Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was unsuccessful in her attempt to lead the House Oversight Committee, a position that will be crucial in overseeing Donald Trump and his administration. Gerry Connolly, a veteran Virginia congressman, secured the role.
The 35-year-old New York progressive lost her bid to head up the Oversight Committee , a panel that will play a key watchdog role over Donald Trump and his incoming administration. Winning out for the post was Gerry Connolly , the 74-year-old Virginia congressman who just last month announced that he was being treated for esophageal cancer.
Ocasio-Cortez ran on a message of generational change, the appetite for which has greatly increased since the party’s crushing losses in last month’s election. But Connolly had some powerful old-guard allies in his corner—including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 84, who made calls on his behalf. Connolly reportedly carried the vote 131-84. Some of the opposition to Ocasio-Cortez seems to have stemmed from concern about her more progressive politics, as well as her previous support for primary challenges to incumbent Democrats. But “there was also a sense,” Politico reported, citing eight Democratic lawmakers, “that it was Connolly’s turn, after he had previously run for the Oversight spot twice and served on the panel for 15 years.” Democrats appear to have picked Connolly—at least in part—because they felt he was entitled to the influential post, as a reward for his loyalty and longevity. “He’s been the ranking member-in-waiting,” Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver, 80, told Axios. That sentiment is as telling as it is infuriating. It's emblematic not only of the party’s gerontocracy but of its tendency to treat powerful positions as a kind of remuneration for loyalty, longevity, and legacy—often at the expense of the party’s best interests. During Barack Obama’s second term, amid suggestions liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should retire with a Democrat in office, the late California Senator Dianne Feinstein defended her: “She is certainly entitled to serve,” Feinstein told Politico in 2014
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