An upbeat Jamie Raskin moved closer Tuesday to becoming the first Marylander in nearly 200 years to chair the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
From that perch, he said, he would try to close gun-sale loopholes, scrutinize antitrust deals and — perhaps — pursue another impeachment of President Donald Trump.
“We’re not afraid to impeach Donald Trump. We’ve done it twice. He has 50% of all the presidential impeachments in American history,” Raskin, a Democrat who lives in Takoma Park, said in an Election Day interview. “It’s Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and two for Donald Trump.”
In what looked like a blue-wave election, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Raskin served as lead House manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021, for incitement of insurrection following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The House flip to the Democrats provides Raskin with the tools, beginning in January, to turn his commentary and criticism of the Trump administration into investigations and legislative action. His committee staff would roughly double to as many as 70 members, and he would set the committee agenda.
If the Democratic caucus selects him, the representative would become Maryland’s first House Judiciary Committee chair since Francis Thomas in 1839. Raskin positioned himself for the role by becoming the committee’s ranking Democrat in 2025 as Trump began his second term.
Raskin addressed supporters Tuesday night in a crowded Bethesda hotel ballroom, telling them the election “feels like a critical turning point in the history of our country.”
He said that if he became the Judiciary Committee chair, he would move against allowing the government to be treated as a weapon against the president’s perceived political enemies.
He told the crowd that his family members weren’t present in the ballroom, but “they’ve got an excuse” because his youngest daughter, Tabitha, a graduate student in New York, was due to deliver a baby Tuesday and was having contractions.
Earlier in the day, Raskin, 63, appeared buoyant as he visited polling places and posed for selfies in his Montgomery County-based 8th Congressional District as pundits predicted a Democratic takeover of the House.
“It’s a beautiful day!” he said at one stop. “This is the opposite of all the authoritarianism and corruption,” he said at another.
His reelection for a sixth term was all but assured against Green Party candidate Nancy Wallace and Republican Cheryl Riley, both of whom he easily defeated in 2024.
A third impeachment?
Raskin, a constitutional law professor, said Tuesday that impeachment proceedings would be considered “in the full context of everything else we’ve got to get done.”
Some leading Democrats, including potential presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel, have said a third impeachment trial would offer little hope of removing Trump while allowing him to portray himself as a victim of partisan politics. Forcing a president from office requires 67 pro-impeachment Senate votes, assuming all 100 members are present.
“It cannot be a fetish, but it also can’t be a taboo either,” Raskin said of impeachment proceedings, in which the Judiciary Committee typically plays a central role. “It is one of the people’s major instruments of constitutional self-defense against a president who continues to act like a king or an emperor.”
Gun sales, antitrust
As chair, Raskin said his priorities would include legislation requiring background checks on private gun sales, not just purchases from licensed dealers. Republicans have argued that such bills are unnecessarily restrictive on hobbyists and people selling firearms to their friends or from their personal collections.
Raskin also said legislation is needed to increase scrutiny of antitrust settlements, which he accuses the Trump administration of using in a “pay-to-play” system that rewards politically connected corporations.
In the wake of their victories, it’s in Democrats’ best interest to “focus very heavily on getting some visible things done,” said Roger Hartley, a professor at the University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs. “And then very smartly pick the right battles to hold the administration accountable — to show off what damage they did and then repair it.”
Raskin joined the House in 2017. In 2023, he seriously considered running for the U.S. Senate seat that is now held by Angela Alsobrooks. He said he decided against it partly because he had lymphoma and was undergoing chemotherapy.
A popular Democratic campaign surrogate in this year’s election, Raskin frequently traveled to Republican-oriented districts in which Democrats had often been reluctant to compete.
Among his dozens of stops was a middle school on the Eastern Shore in 2025 where he campaigned against Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland’s lone Republican member of Congress. Harris won a ninth term Tuesday.
Raskin also campaigned for Democrats in the districts of Republican Reps. Andrew Garbarino and Elise Stefanik, both of New York. Trump carried both districts in 2024.
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