Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) launched a bid Tuesday to grow to be the highest Democrat on the highly effective Home Oversight and Accountability Committee within the subsequent Congress, a high-profile seat that shall be on the entrance traces of the polarized battle over President-elect Trump and his promised second-term agenda.
The place is quickly to be vacated by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who’s looking for the rating member place on the Home Judiciary Committee.
In a letter to fellow Democrats, Connolly stated he’s able to tackle Republicans underneath a second Trump administration, when the GOP will management all of the levers of energy in Washington and Democrats will lean closely on combative opposition figures on the committee degree.
“We must expose and dismantle bad faith Republican efforts to promote conspiracy theories, intimidate witnesses, and undermine democratic processes,” Connolly wrote. “I’ve done this effectively in my work on the Committee in opposing the impeachment of President Biden and while serving as an appointee on the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
Connolly additionally argued that his expertise on the Oversight panel, the place he’s served for 16 years, makes him notably nicely suited to the job. His previous standing as a weak front-liner, he added, makes him delicate to the kitchen-table considerations of voters in unstable financial instances. And he’s additionally touting his longtime deal with defending authorities employees — a large constituency in his northern Virginia district — which has taken on new significance given Trump’s guarantees to slash the federal workforce.
“While civil service protections and reform may not typically draw much attention, they have become critically important in the face of Republican efforts to replace more than 50,000 federal employees with Trump loyalists,” Connolly wrote. “Recognizing the serious threat posed by President Trump’s Schedule F initiative, I have worked tirelessly to build bipartisan support for legislation to block President Trump’s plan to purge the federal workforce.”
It’s not the primary time Connolly has sought the seat.
Two years in the past, after former Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) misplaced a main contest to Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), three senior Democrats on the committee — Connolly, Raskin and Rep. Stephen Lynch (Mass.) — vied to exchange her. Raskin prevailed, however on Monday the Maryland lawmaker introduced he’s difficult Nadler for the rating member spot on the Judiciary Committee — one other highly effective submit that can play an outsized position within the coming battle over Trump’s second-term insurance policies.
As a result of they’re within the Home minority, Democrats will lack the authority to dictate the agenda of committees within the subsequent Congress. However they already like their probabilities of flipping the chamber within the 2026 midterms — a notoriously robust cycle for the celebration of the incumbent president — which might put the rating members of each Oversight and Judiciary in place to grab gavels and play a way more energetic position within the oversight of Trump throughout his ultimate two years within the White Home.
Connolly is the primary Democrat to announce a proper run at changing Raskin. It’s unclear if he’ll face any challengers for the place.
Connolly’s bid comes lower than a month after the eight-term Democrat introduced a analysis of esophagus most cancers. In a be aware to constituents shortly after he was elected to a ninth time period, he stated he would start remedy of chemotherapy and immunotherapy “right away.”
“Cancer can be tough. But so am I,” he stated. “I will attack this the only way I know how — with Irish fight and humor.”
