Conor Lamb stood at attention, cool and collected, listening patiently as the woman wearing an “Impeach Trump” shirt grew steadily more animated at the microphone, blaming the president for recent mass shootings and for “degrading” his office “every minute of every hour of every day.”
“He is a white supremacist!” she said, drowned out by applause from some of the 100 or so people packing a community center Tuesday evening in Hampton. So why won’t Mr. Lamb join other House Democrats in supporting an impeachment inquiry? What was he waiting for?
Mr. Lamb began by agreeing with her: Yes, the Russians interfered with the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump. Yes, the Mueller report left a lot of questions. But, citing his experience as a federal prosecutor, he called impeachment “an extremely high bar” requiring a “mountain of evidence.”
He supports the six House committees currently investigating the president, while keeping his focus on things like fixing Social Security, lowering prescription drug prices and saving pensions.
On impeachment, “I don’t share your opinion on that,” he said. “The normal powers of Congress to do oversight, issue subpoenas, go to court, call witnesses are perfectly adequate for this situation.”
The woman was one of many at the Hampton town hall to press Mr. Lamb, a decidedly moderate Democrat, to adopt decidedly more progressive causes: Medicare For All, an assault weapons ban, the Green New Deal, universal basic income, among them.
Each time, the 35-year-old congressman’s answers were earnest and polite, backed up by explanation and reasoning often rooted in his unquestionably practical experience in the U.S. Marine Corps and as a federal prosecutor.
It’s a rare brand in this hyper-partisan moment in Washington, and one that many observers — including Mr. Lamb — acknowledge allowed him to do the unthinkable last year when he won as a Democrat in a district that Mr. Trump had won, just 16 months earlier, by 22 points.
Mr. Lamb won a second election last November, defeating three-term Republican Rep. Keith Rothfus by 12 points in a redrawn Congressional district.
The question now for Mr. Lamb, who is marking 18 months in office after winning the special election in March 2018, is how to govern a hotly contested district while keeping the momentum of the grassroots energy — centered on loud and unequivocal opposition to Mr. Trump — that propelled him into office, captured the national spotlight and attracted millions in campaign donations.
Ahead of the 2020 elections, it’s a political calculus faced by many moderate Democrats and, on a much larger scale, former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads a long list of Democratic candidates for president.
The presidential primary has become consumed by debate over whether progressives or moderates have a better shot at beating Mr. Trump, with Mr. Biden rejecting some ideas put forth by his progressive challengers, like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Pennsylvania’s redrawn 17th congressional district remains favorable to Mr. Trump and could be a toss-up with strong mobilization from both parties around the presidential race.
The district is diverse, including liberal suburban hubs like Mr. Lamb’s hometown of Mt. Lebanon and Allegheny County’s northern and western suburbs stretching from Penn Hills to Moon. It spans all of Beaver County and a sliver of Cranberry in Butler Township, conservative areas that sent nearly a quarter of all voters in the November 2018 election, voting for Mr. Rothfus by a small margin.
The National Republican Congressional Committee is already targeting Mr. Lamb’s seat, putting the 17th district among more than four dozen U.S. House seats that it believes could flip back to the GOP in 2020.
Mr. Lamb walks a tightrope, laser-focused on his broad base of supporters who, he said, care about jobs, labor unions, energy production and environmental protections — all while largely avoiding the controversial issues and the high-profile jousting with Mr. Trump many of his House Democratic colleagues have engaged in.
“He’s not going to get out on a limb on the great social questions of our time,” said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College. “There’s nothing he can do but walk down the center path. That’s the bottom line.”
He added, “I would think he’d be hard-pressed to defeat given the way he’s walked down the middle.”
Mr. Lamb said in an interview that finding ways to solve the political infighting was “my top priority” after hearing that plea from voters “above all else.” His victory in the special election, by a fraction of a percentage point, proved that message could resonate and sparked a class of moderate Democrats, many of whom are military veterans or former law enforcement officials, to win in the 2018 midterms.
“People have been upset about the tenor and discord in Washington for a really long time,” Mr. Lamb said. “There is finally a new generation in Washington that cares a lot about changing that.”
