Nadler Cedes Top Demo­c­rat Role On House Judi­cia­ry

On Wednes­day, Rep. Jer­ry Nadler (D‑NY) bowed out of the race to be the top Demo­c­rat on the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, which has over­sight of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice, in the new Con­gress start­ing next year.

Nadler, who has held either the chair­man or rank­ing mem­ber posi­tion in the pan­el for the past sev­er­al years, revealed his deci­sion in a let­ter to col­leagues while vouch­ing for Rep. Jamie Raskin (D‑MD) to take his place dur­ing the first half of Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s sec­ond term.

“As our coun­try faces the return of Don­ald Trump, and the renewed threats to our democ­ra­cy and our way of life that he rep­re­sents, I am very con­fi­dent that Jamie would ably lead the Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee as we con­front this grow­ing dan­ger,” Nadler wrote.

News: Rep. JERRY NADLER will be step­ping down from race to be the top Demo­c­rat on House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, mak­ing the dif­fi­cult deci­sion after speak­ing with staff and Rep. Jamie Raskin who announced his bid for the job. Here’s the let­ter he sent to col­leagues, obtained by AP pic.twitter.com/Tgswdt8Yzu

— Farnoush Amiri (@FarnoushAmiri) Decem­ber 4, 2024

The announce­ment came amid reports of a push with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to pave the way for younger mem­bers to take on lead­er­ship roles after Repub­li­cans com­plet­ed a 2024 elec­tion sweep that includ­ed the GOP keep­ing con­trol of the House while win­ning back the Sen­ate and the White House. Nadler is 77 while Raskin is 61.

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Raskin, who led the Jan­u­ary 6‑focused impeach­ment inquiry against Trump and was a mem­ber of the now-defunct Jan­u­ary 6 Com­mit­tee, declared his can­di­da­cy to become the top Demo­c­rat on the judi­cia­ry pan­el ear­li­er this week. In his own let­ter, Raskin spoke about com­bat­ing Trump’s “MAGA” move­ment.

“In the 119th Con­gress, the Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee will be the head­quar­ters of Con­gres­sion­al oppo­si­tion to author­i­tar­i­an­ism and MAGA’s cam­paign to dis­man­tle our Con­sti­tu­tion­al sys­tem and the rule of law as we know it,” Raskin wrote to his col­leagues, adding: “I hope to be at the cen­ter of this fight.”

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Raskin has held the role of rank­ing mem­ber on the House Over­sight Com­mit­tee for the past cou­ple of years. With Raskin step­ping away, Rep. Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez (D‑NY) has expressed inter­est in tak­ing his place, set­ting up a clash against Rep. Ger­ry Con­nol­ly (D‑VA).

“I’m hav­ing a lot of con­ver­sa­tions with my col­leagues,” Oca­sio-Cortez told reporters. “I think it’s incred­i­bly impor­tant that we pre­pare our­selves ful­ly for an incom­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion as well as fight­ing for every­day work­ing Amer­i­cans.”