Conor Lamb

Conor James Lamb (born June 27, 1984) is an American lawyer and politician who is the U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district since January 2019. The district serves most of the northwestern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A member of the Democratic Party, Lamb was first elected to Congress from the neighboring 18th district in March 2018, in a special election against Republican Rick Saccone that attracted national attention. After Pennsylvania's congressional map was redrawn by court order, Lamb filed to run for a full term in the 17th district in the 2018 general election, which he also won.

Lamb was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office in Pittsburgh, where he led prosecutions of cases involving opioid-related deaths, violent crimes, and gun trafficking.

Lamb was born in Washington, D.C., on June 27, 1984, to Thomas F. Lamb Jr. and Katie Lamb. He grew up in Mt. Lebanon, a suburb in the south hills of Pittsburgh, and for a brief period in Connecticut. The Lamb family has been active in Pittsburgh-area politics for many years. Conor's grandfather, Thomas F. Lamb, was the Democratic Majority Leader in the Pennsylvania State Senate and later Secretary of Legislative Affairs under Governor Robert P. Casey. Conor's uncle Michael Lamb is the Controller of the City of Pittsburgh, and was previously the Prothonotary of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

A Catholic of Irish descent, Lamb attended St. Bernard School in Pittsburgh, and graduated from Central Catholic High School in 2002. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 with a B.A. degree in political science, and earned a J.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2009.

After law school, Lamb completed the Marine Corps' Officer Candidates School before being commissioned as a Judge Advocate.As his first duty assignment, he was stationed at a Marine base on Okinawa Island, where he prosecuted cases of rape and sexual assault. Following completion of his active duty service in 2013, Lamb continued his military obligation through service in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a captain. He was later promoted to major. In a high-profile case in 2017, he prosecuted and convicted a Marine officer who had lied under oath and to The Washington Post about a sexual misconduct case.

From 2013 to 2014, Lamb clerked for Joseph Frank Bianco, a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Following his clerkship, in October 2014 Lamb was appointed an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Department of Justice's Pittsburgh office, serving under then-U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania David J. Hickton. Lamb has been heavily involved in efforts to combat the opioid epidemic in Western Pennsylvania, and has led aggressive prosecutions involving opioid-related deaths, other violent crimes and drug and gun trafficking.

During Lamb's election campaign for the 2018 special election for Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, Republicans accused Lamb of having a "weak record" as a prosecutor, referencing particular cases in support of this claim. FactCheck.org examined the Republicans' claims, calling them "vague" and "misleading," and found little to no evidence to support them.

Notable cases

"Uptown Crew" gang prosecution

In 2015, Lamb gained convictions against three men who were among 34 members of a heroin gang indicted in 2013 after a wiretap investigation by the FBI, the ATF, the state attorney general's office and local police. Thomas Hopes, described as the "CEO" of the violent heroin-distribution operation, was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison, and brothers Keith and Gregory Harris were sentenced to 20 years and 121 months in prison, respectively. Lamb also helped to gain convictions against two New Jersey-based men, Aldwin Vega and Santino Drew, who were identified as two of the biggest suppliers of heroin to the Pittsburgh area. Vega was convicted at trial in September 2017 for trafficking a kilogram or more of heroin, and has not yet been sentenced. Drew was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute heroin and possession with the intent to distribute heroin, and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Pittsburgh-to-New York gunrunning prosecution

In 2016, Lamb gained a convictions against two Pittsburgh residents, Brandon Goode and Mychael Scott, who acted as "straw buyers," purchasing firearms for a gun trafficker to help funnel hundreds of illegal weapons into New York City. Goode and Scott were sentenced to 65 and 60 months in prison, respectively. Lamb also secured a conviction against the main gun trafficker, Michael Bassier, who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Andre Saunders

In 2016, Lamb secured a conviction against Andre Saunders, a drug dealer from Fayette County, Pennsylvania, who imported hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and heroin from the West Coast into the Uniontown area and West Virginia and supplied heroin and cocaine to multiple dealers in the Uniontown area. Saunders was convicted of conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine and sentenced to 10 years in prison, and was ordered to forfeit his BMW, five luxury watches and a necklace, $325,120 in cash, his Uniontown home, the proceeds of the sale of a second Uniontown home, a 9-mm pistol, and a money judgment of $100,000.

Dorian Cottrell

In 2016, Lamb gained a conviction against Dorian Cottrell, a heroin dealer who shot a man during a drug transaction at the Cambridge Square apartments in Monroeville, PA. Cottrell was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison and was ordered to forfeit his BMW, $27,000 in cash and 10 firearms.

