Staring Down Impeachment Vote, Freshman Democrat Seeks Legislative Victories

Mr. Delgado has not completely shied away from impeachment. When news broke of Mr. Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of the charges, he announced that Congress should begin drafting impeachment articles, going further than most of his moderate colleagues, who tentatively endorsed investigating the allegations. The House Republican campaign arm, eager to tie Mr. Delgado to the liberal wing of the party, called it a “political death sentence” and has repeatedly accused him of “pandering to his socialist base.”

Through it all, Mr. Delgado has tried to strike a balance, cultivating relationships with Republicans — with his wife, he was one of only a few House Democrats to show up this week at the White House Congressional Ball, even as the Judiciary Committee was debating the articles of impeachment — while offering unsparing criticism of the president’s conduct.

“There’s an abuse of power,” Mr. Delgado said after the Ukraine allegations surfaced, speaking to voters in the town of Clinton. “And the abuse of power, too, layers over that crime in a way that I think really creates a level of urgency.”

But Mr. Delgado would prefer to talk about other things: his work on three committees, the enactment of his bill to ease financial burdens for farmers, and a grueling schedule traveling to all corners of his 8,000 square-mile district.

“It matters a lot to go back home and say I introduced a bill,” Mr. Delgado, a lawyer, Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate, said in an interview. “Even if it’s not law, they know that their congressman is working on an issue they flagged.”

“Do you know how powerful that is?” he added. “That democracy is still humming ahead a little bit?”

Source: The New York Times

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