WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Robert Garcia was elected the top Democrat on the powerful House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, charting a new direction for the party's opposition to congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump's administration.
Garcia, of California, won the job overwhelmingly in a closed-door vote of the House Democratic caucus. He beat out Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, 150-63.
Afterward, Garcia thanked colleagues who also sought the top job and promised the Democratic side of the committee would be focused on rooting out government corruption and increasing government efficiency.
“Efficiency is not DOGE,” Garcia said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency. “Efficiency is actually making government work better for our constituents across the country, and that's what we're going to focus on.”
House Oversight is among the most prominent committees in Congress — and one of its most consistently partisan. As the top Democrat, Garcia will be thrust into the spotlight as Republicans conduct several high-profile investigations, including the unfolding inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden's health in office.
Garcia said the committee's Democratic staffers are “ready for consistent leadership" and promised “to get immediately to work.”
The ranking Democrat spot opened up after Rep. Gerry Connelly of Virginia died in late May following treatment for esophageal cancer. Other Democrats who ran for the job included Lynch, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland.
Crockett and Mfume dropped out of the race after Garcia on Monday won the support of the Democrats' steering committee, which sets party priorities.
Garcia will be the first Latino and openly gay person to serve as the committee’s ranking member. His election comes at a time of generational change for Democrats, with internal debates raging over how to fix what went wrong in the elections last year.
Democrats made a different choice last December, when Connolly defeated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the party’s progressive stars, for the Oversight ranking member job in a race that also featured heavy debates over generational change. This time around, many senior Democratic lawmakers expressed openness to reassessing seniority as the main consideration for top committee posts.
Lynch has served on the Oversight panel for 14 years, while Garcia has served on it for two.
“I think what's important is that this party and us at this moment is looking at expanding the tent," Garcia told reporters. "And I think experience is incredibly important. I think I can bring that experience. I feel ready. But I also think it's an opportunity to bring in newer voices to the leadership and to this committee.”
Garcia had pitched himself as a compromise candidate to colleagues. He emphasized his experience as mayor of Long Beach, California, as a reason that he would be skilled at steering the party's conversation on government reform and efficacy. And he stressed to lawmakers that combating potential government corruption in the Trump administration would be both good governance and a winning political message.
Multiple Democratic members in competitive districts were persuaded by his pitch to not stake out positions that would hurt the party's broader brand and thus chances of winning back the majority.
FILE - Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., speaks at the California Democratic Party's 2025 State Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif., May, 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral Saturday of a leading Bangladeshi activist who died of gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, as political tensions gripped the country ahead of elections.
Sharif Osman Hadi, who took part in last year’s political uprising that ended former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, died in a hospital in Singapore on Thursday after being shot Dec. 12 in Dhaka.
Police said they had identified suspects and that the shooter had most probably fled to India, where Hasina has been in exile. The development sparked a new diplomatic squabble with India and prompted New Delhi this week to summon Bangladesh’s envoy. Bangladesh also summoned the Indian envoy to Dhaka.
Security was tight in Dhaka on Saturday as the funeral prayers were held outside the nation’s Parliament complex.
Hadi’s body returned on Friday night, and Saturday was declared a national mourning day.
Hadi was a spokesperson for the Inqilab Moncho culture group, which said he would be buried on the Dhaka University campus beside the country’s national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.
Mourners carried Bangladesh flags and chanted slogans, such as “We will be Hadi, we will be fighting decades after decades,” and “We will not let Hadi’s blood go in vain.”
The news of his death on Thursday evening triggered violence, with groups of protesters attacking and torching the offices of two leading national dailies. The country’s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has urged the people to stay calm.
Hadi was a fierce critic of both neighboring India and Hasina, who has been in exile since Aug. 5, 2024, when she fled Bangladesh. Hadi had planned to run as an independent candidate in a major constituency in Dhaka in the next national elections in February.
Bangladesh has been going through a critical transition under Yunus in a bid to return to democracy through the upcoming elections. But the government has been Hasina’s Awami League party, which is one of two major political parties. ,
Hasina’s archrival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party is the other key party, which hopes to forms the next government. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, the country’s largest Islamist party with a dark history involving the nation’s independence war in 1971, is leading an alliance to carve out a bigger political space in the absence of Hasina’s party and its allies.
Hasina has been sentenced to death on charges of crimes against humanity, but India's has not responded to repeated requests by the Yunus-led government for her extradition.
People gather around an ambulance carrying the body of leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, following his funeral prayers outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
People react as they gather to perform funeral prayers for leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
People offer funeral prayers for leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
Protesters shout slogans and block an intersection following overnight attacks and vandalism after the death of a prominent activist, who was shot by an assailant a week ago, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