Elections

2018 special election

On October 5, 2017, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Lamb was considering running for Congress in a special election for Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district. The vacancy was created when Representative Tim Murphy (R) resigned amid revelations that he had had an extramarital affair and urged his mistress to terminate an unexpected pregnancy, despite his long record as a vocal opponent of abortion. Murphy had run unopposed by a major candidate for his prior two elections, 2016 and 2014.

Lamb was selected as the Democratic nominee at a convention in November 2017. He faced Republican State Representative Rick Saccone. The special election attracted national attention. National Republican sources spent more than $8 million on television advertising, twice as much as the Democrats, and Republicans, including President Donald Trump, his two children Donald Jr. and Ivanka, as well as Vice President Mike Pence came to the state to campaign for Saccone.

Lamb's campaign website lists his top priorities as the heroin crisis, jobs and infrastructure, affordable health care, protecting Medicare and Social Security, reforming the student loan system, unions, and modern energy development. On gun control, Lamb has called for a stronger system of background checks but no new restrictions. On tariffs, Lamb supports President Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs. On health care, Lamb criticized the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare and called for bipartisan efforts to stabilize its markets.

By the end of election night on March 13, 2018, Lamb led by 641 votes. When all absentee ballots were counted, Lamb led by 627 votes, with a few provisional and military ballots yet to be counted. Lamb claimed victory on Tuesday night. Early on Wednesday morning, citing the large net pickup of absentee votes for Lamb, NBC News called the race for Lamb. On Wednesday afternoon, The New York Times followed suit after concluding that Lamb's lead, while narrow, appeared "insurmountable." However, most news outlets did not declare a result, noting the closeness of the vote (just 0.2% separates the candidates) and the likelihood of a recount. However, when it became apparent that Saccone would not pick up enough votes to overtake Lamb, he called Lamb to concede the race on March 21.

Lamb's lead came primarily on the strength of winning the Allegheny County portion of the district by almost 15,400 votes. He lost the rest of the district by 14,700 votes.

After Lamb's apparent win in the special election, Republicans claimed that he won because "he ran as a conservative". This was a distinct shift from the campaign, during which Republicans said Lamb "Walks The Liberal Party Line" and chastised him for opposing the Republican 2017 tax reform bill. Lamb ran in opposition to the law, describing it as a "giveaway" to large corporations and a "betrayal" of middle-class Americans. Trump asserted that Lamb had said he "liked Trump", but there is no evidence of Lamb ever doing so. Lamb was certified as the winner on April 2, 2018, winning by 755 votes. He was sworn in by House Speaker Paul Ryan on April 12, 2018, and became the first Democrat to represent this district since 2003, when it was numbered as the 20th district.

2018 general election

After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the state's original congressional map and replaced it with a court-drawn map, the old 18th was reconfigured as the 14th district and made even more Republican on paper. Meanwhile, Lamb's home in Mt. Lebanon was drawn into the 17th district. That district had previously been the 12th, represented by three-term Republican Keith Rothfus. The district had lost much of its eastern portion, centered around Johnstown, becoming a more compact district northwest of Pittsburgh. In the process, the district lost its connection to longtime congressman John Murtha, who represented it from 1974 to 2010. While the old 12th was one of Trump's strongest districts in Pennsylvania in 2016, Trump would have only barely carried the new 17th. The new 17th also voted for Democrats in downballot races. This led to speculation that Lamb would run in the new 17th, regardless of the special election results. On March 14, Beaver County Democratic Party chairman Stephen Dupree told ABC News that Lamb submitted a written request for county Democrats to endorse his bid for the 17th in the November 2018 general election; Beaver County is entirely within the new 17th. On March 16, Lamb announced on his Twitter account that he was in the process of gathering petitions for a run in the 17th. On March 20, he formally submitted petitions for a full term in the 17th. He was unopposed in the May 15 primary and defeated Rothfus in the general election.

2020

Lamb defeated Republican Sean Parnell, an Army veteran and Trump supporter. He supported the candidacy of Joe Biden for president, and Biden supported him, as he had in 2018, saying then that Lamb reminded him of his deceased son Beau.

Tenure

Lamb voted against Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, voting instead for Joe Kennedy III, a fellow Democrat. In May 2020, President Trump endorsed Lamb's 2020 election opponent while falsely claiming that Lamb had voted for Pelosi as Speaker.

On December 18, 2019, Lamb voted for both articles of impeachment against President Trump.

Lamb supports mandatory background checks for firearm purchases, believing that the current time limit on background checks is too short.

Lamb was selected as one of seventeen speakers to jointly deliver the keynote address at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

In 2020, Fortune magazine included Lamb in their '40 Under 40' listing under the "Government and Politics" category.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Energy
  • Subcommittee on Environment
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs (Vice Chair)
  • Subcommittee on Health
  • Subcommittee on Technology Modernization
• Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
  • Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials

Caucus memberships

• Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus
• Expand Social Security Caucus
• Congressional Steel Caucus (Chair)