In November 2017, when Mr. Lamb was selected by the Democratic Party to run against Republican Rick Saccone, a significant chunk of his organizing campaign was already built.
For about eight months, progressive grassroots organizers who formed Mr. Lamb’s coalition had been holding “Mondays with Murphy” protests against Rep. Tim Murphy, the eight-term Republican who eventually resigned amid reports of harassing office staff and an extramarital affair.
The activists approached Mr. Lamb’s campaign and immediately started knocking on doors. Lynne Hughes, among the first organizers and coordinator of Mt. Lebanon Rise Up, estimated as many as 1,200 people across the region offered support. “We will be your ground game,” Ms. Hughes said she told the campaign.
After winning two heady elections that highlighted the political power of suburban women, Mr. Lamb largely left the public eye to begin the long slog of legislating.
His committee assignments reflected his background and district. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, chairing its Energy Subcommittee, giving him a platform to advocate for clean energy research and support for nuclear power plants like Beaver Valley plant, which is in danger of shutting down.
He is vice chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, where he’s worked with fellow veteran Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Jefferson Hills, on veterans issues, recently instructing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to study holistic treatment options.
He chairs the Congressional Steel Caucus, a House panel of Democrats and Republicans that can punch above its weight, especially with renewed influence of the steel industry on U.S. trade policy.
He voted against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House — keeping a campaign promise — and instead supported Joe Kennedy III, a 38-year-old Democrat from Massachusetts.
His office is one of few to not have a spokesperson based in Washington, suggesting Mr. Lamb prefers tailoring messages directly to his district rather than coordinating hallway interviews with CNN or MSNBC.
In the interview Tuesday in the community center before the town hall, Mr. Lamb lamented many Washington reporters don’t seem interested in his work, including what he considers his biggest legislative achievement in Washington: helping the House pass a bill to prop up ailing multi-employer pension plans, long known as the Butch Lewis Act.
“The national media ... they don’t tend to want to ask about something like the Butch Lewis Act or about our bill on Social Security or even about infrastructure,” he said. “But those are the things my constituents ask me about.”
It’s a political style that is unusual in Congress.
“Conor’s challenge will be to make Washington be more like him as opposed to the other way around,” said David J. Hickton, founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security. Mr. Hickton, former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, contributed money to Mr. Lamb and recorded a commercial for his campaign.
But by staying on the sidelines for the most hot-button issues that have galvanized progressives, Mr. Lamb has disappointed some supporters.
He voted against articles of impeachment — joining most House Democrats — and against holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify. After the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Mr. Lamb called for the Senate to pass universal background checks, but he has stopped short of calling for an assault weapons ban.
In July, after Mr. Trump targeted four freshman congresswoman of color to “go back where you came from,” Mr. Lamb released a statement condemning the president’s comments and urging him to apologize.
It all added up to a letdown for Ms. Hughes — even though she knew that Mr. Lamb would not always agree with her.
“I thought, at the very, very least, he would hold Trump accountable when the time came for it,” said Ms. Hughes, who penned a letter to the editor in July entitled “Conor Lamb is a Disappointment.” “I’m not going to be working as hard for him as other candidates.”
By some measures, Mr. Lamb has bucked Mr. Trump’s priorities more than most moderates.
According to an analysis of Congressional voting records by FiveThirtyEight, Mr. Lamb voted in line with Mr. Trump’s priorities more frequently than 221 House Democrats. But when compared with the makeup of his district, the analysis found, Mr. Lamb’s voting record leaned more liberal than all but 21 other Democrats.
Mr. Lamb maintains his broad base of support going into a re-election campaign. Labor unions this year have given him tens of thousands of dollars, and many of his progressive supporters appreciate that he needs to consider all viewpoints on issues.
Mykie Reidy, another early progressive organizer from Mt. Lebanon, said she hoped Mr. Lamb would eventually embrace stronger environmental issues such as a bill to impose a carbon tax and wishes he would vote for impeachment.
“There’s some grumbling, and I’m not happy with every one of his votes,” she said. But she remains “ecstatic” to have Mr. Lamb in office, considering how conservative the district can be.
“It will be an evolution rather than a revolution,” she said.
Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, Twitter @PGdanielmoore
First Published: August 25, 2019, 4:11 a.m.
