ICYMI: Congressman Robert Garcia, Freshman Class President, on what to expect from the Oversight Committee this Congress

VOX: With coworkers like Marjorie Taylor Greene, what can Democrats do on oversight?

A conversation with Robert Garcia, a first-year Democrat, on the coming fireworks in the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. Garcia is the first openly LGBTQ immigrant in Congress.

Both congressional Democrats and Republicans have now finalized the lists of members who will sit on committees this Congress, and that includes the high-profile House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Rep. James Comer, the top Republican on the committee, has already promised it will be “probably the most exciting committee” in congressional history, and despite recently trying to clear the air about just what the committee has the power to do, he plans to make good on promises during the midterm campaign cycle to lead an onslaught of investigations into the Biden administration, the president’s family, and a variety of red-meat conservative cultural issues, like the cancellation of Newsmax on DirecTV.

Democrats on that committee will be led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, one of the high-profile House managers in the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, and he’ll be joined by an all-star line-up of House Democrats, including eight new members.

Among them: 45-year-old Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the Democrats’ first-year class president, who is the first gay immigrant to serve in Congress. Formerly the mayor of Long Beach, California, a city just south of Los Angeles, Garcia has already taken on the mantle of House Freedom Caucus gadfly — mocking some of the right wing’s most visible figures, like GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, for their conspiratorial thinking about subjects like the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine. It’s a personal subject for Garcia, whose mother and stepfather died of Covid complications in 2020.

He and his first-term colleagues intend to hold these GOP investigators accountable themselves — fitting the new Democratic strategy to go after their Republican inquisitors.

I caught up with Garcia on Friday, when he told me he’s ready to “take on [their] bullshit” and contest every narrative the new committee tries to weave. Our conversation, below, has been edited for length and clarity.

Christian Paz

So you got your assignments and you’ll be sitting across from some of the most colorful, conspiratorial, and controversial Republican members of Congress. How are you expecting these committees to behave, and what do you think it will be like to watch from the outside?

Rep. Robert Garcia

Well, clearly, Kevin McCarthy’s put the most extreme members of his caucus on Oversight. We have folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Paul Gosar. These are folks that take their cues from QAnon, that are attacking vaccines, that are obsessed with Hunter Biden’s laptop and the president. So it’s important that we are ready every single day to show up, to fight back with facts, to push back with as much energy as they are. And we are. I’m fired up to take folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene on, take on her bullshit, take on her lies, and ensure that there are strong voices on our side that are actually pushing facts.

[...]

Christian Paz

Some of these issues — Covid, immigration — are also really personal, right? They’ve had an effect in your life and you have a connection to them. So I’m wondering how you’re thinking about handling those topics and what specifically you’re worried about and expecting from the Republicans.

Rep. Garcia

Chairman Comer has noted that the first hearing is going to be on the pandemic, and it’ll happen [this week]. The fact is that they’re going to use these hearings to try to dismantle support for pandemic prevention and that they’re going to attack how the government responded.

I was mayor of my community the entire time the pandemic was ravaging communities. Schools were closed and people were dying. In my city alone, we lost over 1,300 people. I lost two parents to the pandemic. And so I deeply understand how important vaccines are, how important pandemic prevention is, and what actually happened on the ground. Mayors were on the front lines responding to the pandemic. And if there was a failure in government, it was the Trump administration leaving cities and states to fend for themselves early on.

So I look forward to speaking on that topic from a position of authority and of experience, both of personal experience and personal loss, but also managing a city that President Biden called [out as] having one of the best pandemic responses in the country. He called Long Beach a national model. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said we had the best response in the state as it relates to the pandemic. And so I am going to be very engaged coming up.

[...]

Christian Paz

And finally, on a more personal level — are you ready to take the heat? To face the onslaught of supporters these right-wing members have online or in real life, here in DC or at home?

Rep. Garcia

I’ve definitely thought about those things. But I’ve been through more than most folks, as a queer immigrant. Gay people [and] immigrants are some of the most resilient people in this country. This moment requires a different type of leadership and Congress member. That’s what our class brings and we’re fired up and ready to go.

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