Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.,  speaks during a news conference regarding the separation of immigrant children at the U.S. Capitol on July 10, 2018 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Alex Edelman/Getty Images)

Raúl Grijalva, the top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, will not seek to remain in that position in the next Congress, he said in a written statement Monday.

The announcement from Grijalva, an Arizona progressive who has led Democrats on the committee overseeing environmental, public lands and tribal issues for a decade, paves the way for California’s Jared Huffman to take the ranking member role.

Meanwhile, in another major development among Democrats in the House, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he would challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York as ranking member on the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

“This is where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the security of our most precious birthright possessions: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democracy itself,” Raskin said in a “Dear Colleague” letter to lawmakers on Monday.  “I respectfully and humbly ask for your support for my candidacy.”

Grijalva to focus on recovery

Grijalva disclosed in April that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He returned to Congress last month. His Monday statement noted he would continue to focus on his recovery.

“After much thought, I have decided that it is the right moment to pass the torch as top Democrat” on the House Natural Resources Committee for the 119th Congress, he said. “I do not make this decision lightly, as being elected Ranking Member stands as the honor of my professional career. I will continue to focus on improving my health, strengthening my mobility, and serving my district in what is likely to be a time of unprecedented challenge for our community.”

Grijalva was reelected to the House in November. He plans to serve his full term as a rank-and-file member, a spokeswoman said.

In a statement, Huffman said if he is made ranking member, he would ask the House Democratic Caucus to give Grijalva the title of ranking member emeritus “in recognition of his distinguished career and the enduring importance of his leadership.”

Grijalva was first elected to the House in 2002. He became the Natural Resources Committee’s ranking Democrat in 2015.

Inflation Reduction Act

Grijalva chaired the committee while his party held the majority from 2019 to 2023.

The first half of his chairmanship was marked by investigations of the first Trump administration, including a criminal referral of former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

The second half, which occurred during the first two years of the Biden administration amid unified Democratic control of Washington, saw the passage of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed along party lines.

With hundreds of millions available in tax breaks for renewable energy projects, the law represented the largest federal investment in addressing climate change to date.

“I am so deeply proud of the progress that my colleagues and I have achieved in protecting our nation’s rich natural and cultural heritage, advancing justice for communities overburdened by pollution, elevating Indigenous voices and honoring tribal sovereignty, fighting for the decolonization of the U.S. territories, and securing a cleaner, safer climate and energy future for all Americans,” Grijalva said Monday.

Avoids race among Dems

Grijalva, who is also a chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus after he co-chaired that group from 2009 to 2019, thanked “colleagues, tribal nations, and environmental organizations” who had supported him in his brief bid to fend off the challenge from Huffman.

Huffman, 60, said last month he would seek to unseat Grijalva, 76, a rarity among House Democrats, who do not use term limits for committee positions and normally strictly adhere to seniority.

Huffman is the top Democrat on the panel’s Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

A statement from Huffman Monday was full of praise for the outgoing leader and said he would seek to work closely with him in the period of transition.

“For the past twelve years, Rep. Raul Grijalva has been my friend and ally on the Natural Resources Committee,” Huffman wrote. “Working alongside him, I’ve seen his grit, determination, and passion for protecting our nation’s treasured natural resources, and his iron-clad commitment to lifting up frontline and indigenous communities.  He has inspired me and countless others with his passion and the clarity of his values.”

“Future generations will benefit from all that he has fought for and accomplished during his remarkable career,” the statement continued. “Rep. Grijalva leaves big shoes to fill, and I will now dedicate myself to building on his legacy of principled and productive leadership as Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee.”

Grijalva’s statement did not name Huffman.

A spokesman for Chairman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Raskin and Nadler

Raskin in his letter said he was announcing his challenge to Nadler, a longtime top member of the panel, with “respect and boundless admiration,” but also said the upcoming session of Congress would be crucial for the nation’s future and House Judiciary would play a major role.

“We face an administration that would essentially put the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 on steroids. They want to turn the Justice Department and FBI into weapons of not only mass immigrant roundup and deportation but political revenge and prosecution. They would collapse the system of separated powers into an all-powerful monarchical Executive, and convert America from being a defender of democracy and human rights to being an open collaborator with autocrats and authoritarian oppression,” wrote Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law and a member of the Jan. 6 investigative committee in the 117th Congress.

“They want to align us with Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, Xi’s China and Orban’s Hungary. In the 119th Congress, the Judiciary Committee will be the headquarters of Congressional opposition to authoritarianism and MAGA’s campaign to dismantle our Constitutional system and the rule of law as we know it. I hope to be at the center of this fight and—as someone who has battled cancer and chemotherapy—I can tell you that I will never, never surrender.”

Nadler told colleagues last month he would like to continue in his role as ranking member of the committee, Axios reported.

South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn urges President Joe Biden to recommit sentences of federal death row inmates during a Wednesday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — House Democrats and anti-death penalty advocates pressed Wednesday for President Joe Biden to save the lives of federal death row inmates before his term expires in January.

The push comes as President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House. The former president expedited 13 executions of people on federal death row in the last six months of his first term, which advocates said increased the urgency for Biden to spare prisoners now facing death sentences.

“I joined the abolition movement during the federal killing spree under the first Trump administration,” said Brandi Slaughter, a board member of the death penalty abolition group, Death Penalty Action. “We know what the next president plans to do if any prisoners are left under a sentence of death at the end of the Biden administration. We’ve been there.”

There are currently 40 people on federal death row, all men. There have been no federal executions under the Biden administration. 

On the campaign trail, Trump often called for the death penalty, including for migrants who kill U.S. citizens and human traffickers.

Outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, James Clyburn of South Carolina, Mary Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota pressed for Biden to exercise his clemency authority before Trump comes into office on Jan. 20 next year.

“The mass incarceration crisis is one of our country’s greatest failures,” Pressley said. “It is a policy failure, and it is a moral failure. The shameful crisis that has ravaged our communities, destabilized our families and inflicted generational struggle for far too long.”

Pressley’s father was incarcerated during her early life.

“The system only offered him criminalization and incarceration for his substance use disorder, and as a child, I was forced to also carry that burden, that stigma, that shame,” she said.

Calls for clemency

Pressley said Democrats sent Biden a letter asking him to use his clemency, and proposed types of convicts who should be prioritized. The letter was signed by 64 House Democrats.

Pressley said examples of those deserving leniency included prisoners who are elderly, chronically ill, subjected to sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine and women who were “punished for defending themselves against their abusers or were coerced into criminal activity as part of an abusive relationship.” 

“Those on death row who are at risk of barbaric and inhumane murder at the hands of the Trump administration can have their death sentence commuted and be resentenced to a prison term,” she said.

“We’re here today to ask him to take another step in that direction and to demonstrate, once again, a very positive consequence of his having been elected our 46th president, and to carry out his clemency powers in a very positive way,” Clyburn said.

Omar said that “clemency represents a critical opportunity to correct long-standing injustices, recognize human potential for redemption and acknowledge that our legal system has often been more punitive than restorative.”

In addition to advocating for death-row clemency, Scanlon said that Biden should consider pardoning people for simple marijuana possession and former LGBTQ service members who were convicted under military law because of their sexual orientation.

The Biden administration earlier this year did move to pardon military vets who were charged under military law for same-sex relationships.

Last year, Biden granted clemency to nearly a dozen people for nonviolent drug offenses. In 2022, he granted clemency to nearly 80 people charged with nonviolent crimes.