Democratic Rep. Dina Titus spent years biding her time in the minority. Now that Democrats have won control of the House, the congresswoman has newfound clout, thanks to the years she has spent developing relationships and working her way up the ladder in a chamber that operates on a seniority system.

She has raised her profile with a subcommittee chairmanship that gives her a platform to investigate President Donald Trump.

With close ties to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she helped fellow Nevadan Rep. Steven Horsford get a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the tax code, trade and revenue-related aspects of the Social Security system, Medicare and other social services programs.

And Gov. Steve Sisolak, a close personal friend, tapped Mike Naft, her former district director, to replace him on the Clark County Commission, giving her a close ally on a powerful local governing body.

“That allows us to work county, state and federal in a very collaborative way, better than I ever think you’ve seen in Nevada in a long time,” Titus said in an interview recently.

Nevada’s influence had taken a hit in recent election cycles with the retirement of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who served in Congress from 1983 to 2017, and the defeat of veteran GOP Sen. Dean Heller, who served from 2007 to 2019.

The Nevada delegation currently consists mostly of newcomers. Aside from Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, every member of the delegation is a rookie.(Horsford is back in Congress after serving one term before he lost his seat to Republican Cresent Hardy.)

Titus, who is currently the longest-serving member of the delegation and at the apex of her seniority, is in her fourth consecutive term representing the First Congressional District, beginning in 2013, and she served another term, between 2009 and 2011, representing the Third Congressional District.

Despite a history of sometimes bucking her own party, Titus’s locus of power stems in large part  from close ties with party stalwarts Pelosi, who was re-elected House speaker at the beginning of the year, and longtime friend Sisolak, who recently began his first term as governor.

Titus believes that, with the help of her friends in high places, she is in a strong position to deliver for her district and the state.

Before running for Congress, she spent 20 years in the state Senate, and more than 30 years teaching political science at UNLV, which is where her path first crossed with Sisolak’s.

“He was my boss when he was a regent,” Titus said, referring to Sisolak’s 10-year stint on the Nevada Board of Regents. The board oversees the state’s system of higher education.

“I’ve known Steve for almost 30 years, so we’re close personal friends,” she said. Titus helped lead Sisolak’s gubernatorial transition advisory committee.  

“She’s a great friend,” Sisolak said of Titus recently while in Washington for the National Governors Association winter meeting. “If it’s an issue that’s important to Nevada, I’ll be working with Dina Titus.”

She encouraged the governor to get into politics in the first place by running for the Legislature, which he did twice in the 1990s, but came up short each time. It wasn’t until he ran for the Board of Regents in 1998 that he first found success in running for elected office.

Known as a fierce campaigner, Titus has not always gotten along easily with her fellow Democrats, most notably Reid, who reigned for decades as the party’s leader.

“She’s had a reputation on not working well with fellow Democrats,” said Eric Herzik, chair of the University of Nevada, Reno’s political science department.

Herzik argued that she was the victim of her own vociferous defense of her Southern Nevada priorities, which some took as a disdain for Northern Nevada. Herzik believes it is one factor that resulted in her failed 2006 bid for governor.  

But Titus took issue with that characterization, saying she would not have had the success she’s enjoyed if she was difficult to get along with.

“I spent 20 years in the state Legislature as [Senate] minority leader; if I didn’t work well with Democrats, I wouldn’t have had that position,” she said, adding that she continues to work with the delegation on Nevada priorities. “I always win with big margins, so Democrats must like me.”

Also, all members of the delegation spoke highly of her when asked about their relationships with Titus. And she spoke highly of them as well, though she said she had not worked closely with Rosen, who only served one term in the House and did not know her well.

“I think you must be pointing out an old battle with Harry Reid, but that’s water under the bridge,” she continued.

She declined to talk about her falling-out with Reid. But one possible battle she could have been referring to was Reid’s decision to back Rosen over Titus to run for the Senate against Heller in 2018.

Reid also backed former Rep. Ruben Kihuen, rather than Titus, to run for the First Congressional District in 2012. She ultimately won that race and still has the seat.

The two also clashed in 2006 when Titus challenged Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, who was backed by Reid, in the Democratic primary for governor. She defeated Gibson, but failed to win in the general election against Republican Jim Gibbons, a flawed candidate who was accused of sexual assault.

In 2017, she told E&E News that Reid “is the godfather of Nevada politics, and he likes to keep everything under his domain and I think, like I said before, I just haven't been part of that. It's never [been any one thing] ... no one incident, no one time I opposed him, nothing like that."

While she regrets not running for Senate, she is nevertheless very pleased with her current position.

“I knew it was the right decision,” she said, adding that she is serving in the majority—rather than a being a freshman in the minority in the Senate—with seniority on committees that are important to her district, including panels that oversee transportation, infrastructure, and homeland security.

Titus expects to work with Sisolak on transportation needs for the state.

