As a new Congress settles in, California's newest members prove hard to ignore
It was nearly impossible to ignore California as a new Congress was sworn in.
There was the moment House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield handed over the gavel to Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco on Thursday. And the spectacle of the state’s 53 House members filing into the chamber, some belting out the old jazz tune “California, Here I Come,” drawing chuckles from the crowd.
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, California’s seven new Democratic members, each of whom seized control of Republican-held seats in the midterms and had never previously been elected to public office, commanded attention of their own. Part of the biggest cohort in the largest freshman class in decades, they could wield outsize power for first-time members.
On Thursday morning, Rep. Katie Hill (D-Agua Dulce) was trailed by family, several news cameras and a boom microphone. Her entourage turned heads as they barreled through the packed hallways of the Longworth House Office Building, down the steps and out into the crisp January air on their way to the Capitol.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-congress-swearing-in-20190106-story.html
