Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Friday formally launched a bid to steer Democrats on the Home Oversight and Accountability Committee within the subsequent Congress — a strong seat that may play a outstanding function within the social gathering’s effort to push again towards President-elect Trump in his second time period.
The transfer units up a contest between Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) to interchange the panel’s present rating member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who’s stepping all the way down to assume the highest spot on the Judiciary Committee subsequent 12 months.
“This is not a position I seek lightly,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues. “The responsibility of leading Democrats on the House Oversight Committee during Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is a profound and consequential one. Now, more than ever, we must focus on the Committee’s strong history of both holding administrations accountable and taking on the economic precarity and inequality that is challenging the American way of life.”
Connolly, 74, is the extra seasoned lawmaker, having served on Oversight for all of his 16 years within the Home. And he is pointing to that have to make the case that he is the higher match to confront Trump, significantly in terms of the GOP’s said plans to shrink the federal workforce within the identify of presidency effectivity and deficit discount. Connolly, who hails from a northern Virginia district simply throughout the Potomac River from Washington, represents a major variety of federal staff, and has a protracted report of preventing to guard them from blunt cost-cutting efforts.
Ocasio-Cortez, 35, was the youngest lawmaker in congressional historical past when she arrived within the Home in 2019. Since then, she’s constructed a nationwide model as a fierce voice for progressivism. And she or he’s arguing it is time for the older technology of Democrats to cross the torch to a youthful group of lawmakers — an concept that’s gained some steam within the social gathering in a 12 months when the getting older President Biden was nudged out of a reelection bid over issues about his stamina and psychological acuity.
With subpoena energy and jurisdiction over a broad array of matters, the Oversight Committee is among the many extra highly effective panels within the Capitol. From the minority, Democrats is not going to management these subpoenas nor have the ability to dictate what points get hearings, however the rating member could have a high-profile platform to push again towards the Republicans’ legislative agenda and any GOP plans to proceed investigations into the Biden administration or the Biden household.
Ocasio-Cortez has mentioned she characterised her relationship with Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) as “not bad,” pointing to their shared perception in reforming pharmacy profit managers. However she’s additionally vowing to offer Republicans “hell” on these points the place they disagree.
Ocasio-Cortez just isn’t alone is looking for to leap over extra senior lawmakers to take high seats on committees. Already, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) has pushed Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) out of the rating member spot on the Pure Sources Committee. Raskin’s bid to steer the Judiciary panel compelled Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to desert that seat. And a number of other Democrats on the Home Agriculture Committee are difficult Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) for the highest spot on the panel.
