in the House.