Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland will run to become the top Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee next year, challenging fellow Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY) as the party prepares to fight a second Trump administration and an emboldened Republican majority. “House Democrats must stand in the breach to defend the principles and institutions of constitutional democracy,” Raskin wrote to colleagues. “That is our historic assignment now. We dare not fail.” Raskin said he decided to run for the post after consulting with House Democrats and “engaging in serious introspection” about where the party is after their defeat last month that handed Republicans control of Congress and the White House. Currently the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Raskin said that the Judiciary Committee under his leadership would become “the headquarters of Congressional opposition to authoritarianism” as well as other efforts by President Trump and his allies to thwart the Constitution, the Associated Press reports.
Raskin spent the last two years on Oversight as the most vocal defender of President Biden and his family as they faced a sprawling Republican investigation — encouraged by Trump — into their various business affairs. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, helped draft articles of impeachment against Trump for his encouragement of the violent Capitol mob on Jan. 6, 2021, and led the impeachment prosecution in the Senate. Raskin is inviting a bitter intra-party fight with Nadler, who is serving his 17th term and who has held the top spot on Judiciary since 2019. Democrats have over the years rarely broken from the seniority system for committee assignments. Raskin praising Nadler, saying that he made this decision “with respect and boundless admiration” for him. “If I’m lucky enough to be chosen for this responsibility in the 119th Congress, I will turn to Jerry first and throughout for his always wise counsel and political judgment,” Raskin said.
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