Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), the 35-year-old lawmaker representing Texas’s 35th congressional district, asked his colleagues on the House Oversight Committee to imagine a future in which Republicans do not control the legislature — and painted a picture of what Republicans and Trump administration figures like Elon Musk could face if and when there is a Democratic majority in the House.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the current Committee Chair who has broadly wielded the power of congressional subpoena, might then be merely Ranking Member. In such a future, Casar suggests, Democrats executing Comer-style power could spell trouble for GOP members who today refuse to consider Democratic initiatives.
“There’s a Republican majority today,” Casar told his colleagues, “but there could be a Democratic majority in under two years.”
Casar: There’s a Republican majority today but there could be a Democratic majority in under two years. If we get a chance to have subpoena power and look into this and find out the Musk has used his power to enrich himself, the consequences could be much greater than just having… pic.twitter.com/EwYIqmksV7
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 30, 2025
In his floor time above, Casar castigates his GOP colleagues for votes that effectively shield the DOGE major domo Musk from facing financial consequences for violating a law on government service.
The Congressman also slams House Republicans for voting “no” on Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost‘s amendment that “would require the President of the United States to follow U.S. Supreme Court orders.” (Note: that is already, technically, a requirement.)
Noting the stalwart GOP resistance to curbing any instance of executive branch power, Casar says: “At some point, we’ve got to have some shame on this committee.”
Casar then describes his own amendment, which he says he hopes Republicans will vote for. “If a court or the federal government finds that Mr. Musk abused his power to enrich himself here over the past few months, then we will cancel his contracts. If a court finds that the richest man on earth went in, used the federal books, scraped people’s data, steered contracts to himself, then we should maybe stop sending him $8 million a day.”
Casar adds that all across the country Americans of every political stripe want to stop “corporate grifters that use the government to enrich themselves.”
Casar portrays that imagined future Democratic majority as using its attendant subpoena power to make Musk’s consequences, should he be found to have “steered contracts” to himself, a lot more troublesome than “just having his contracts cut off.” But until then, Casar says he hopes at least one Republican will vote today to “hold Mr. Musk accountable.”
Yet it’s clear, as he relays that no Republican voted for any similar measures, that Casar’s real hope lies in a midterm reversal that casts Rep. Comer and the rest of what Casar characterizes as Donald Trump’s rubber-stampers in the minority. That change, if it comes, remains a long way off.