U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Larsen, whose dis­trict includes Boeing’s Everett assem­bly plant, will be rank­ing Demo­c­rat on the House Trans­porta­tion and Infra­struc­ture Com­mit­tee when the new 118th Con­gress con­venes in Jan­u­ary and posi­tioned to chair the pow­er­ful pan­el when Democ­rats reclaim the majority.

Larsen will suc­ceed out­go­ing com­mit­tee chair­man, Oregon’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Peter DeFazio, who is retir­ing after serv­ing thir­ty-six years in Con­gress. He beat out D.C.‘s Del­e­gate Eleanor Holmes Nor­ton for the com­mit­tee’s top Demo­c­ra­t­ic spot. Larsen has served as chair­man of the panel’s Avi­a­tion Subcommittee.

The prospects of Larsen being called “Mr. Chair­man” in the future will rest, in some part, on the suc­cess of his next-door neigh­bor in the Wash­ing­ton con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene, D‑Washington, will chair the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (DCCC) in 2023 and 2024, charged with win­ning back a major­i­ty for the D’s.

The Repub­li­cans will hold a slim 222–213 advan­tage come the start of 2023. It’s already look­ing lie a shaky major­i­ty. Mal­adroit House Repub­li­can Leader Kevin McCarthy has not lined up enough votes to be elect­ed Speaker.

In his hunt for votes, McCarthy is lean­ing on sup­port from Don­ald Trump and kow­tow­ing before atten­tion seek­ing extrem­ists of the Free­dom Caucus.

In Con­gress, good things come to those who wait.

Larsen was elect­ed in 2000 from the 2nd Dis­trict in North­west Wash­ing­ton, flip­ping a seat held for six years by Repub­li­can Repub­li­can Jack Met­calf. The dis­trict was pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed by a trio of influ­en­tial Democ­rats, U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Hen­ry Jack­son (lat­er sen­a­tor), Lloyd Meeds and Al Swift.

Although repeat­ed­ly reshaped since Larsen began rep­re­sent­ing it, the urban-rur­al-island 2nd Dis­trict has, in words of a Swift quip, “every prob­lem known to man with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of wheat rust.” Its law­mak­ers have bro­kered wilder­ness and park bat­tles, dealt with prob­lems at the U.S.-Canada bor­der, been embroiled in Boeing’s labor pains, and found them­selves lob­by­ing to allow school kids to pick straw­ber­ries dur­ing sum­mer break.

Larsen has gone six terms with­out a tough reelec­tion contest.

He has, how­ev­er, expe­ri­enced trou­bles with the left wing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, stem­ming large­ly from sit­ting on the House Armed Ser­vices Committee.

Dur­ing a Belling­ham forum after the Sep­tem­ber 11th attacks, Larsen was booed for giv­ing an equiv­o­cal but crit­i­cal answer when asked how he would vote on an Iraq inva­sion autho­riza­tion. Days lat­er, he vot­ed against going to war. He has been heck­led at Whid­bey Island town meet­ings over loud jet noise from Naval Air Sta­tion Whid­bey. Over the last three years, how­ev­er, Larsen has sharply ques­tioned the Navy over the rack­et made by Growler jets prac­tic­ing over Coupeville, Port Townsend and the Ebey’s Land­ing Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Preserve.

He faced the label of “cor­po­rate Demo­c­rat” by a chal­lenger from the left, Jason Call, in 2020 and 2022. The charge has not stuck. Call took 31,991 votes in August, with Larsen receiv­ing 100,631. Larsen went on to a six­ty per­cent gen­er­al elec­tion show­ing and 202,980 votes against his Repub­li­can challenger.

Larsen is a hands-on lawmaker.

He has been all over the Sec­ond Dis­trict explain­ing ben­e­fits of the Bipar­ti­san Infra­struc­ture Law. Lum­mi Island is get­ting $12 mil­lion fer­ry for a new fer­ry. Sim­i­lar­ly, Larsen has staged mul­ti­ple infor­ma­tion ses­sions to out­line help avail­able to local gov­ern­ments and small busi­ness­es under the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan. He was omnipresent after col­lapse of the Inter­state 5 bridge over the Skag­it River.

With Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, he cham­pi­oned cre­ation of the 103,000-acre Wild Sky Wilder­ness Area in east­ern Sno­homish County.

He joined Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell in the suc­cess­ful push for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to des­ig­nate the San Juan Islands Nation­al Monument.

Larsen took to a kayak off Lopez Island when the mon­u­ment was dedicated.

Larsen has a sense of humor and sense of the occasion.

He has been required to dis­play the patience of Job in a dis­trict where vocal extremes of the left and right take advan­tage of his acces­si­bil­i­ty. He has even shown up at Tea Par­ty can­di­date forums in What­com County.

In 2009, at the high tide of Tea Par­ty protests, rival crowds of Tea Par­ty back­ers and union activists turned out for a Larsen town meeting.

He defused ten­sion by invit­ing all to rise and sing the nation­al anthem. Under Bush II, with Dems fresh in the House major­i­ty, Island Coun­ty Democ­rats pressed Larsen to sup­port an impeach­ment res­o­lu­tion. He respond­ed by list­ing all the issues (e.g. rais­ing the min­i­mum wage) on which Con­gress need­ed to act. Where bet­ter to spend time, on a los­ing impeach­ment or bat­tles that could be won?

As future chair of the Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee, Larsen’s great­est chal­lenge may come in his own dis­trict. He rep­re­sents thou­sands of Boe­ing employ­ees, a proud, union­ized work­force with a his­to­ry of build­ing the world’s best com­mer­cial jets… but also a cost-obsessed Boe­ing man­age­ment which put a flawed Boe­ing 737 MAX in the air and dis­as­trous­ly also tried to cut cor­ners with the 787 Dreamliner.