Representative Jamie Raskin launched a campaign Monday to replace Representative Jerry Nadler as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
In a letter to his colleagues, the Maryland Democrat warned that they were in “the fight of our lives.” Raskin asked for the party to support his burgeoning bid, explaining that “the stakes have gone way up since the election” as “this time the MAGA movement has not only a trifecta but a complicit Supreme Court waiting in the wings and a dominant media propaganda system parroting all the lies.”
“House Democrats must stand in the breach to defend the principles and institutions of constitutional democracy. That is our historic assignment now. We dare not fail,” Raskin wrote.
“After a week consulting most of our Colleagues and engaging in serious introspection about where we are, I am running today to be your Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee in the 119th Congress,” he wrote. “This is where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the security of our most precious birthright possessions: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democracy itself.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was among several House Democrats who spent days urging a rather reluctant Raskin to challenge the 77-year-old Nadler, a pillar of the House’s older Democratic guard. Democrats have reportedly grown concerned that Nadler wouldn’t be as meaningfully effective in quashing Donald Trump’s abuses of power as Raskin, who headed the House’s investigation into the deadly January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
