Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, mentioned her occasion was nonetheless caught of their “old ways” whereas reacting to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s failed bid to be the highest Democrat Oversight Committee chair, and recommended they had been too centered on seniority.
“While I think both are absolutely qualified, I do think that within the Democratic Caucus, we are really stuck in our old ways of doing things which is you get there by seniority. And so if you’ve been there longer, you get the post, and I don’t think we fully sit there and say, ‘who may be best equipped for this moment?’” Crockett mentioned.
Ocasio-Cortez misplaced the bid to be the highest Democrat on the committee to Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who’s extra average. The 74-year-old lawmaker’s win over Ocasio-Cortez was seen as a blow to progressives.
“I think that America is looking at us and saying, wait a minute, we lost the election, and we know that the Senate lost seats, now, the House we picked up seats, right? But I think they are saying, we are looking towards y’all to show us you’re willing to shake it up if it means we can move this country forward,” Crockett mentioned.
Crockett mentioned the Oversight Committee could be in good arms below Connolly, however mentioned switching up the management extra ceaselessly would profit Democrats.
“I think that within the caucus we will have conversations about how we do leadership, because on the Republican side, they have term limits and so you can’t sit in those posts very long, so they end up shipping out their leadership a lot more frequently than we do on the Democratic side,” he mentioned.
Ocasio-Cortez’s loss was criticized by a number of members of the media, together with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, who mentioned it was an apparent probability for Democrats to indicate they discovered from the outcomes of the election.
“This is one of the few committees in Congress that actually generates national attention or media coverage. Under Jamie Raskin, it became a critical platform for countering Republican misinformation. And while I have deep, deep respect for Speaker Pelosi… and nothing against Congressman Connolly at all, this felt like an obvious chance to apply some of the lessons we should’ve learned from the November election,” Psaki mentioned.
Psaki added that Democrats had handed over “one of the youngest, most media-savvy members of Congress for a key public leadership role.”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes additionally blasted the Democrats for passing on AOC, and signaled out former Home Speaker Pelosi particularly for whipping votes for Connolly.
“But now Pelosi whipped votes to make sure that Connolly got the Oversight job over the young star in the party, even as the 84-year-old Pelosi is recovering from hip surgery after suffering a fall. It feels like a moment of genuine madness,” Hayes mentioned. “And Democrats are not taking this issue seriously, despite everything that’s happened. But they need to.”
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin additionally took concern with Ocasio-Cortez’s loss and spoke out in favor of her progressive insurance policies, which she argued ought to be well-liked amongst all Individuals.
“She has been demonized by the right, and she’s been demonized as this, like, too progressive far-left person, and I want to try to set the record straight because if she is too progressive, then the Democrats really are going to lose the working class,” Hostin mentioned Wednesday.
