Incoming House member Robert Garcia lands Nancy Pelosi’s chief of staff to head his D.C. operations

It sounds like a power play straight out of “House of Cards,” minus the murders.

A political operative you’ve never heard of, Robert Edmonson, is switching jobs. He’s leaving his post as chief of staff for outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, to take the same role for recently elected Robert Garcia, the soon-to-be former mayor of Long Beach who is slated to be sworn in next month for his first term as a member of the House of Representatives.

On the surface, the move sounds routine. Just another Capitol Hill civil servant (House aides, including chiefs of staff, are federal employees) hopping from one office to another.

But people who have written about Congress and follow politics say even if the names aren’t nationally known, Edmonson’s move is a big deal, speaking to everything from Garcia’s political future (currently bright) to the Democratic party’s increasingly diverse (more people of color and more LGBTQ people) leadership.

They also note that if Edmonson can help Garcia bring more money or federal projects back home, constituents in the newly drawn CA-42, which stretches from Long Beach to Commerce, stand to benefit.

“Hiring the former speaker’s chief of staff would be a coup for any House member, but for an incoming freshman it’s extraordinary,” said Dan Schnur, a former campaign consultant who now teaches about politics at USC and UC Berkeley.

Schnur said he doesn’t know Edmonson, but he believes Edmonson’s recent political experience is important.

“One of the most effective roles that a good chief of staff has, particularly for a new House member, is to help them understand the Capitol; to help them learn how to actually get things done,” Schnur said. “No one could be better equipped to do that than someone who was the top adviser to the Speaker of the House.”

Despite the high-profile resume, there’s very little in the public record about Edmonson. Federal records indicate he’s 38 and was born in Texas. He’s worked in Washington since 2001, when he was a page for Chet Edwards, a Democrat from Waco, Texas who served nearly two decades in the House. Edmonson later spent a half-decade with Pelosi before being named her chief of staff in 2013, when she was minority leader.

Still, during nine years as gatekeeper to one of the most powerful House Speakers of the past half-century, Edmonson’s name almost never appeared in the news. (Garcia’s office did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this story.)

But staying out of the news isn’t the same as not making news.

During his time with Pelosi, Edmonson ran an office that was central to two House impeachments of former President Donald Trump (in both instances Trump was acquitted in the Senate). He also worked with Pelosi to help secure enough House votes to pass the American Rescue Plan of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 – all of which passed the Senate and became law.

Observers said it’s not unusual for an experienced staffer to work with a House newcomer, with leadership in both the Democratic and Republican parties often pairing Capitol-savvy aides with newly elected officials. But Edmonson’s resume is higher profile than most, and observers said the move to match him with Garcia – or at least to approve of that match – is about both politics and lawmaking.

“It definitely means House leadership has flagged Garcia as someone to watch,” said Marcia Godwin, a professor of public policy at the University of La Verne who studies and writes about politics in Southern California.

Godwin speculated that Pelosi, who resigned as party leader but is continuing as a House member, might have connected Edmonson with Garcia. (Pelosi’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

“Having such an experienced person in the office means Garcia will have a shorter learning curve. And it could mean he could quickly become a leader in the (Democratic Party) caucus,” she said. “It also might put Garcia in line to sponsor some higher profile bills than is typical of a newcomer.”

Garcia, 45, who won his bid for the House with 71% of the vote, is going to Washington with some political mojo.

He’s finishing an eight-year run as mayor of Long Beach, California’s seventh biggest city and one with a $3 billion annual budget, where he received mixed reviews for his efforts on issues such as housing and education but saw his public profile grow.

While mayor, the one-time Republican organizer (Garcia was publicly aligned with the GOP into his 20s, and backed George W. Bush), was the first elected Latino to back Gavin Newsom’s successful run for governor, in 2017. Three years later, Garcia was among the first elected officials to support Sen. Kamala Harris’ failed presidential bid.

Also in 2020, Garcia spoke at the Democratic National Convention, one of several younger Democrats who participated in a group keynote address. And that same year Garcia was in the news after losing both his mother and stepfather to COVID-19.

Now, the Peruvian immigrant (he was 5 when he and his mother moved to Southern California) has made history as the first openly gay immigrant elected to Congress.

Even Garcia’s LGBTQ status meshes with Edmonson.

Over the past decade, Edmonson was quoted in exactly one news story, a 2018 piece in Roll Call about LGBTQ staff members working for members of the House. In it, Edmonson – who said he led the LGBTQ staff association – described Pelosi’s office as “incredibly supportive” and said that he came out to the office’s former chief of staff before he came out to his own mother.

Though Garcia has spoken against moves he considers to be anti-LGBTQ+, and in favor of gay rights, observers said the fact that both he and Edmonson are gay is incidental, not central, to their political project.

“Within the Democratic party, open LGBT staff and officials are approaching the same numbers as in the general population,” Godwin said.

“If anything, their pairing represents how much that’s a non-issue these days.”

Source: Orange County Register