“I am on a committee where we can do some things,” Titus said, adding that she is in a good spot for the state should Congress take up any infrastructure legislation, one of the few policy areas where Democrats and Republicans believe they can find compromise.

Titus also noted that she’ll press for funding for Interstate 11, the proposed highway connecting Las Vegas to Phoenix. Titus is a co-chair of the I-11 Caucus. She also will seek to find federal funding for McCarran Airport, and she plans to help where possible and needed on Sisolak’s efforts to continue the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

“I suspect there will be a number of things we’ll be collaborating on,” Titus said.

And it doesn’t hurt to have the ear of the speaker of the House, who called Titus “a valued member of Congress,” in a brief interview.

“She is an articulate spokesperson for the state of Nevada even though she brings a southern accent to it,” Pelosi joked in a nod to Titus growing up in Georgia.

Pelosi said Titus helped the state trend more Democratic in recent elections by supporting Democratic candidates like Sisolak, Horsford, Rosen and Rep. Susie Lee.

Titus characterized her relationship with Pelosi as “strong” and one that “allows me to ensure that Las Vegas has a seat at the table in shaping the national progressive agenda,” she said.

Last month, Pelosi turned to Titus as a trusted member when the speaker needed to fill spots on the Homeland Security Committee.

“The chairman really wanted her, too, because she’s an effective member,” Pelosi said.

The post will allow Titus to weigh in on broad policy issues, such as border security and President Donald Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the southern border.

But, as a member of the panel’s Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee, she will also help oversee all Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security matters, including passenger and cargo security within the aviation system, a key issue for her district and the state, which depends on safely getting tourists to Las Vegas and other popular sites around Nevada.

Titus also cited Pelosi as a key ally in opposing renewed efforts by the White House to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

“Her strong opposition to the effort to revive Yucca Mountain has enormously benefited Nevada and I will continue to work with her to protect our state and its people,” Titus said.

She remains a member of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which nominates members for committee assignments. She was elected to the panel in December 2016 as the regional representative for the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest Region, which includes Nevada.

Her presence on the Steering and Policy Committee gave Horsford a leg up in getting a spot on the House Ways and Means Committee. As the most senior Nevada House member, Titus could have taken the position on the powerful tax-law-writing panel herself, but instead decided to help her fellow Nevadan join the committee.

She made the case to  colleagues on the committee that Horsford would be a good fit. “I made the pitch for him in the committee and he has a good reputation, so it wasn’t a hard sell,” Titus said in January after the panel’s roster was announced.

Had she moved to the tax committee, she would have had to give up one of her other committee assignments, which she did not want to do. She is a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and is chairman of the panel’s Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee.

Having the gavel has raised Titus's profile as she will help lead one of the investigations into Trump. The panel, along with the full committee, is investigating whether the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the federal government’s real estate, ran afoul of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause after Trump was elected president with regard to the lease for the Old Post Office Building in Washington, D.C. to the Trump Organization. The property was converted into a Trump hotel, which opened in 2016.

“It’s very clear when the lease was signed, GSA did not take into account, both the provisions of the lease, which require you to follow the Constitution, or the Constitution itself, where the Emoluments Clause prohibits the president from making money off of foreign countries or from any private enterprise,” Titus said citing a recent report from the GSA inspector general.

She told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in January that she believes that the president should divest himself of the property.  

Titus said that she wants to get the head of the GSA, Emily W. Murphy, and others before her panel to answer questions about the matter. She also wants documents and records between the president, his family, or his transition team and the GSA.

“We have the subpoena power,” Titus said. “We hope that’s a last resort.”

Titus’s panel is also investigating GSA’s role in the Trump Administration decision to reverse a longstanding plan to relocate the Federal Bureau of Investigation downtown D.C. headquarters to a suburban location—which would have allowed commercial developers to acquire the existing site and compete directly with the Trump Hotel across the street—and instead raze and rebuild at the existing location.

She told Maddow in March that she believes this investigation, which is being conducted in conjunction with four other committees and subcommittees, will show that Trump put the kibosh on the FBI-relocation plan to protect his hotel from competition.

“I believe in the end it will be very clear that he used public money to get private profit,” Titus told Maddow.

Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio of Oregon, who said the administration has stonewalled him as he has sought information, while in the minority, said he has “a lot of faith” in Titus.

“She’s great,” DeFazio said. “She’ll be tough but fair.”

Titus will be working on the issue with one of the more conservative members of the GOP conference, Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who is the ranking Republican on the transportation panel‘s Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management Subcommittee.

Meadows, who is the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus and is personally close to Trump, said he looks forward to working with Titus, who has been a vocal Trump critic.

This will be the first time the two have worked closely together, noted Meadows, who has a background in real estate development.

“Public properties have been a real interest of mine, the Emoluments Clause, not as much so,” he said.

But he said he will keep an open mind. “No one is going to look at it more critically and more accurately, based on my previous background in real estate, than I would,” Meadows said.

He also believes he can work together with Titus on making the GSA, generally, more efficient, as well as improving the emergency response process.