Impeachment tests Dems’ foothold in swing districts
‘A force within’
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va, Oct 7, (AP): In front of New Hope Baptist Church in Virginia Beach, supporters of President Donald Trump hollered for his reelection. Behind it, taped-up signs on the doors warned, “Firearms Not Allowed.” And inside, Rep. Elaine Luria personally delivered her call for Trump’s impeachment, drawing a standing ovation from more than half of the 200 or so people attending her town hall–and a few jeers, shut down quickly by church security officials.
“I got no problem throwing you out,” the Rev. James Allen, the moderator, told one heckler. “If you can’t sit here and be respectful, get out.”
The man, a Trump supporter, agreed to quiet down and stay. But the signs were there that Luria’s call last month for Trump’s impeachment sits uneasily among some of her constituents in one of the most deeply split congressional districts in the country. It’s not clear, though, that the calls for formal charges against Trump have generated a voter backlash, even in districts like Luria’s.
The majority voted for Trump in 2016, but Luria, a Democrat, won it two years later, helping hand her party control of the House. Here, national security is understood perhaps better than elsewhere: 1 in 5 people are active military personnel, veterans or their families. So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and national Democrats are closely watching districts like it for clues to whether their drive to impeach Trump supports or imperils the party’s congressional and presidential ambitions in 2020.
Win or lose next year, Luria and six other freshmen who flipped Republican districts will have played a critical role, with considerable risk. They resisted calls for the Republican president’s impeachment over Russia’s election interference. But details of Trump’s pressure on Ukraine’s president to investigate the Biden family was, Luria and the others wrote in The Washington Post, a clear abuse of power and an impeachable offense. Their column, in part, freed up Pelosi to launch formal impeachment proceedings, specifically under the terms Luria and other freshmen had requested: clearly articulated, focused on Ukraine and brought to a quick conclusion.
Luria and the other national security freshmen have quietly become a force within Democratic politics, at a time when the party is struggling to nominate a
Pelosi
presidential candidate and project a unified message.
But there’s been nothing quiet about their first visits home this after their calls for impeachment. In Michigan, another frontline Democratic freshman and co-author of the op-ed, Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, faced boos – and then applause – when she started explaining why she, too, had called for an impeachment investigation. In New York’s Staten Island, freshman Rep. Max Rose, like Luria, got a standing ovation from many in his audience when he announced he was supporting the impeachment inquiry, according to news reports.
Back in Virginia, walking around the block of her leafy Norfolk-area neighborhood, Luria acknowledged the impeachment decision may cost her.
“This is a situation where I have to do the right thing,” said Luria, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and black belt in taekwondo. Her home, a short walk from spectacular views of the Virginia Port Authority and not far from Norfolk Naval Station, is adorned with ceramics and other souvenirs that she and her husband, Robert Blondin, picked up on their global travels.
Luria says if she loses her seat over the impeachment call, “I will have been on the right side of history.”
It’s a sentiment Luria repeated that night at the town hall at the E. Ray Cox Sr. Convocation Center. Eight miles away, 12 people were killed during the May 31 mass shooting at Virginia Beach Municipal Center – including Ryan Keith Cox, the pastor’s son. Luria opened the event by noting that the last time she spoke there, it was for the younger Cox’s funeral. His coffin rested where she now stood to answer questions. But the moment did little to ease the crackling political atmosphere in the room. A few hours earlier, Trump had exhorted China to help investigate the Bidens, defiant in the face of calls for impeachment over the same approach to Ukraine. At the town hall, Trump supporters who were coordinated for the event waved signs reading, “Impeach Elaine” and “Pelosi Puppet.”
Luria, like Pelosi and other Democrats, argued she’s doing her day job even amid the impeachment drive. Pelosi has referred to that technique as operating on two tracks - legislative and oversight - while Trump has insisted that when there’s investigation, there can be no legislation.
The retired naval nuclear engineer, 44, pointed out four people in the front row helped by her office on immigration, health care and veterans issues. And she mentioned work she’s doing leading House subcommittees on sea power and disability assistance as a member of both the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees.