Rep. Robert Garcia is the Next-Generation Congressman

metroweekly.com:

Long Beach Post, a website devoted to local news and sports reporting, recusing himself from editorial duties when he ran for Long Beach City Council.In 2009, he was elected to represent much of the city’s downtown area, serving for five years before being elected as mayor of Long Beach in 2014.

After serving two terms, he ran for an open congressional seat last year in a newly redrawn district representing his hometown, winning the election with over 68% of the vote.While Garcia is now a Democrat, his first forays into politics were as a Republican.

He previously founded the Long Beach Young Republicans, and worked as the California Youth Coordinator for George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign.

He also worked as chief of staff for Long Beach Councilman Frank Colonna, a Republican who unsuccessfully sought the mayor’s office in 2006.This led many critics, at the time he first sought office, and subsequently, during his mayoral run in 2014, to accuse him of political opportunism, having only changed his party affiliation in 2007, at age 30, and just two years before being elected to the Council in an overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning city.But Garcia says he — and his entire family — underwent a political evolution, initially starting out as Republicans due to their love for Ronald Reagan, whose decision to sign a sweeping immigration bill in 1987 gave his family a path to legal citizenship.“The last immigration bill that passed Congress was the Ronald Reagan Bill in the 1980s,” he says. “So my family loved Ronald Reagan, and everyone in my family was so grateful — as were immigrants from South America that came during that time — and Ronald Reagan was the president.