House Democrats on Tuesday morning chose their caucus’s committee leadership for the next Congress. In one of the most closely watched of the elections, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia was named the next ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. He won the role by defeating the committee’s current vice ranking member, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. In rejecting AOC’s bid, Democrats have committed a major unforced error in the party’s struggle to define its future.
Of the House’s 17 standing committees, Oversight has become the most overtly political. Its role as a foil to the executive branch gives members of the party not in the White House an especially prominent platform to take on the president. Even in times of unified partisan control of Washington, as will be the case come January, the Oversight Committee’s ranking member has become a central figure in leading the opposition.
Whether we like it or not, it behooves both sides to stack the Oversight Committee with the representatives they consider their most effective political communicators.
In that context, whether we like it or not, it behooves both sides to stack the Oversight Committee with the representatives they consider their most effective political communicators. In the most recent Congress, that’s involved the GOP packing in extremists like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona. Meanwhile, Democrats have granted seats to rising luminaries like Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Maxwell Frost of Florida.
Similarly, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is vacating his post as Oversight’s top Democrat, was first tapped for the gig in 2022 in part due to his media savvy and his talent as a debater. It was Raskin’s decision to appoint Ocasio-Cortez as the vice ranking member, essentially his deputy, and elevate her into the committee’s leadership. It was likewise his decision to challenge longtime top Democrat Jerry Nadler of New York for the Judiciary Committee’s leadership that opened his seat on Oversight for Tuesday’s election.
Since she was first elected in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez, 35, has been in the national spotlight. An outspoken champion of the progressive wing of the caucus, she’s been seen as one of the best indicators for the future direction of the party. An early report from Politico indicated that she had locked up a majority of the panel’s Democratic members behind her. When she officially announced her run in a letter to her colleagues, she stressed her time on the committee and the need for Democrats to “balance our focus on the incoming president’s corrosive actions and corruption with a tangible fight to make life easier for America’s working class.”
But House Democrats still heavily weigh seniority when choosing their leaders. Under that system, Connolly, who is entering his ninth term next year, is next in line for the ranking member position over the fourth-term Ocasio-Cortez. And after Nadler stepped aside for Raskin, several other septuagenarian chairs chose to stand for re-election against younger challengers. Taken together, it was seen as a potential changing of the guard among Democrats in favor of an incoming generation of leaders.
And then Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., got involved. The best vote counter in the House threw her weight behind the 74-year-old Connolly, who just last month announced he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Pelosi made phone calls on his behalf and lined up support among senior Democrats like New York’s own Rep. Gregory Meeks. It was at least in part thanks to her influence that Ocasio-Cortez failed to win the support of the caucus’s powerful Steering and Policy Committee on Monday in a 34-27 vote.
Instead of worrying about who Republicans want to win, the House Democratic caucus would be better served thinking about who Democrats want to win.
Let me say now that Connolly isn’t a bad or especially unqualified choice for the role. He’s patiently served his time in the Oversight Committee and is well-liked by his colleagues. Even the concerns about his recently diagnosed cancer should be tempered by Raskin's example, who recently went through cancer treatment while serving as ranking member. But Punchbowl News reported Tuesday that in making his pitch to the full Democratic caucus, Connolly invoked the “number of House Republicans who wanted AOC to win, according to sources in the room.”
Connolly’s message ahead of the vote is exactly the problem that Democrats face, and one I think Ocasio-Cortez would help alleviate. Instead of worrying about who Republicans want to win, the House Democratic caucus would be better served thinking about who Democrats want to win. (It’s also worth noting that Pelosi herself was Republicans’ top foil for the better part of two decades, during which she never had a serious challenger to her leadership.)
More bluntly, it would have served Democrats to consider which candidate will make the better messenger for Democratic voters eager to see the incoming Trump administration met head-on. Is the face that the party wants to put forward really an old guard, perfectly average member of the caucus, chosen primarily for his time served over his ability to break down a complex topic or electrify a crowd?
In contrast, Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most well-connected, persuasive voices in the party, one who has transformed herself from a total outsider to having her own power base and ties with the party’s leadership. She addresses voters directly through her Instagram Live and TikTok. She frequently goes viral with succinct, well-reasoned arguments in committee. She has proved herself willing to speak to the moral core of the base in a way that many members of leadership struggle with for fear of alienating swing voters. And her fundraising and donation strategy speaks to her long-term vision for shaping a new Democratic majority.
That was the argument that Rep. Pat Ryan of New York delivered to the caucus, according to a copy of his speech that he provided to Semafor’s Dave Weigel. Ryan told his fellow Democrats that knew it was a risk bringing her to campaign for him after winning his swing district by 1% in 2022. But he was happy to have her backing because Democratic campaigns “should be about showing Americans that we fight for them and against anyone who would do them arm,” Ryan said. “Nobody encapsulates that more than Alex.”
In short, when combined with her clear willingness to face President-elect Donald Trump’s likely corruption head-on, Ocasio-Cortez is exactly what Democrats need to energize a demoralized base. It’s not an impossible role for her to play as a backbench member of the House Democratic caucus. It is one that is much harder when so many in her party seem determined to pretend the next four years will be business as usual. And it is absolutely a waste of her considerable talents and energy to not have her front and center as one of the defining voices in the struggles that are yet to come.