Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants to Be the Democratic Party's Top Attack Dog

[Celerity]

“She is strategic, surgical in her approach. She works very well with other members and our staff,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley said. “And at a time when people are looking for more diverse representatives and animated leadership from the Democratic Party on the front line, she could be incredible.”

https://www.notus.org/congress/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-democratic-party-top-attack-dog-oversight-gerry-connolly

Rep. Gerry Connolly has served on the Oversight Committee for nearly 16 years. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has only been in Congress for six. For generations of Democrats who put a premium on seniority, that fact would have been the only one that mattered as Democrats sort out who should lead the party on Oversight. For all of the 35-year-old Ocasio-Cortez’s chutzpah and star power, the more seasoned 74-year-old Connolly has the wisdom and experience. This Congress, however, that fact might be the very reason Ocasio-Cortez becomes a ranking member — a role in which she would go toe-to-toe with a roster of high-profile, Donald Trump-adoring Republicans on perhaps the most public-facing committee on Capitol Hill. Age and tenure, Democrats supporting her candidacy told NOTUS, may no longer be a winning argument as the party tries to turn the page on septuagenarian — or, in some cases, octogenarian and nonagenarian — leadership to elevate a fresh slate of lawmakers who can hold their own against a hard-charging Republican trifecta.

The Oversight Committee ranking member race will test if that’s true. In many ways, the battle is an ideal test case for the salience of seniority in the Democratic Party. It’s a test that many Democrats have a vested interest in as Joe Biden exits the White House. Democrats were dogged by questions about the 82-year-old president’s vigor and mental fitness — questions that some Democrats think cost them another four years. The ranking member fight is also especially important as social media becomes a primary source of news. Viral moments are a more valuable form of political currency than the experience lawmakers earned by sitting through committee hearings for years just out of the C-SPAN frame. “We should make the change generationally,” one undecided but AOC-curious Democratic member of the Oversight Committee told NOTUS. “Give people the opportunity,” “She’s very good at comms,” this lawmaker said of Ocasio-Cortez. “In the minority, that position on that committee is very much comms. So she is, I think, uniquely talented and qualified to do that job, in that spot, at this time.”

An appetite for media-savvy, spry leadership has animated other lawmakers to challenge top Democrats on the Natural Resources, Judiciary and Agriculture committees. It was Rep. Jamie Raskin’s apparently successful bid to replace Rep. Jerrold Nadler on Judiciary that created the vacancy on Oversight that Ocasio-Cortez and Connolly are now jockeying over. The Oversight Committee has been at the front lines of the media war between Democrats and Republicans. This Congress, under Raskin’s leadership, the punchy cohort of Democrats deployed some eye-popping tactics to clap back at GOP leadership as it investigated Biden and promoted Trump. There was Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s hitting Trump for storing sensitive documents in a Mar-a-Lago “shitter.” There was Rep. Jared Moskowitz donning a Trump mask. And there was Rep. Robert Garcia repeatedly getting the phrase “dick pics” entered into the congressional record.

But for all the lighthearted gimmicks, House Democrats are taking the role of replacing Raskin seriously and told NOTUS they are weighing a range of qualifications. There’s also an undercurrent pushing toward younger leadership that Connolly must confront. Last term, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the No. 2 and No. 3 Democrats stepped aside so Hakeem Jeffries and a new leadership team could take over. As much as Pelosi was a stalwart supporter of the seniority system, she told Axios last week that she was supporting “some” efforts to replace senior ranking members. And this week, Jeffries has been conspicuously quiet about the seniority system, though Jeffries said at his weekly press conference that House Democrats have “really been in the midst of a generational transition.” But Jeffries also issued a caveat that suggests a complete Democratic reorientation toward Generation X and millennial leadership isn’t fully afoot. Or, at least, that the caucus isn’t fully onboard. “I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that committee challenges have emerged in certain quarters,” Jeffries said.

snip