Sylvia García is one of the first two Latina women representatives from Texas elected in 2018 to the U.S. Congress (the other one is Veronica Escobar) and now she is the only Latina among the seven House impeachment managers leading the accusation in the Donald Trump impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, which began Jan. 21 in the U.S. Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected García last week to join the team of seven impeachment managers.
“Part of me was a little surprised,” García told Texas Monthly’s Michael Hardy. ” I did not ask to be considered—the speaker had previously asked if I would agree to be considered, and we visited about it briefly. Then she called, said she wanted to nominate me, and asked if I would serve. I said, “Of course, if you want me to serve I will serve.”
“I’m honored but deeply saddened that we’re at this moment in our country’s history,” she said, on the other hand, in a video posted on her Twitter account.
Here’s your weekly update! As many of you now know, I’m one of the seven #ImpeachmentManagers for the Senate Impeachment Trial against Trump.
With the Constitution on our side, we’ll hold him accountable and ensure we pass on the gift of democracy to the next generation. pic.twitter.com/Xdv0SjNuAc
— Rep. Sylvia Garcia (@RepSylviaGarcia) January 18, 2020
García is a Democrat congresswoman. She was born and raised in Palito Blanco, a South Texas farming community. She grew up picking cotton there, with Mexico among her origins, as the eighth of ten children. According to her bio on her official website, García attended Texas Woman’s University in Denton on a scholarship, where she graduated in Social Work and Political Science. She later obtained a law degree at the Texas Southern University in Houston, where she also earned a doctorate.
García’s work as a public servant in Texas is linked to social work and law.
She served five terms as a president judge of the Houston Municipal System in the 1980s. She also served two terms as Houston’s city controller, beginning in 1998. After that, in 2002, she was elected to the Harris County Commissioner’s Court, with her inaugural mark as the first woman and first Latina ever elected for that court.
Between 2013 and 2018, Sylvia García served in the Texas Senate for the 6th district. According to her bio, she was the seventh woman and the third Hispanic to win an election in the state’s upper chambers.
Be Latina reports that García won as a representative in the U.S. Congress midterm elections in 2018 with 60% of the votes in her districts.
In the U.S. Congress she is now part of the Judiciary and Financial Services committees. She was participated in impeachment hearings, reports Michael Hardy for Texas Monthly.
Hardy asked García what evidence persuaded her to vote for impeachment.
“You know, I didn’t call for impeachment early on. I didn’t get elected to Congress to go impeach the president. I supported the inquiry because I thought it was important that we have the investigation and that we continue to look at the president’s behavior. I read the Mueller Report. But then Ukraine kind of just surfaced—the phone call, the asking for a favor, the quid pro quo. Frankly, it was a big country bullying a little country. I just thought that certainly was an abuse of power, an abuse of his authority. That’s what turned it for me,” she answered, and then continued: “ In terms of obstruction of Congress, the president ordered our witnesses not to appear. The one or two who did appear before us during the Mueller investigation, they exerted a privilege that didn’t exist, or they answered questions with, “I do not recall.” So the stonewalling, the flagrant disdain and disrespect of Congress that this president has shown, is just awful. If Congress doesn’t have the authority for oversight and the authority of the subpoena, then all presidents will go unchecked. We would have even more of a rogue president (…)”
In an interview with Telemundo Noticias’ María Peña, Sylvia García responded to Trump’s accusations against the Democrats of political motivations behind the trial, “for not accepting their defeat in the 2016 presidential election”: “The motive is our Constitution, our democracy, our country, not the president’s motive, which is personal and political. It is he who has the political and personal motive… we are going to do everything possible to make our case and show the whole country that no one is above the law, not this president, not anyone.”
Peña reports that Sylvia García and the rest of the impeachment managers would need to convince four Republican senators (as they are a majority of 53 senators, as compared to 45 Democrats and two independent senators), to break ranks with the Republican Party and allow witnesses in the political trial.