Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) on Tuesday defeated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to steer Democrats on the Oversight and Accountability Committee within the subsequent Congress, placing the feisty liberal veteran in one of the crucial highly effective spots to confront President Trump in his second time period.
The win was forecast a day earlier, when the Democratic Steering and Coverage Committee voted to advocate the seat to Connolly, who has a decade extra expertise than Ocasio-Cortez on the highly effective committee.
The non-binding Steering vote lent a symbolic enhance to Connolly, 74, however his victory was finally determined by the total Caucus, which huddled behind closed doorways Tuesday morning within the Capitol basement and voted by secret poll to offer him the coveted seat.
Connolly additionally obtained some assist from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who endorsed his bid and lobbied actively on his behalf within the lead as much as this week’s votes.
Connolly’s victory places a halt, not less than briefly, to the meteoric rise of Ocasio-Cortez, a former bartender who surprised Washington in 2018 by defeating Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), then the chair of the Democratic Caucus, in a main upset that nobody noticed coming. Within the course of she made historical past because the youngest girl ever elected to Congress. And he or she’s since constructed a nationwide model as an unapologetic defender of progressive beliefs that’s made her a celebrity of the left.
Ocasio-Cortez, 35, had made the case that the time is ripe for Democrats to embrace a brand new era of occasion leaders — an idea that gained steam when President Biden was nudged off the poll over the summer season over issues that he lacked the stamina and psychological acuity for a second time period. But Democrats have put the senior member in cost of just about each Home committee within the subsequent Congress, and Connolly’s victory on Tuesday continues that development.
The end result will put Connolly on the entrance strains of the approaching partisan battle over Trump’s second time period agenda.
The Oversight Committee has a broad mandate to scrutinize the workings of the federal authorities, and whereas the panel is more likely to keep away from any robust examinations of the Trump administration whereas Republicans management the gavel, Connolly is vowing to make use of his perch as rating member to spotlight the coverage areas the place Democrats suppose the incoming president poses the gravest menace to working-class Individuals — and the custom of democracy itself.
Connolly had additionally made the case that he’s the higher match to confront Trump over the GOP’s promised plans to shrink the federal workforce within the title of presidency effectivity and deficit discount. Connolly, who hails from a northern Virginia district simply throughout the Potomac River from Washington, represents a big variety of federal staff, and has an extended document of preventing to guard them from blunt cost-cutting efforts.
Democrats are additionally in a very good place to take management of the Home in 2026, a midterm 12 months that is traditionally robust on the occasion of the incumbent president. That state of affairs would put Connolly in place to take the Oversight gavel, granting him the subpoena powers afforded to the committee and opening up numerous avenues for Democrats to look at the actions and insurance policies of their adversaries within the White Home for the ultimate two years of Trump’s time period.
The highest Oversight seat was vacated when Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the present rating member, stepped out of that place to problem Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) as the highest Democrat on the Home Judiciary Committee — one other highly effective panel that can play an outsized position within the Democratic effort to push again in opposition to the second Trump administration and its conservative wish-list of coverage priorities, which embrace an overhaul of a Justice Division that Trump maintains has been “weaponized” in opposition to him and different conservatives.
Raskin gained that problem final week when Nadler stepped out of the race.
Regardless of shedding the Steering Committee’s advice on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez had hoped that the total caucus — which contains a broader and youthful array of lawmakers much less receptive to the seniority system that is guided the Democrats’ committee postings for many years — can be a extra pleasant viewers on Tuesday.
Bucking the advice of the Steering panel is uncommon, however not unprecedented.
In 2014, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) gained the Steering Committee’s endorsement in her bid to unseat Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) because the senior Democrat on the highly effective Vitality and Commerce Committee. However the full caucus brushed apart that advice — and the needs of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Democratic chief who had damaged with custom to endorse Eshoo — to place the extra senior Pallone within the seat.
For Connolly, Tuesday’s victory is a few vindication after he launched an unsuccessful bid for the highest Oversight seat in 2022, when then-Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) was defeated by Nadler in a main. Within the shakeup that adopted, Raskin jumped over two extra senior members of the panel — Connolly and Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) — to take her seat.
Connolly’s victory additionally required him to beat well being issues which have led to the downfall of different rating members this cycle. The Virginia Democrat introduced final month that he’s affected by esophagus most cancers. However Connolly sought therapy instantly, and he’s been an lively presence across the Capitol all through Congress’s lame-duck session.
Different rating members haven’t fared as properly.
On the Pure Sources panel, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was nudged out of his rating member place amid therapy for lung most cancers. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) will change Grijalva after warding off a problem this week from the extra junior Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.).
Well being points have additionally plagued Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), the present rating member of the Home Agriculture Committee, which contributed to the problem he confronted this month from two junior members on the panel, Reps. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.). Craig prevailed in that contest to exchange Scott in that seat subsequent 12 months.
