Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va. NBC News/Getty Images.
Dear Commons Community,
A panel of congressional Democrats yesterday recommended Rep. Gerry Connolly, of Virginia, over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, of New York, to be the top Democratic post on the House Oversight Committee, favoring a much more senior member of the party’s caucus to take on the second Trump administration.
The closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which is closely aligned with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., yielded 34 votes for Connolly and 27 for Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the panel said. As reported by NCB News.
The position opened up after the top Democrat on Oversight, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., challenged Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., for a similar post on the Judiciary Committee, prompting Nadler to bow out.
In an upset, the steering committee Monday recommended Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota to be the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. She secured 34 votes and beat out two much more senior rivals on the first ballot— Rep. Jim Costa, of California, got 22 votes, and Rep. David Scott, of Georgia, who has held the top Agriculture job since 2021, got just five.
For the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, the steering committee recommended senior Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., over more junior Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M. The vote was 44 to 17.
The full Democratic caucus is expected to vote on the steering committee’s recommendations Tuesday morning. While the caucus typically adopts the committee’s recommendations, there have been instances when the full caucus has overruled the panel’s votes and picked someone else.
The races for committee ranking member posts had been seen as a litmus test about the future of seniority in the Democratic Party as younger lawmakers clamored for new blood and generational change in the leadership.
But yesterday’s results yielded a mixed bag on that question.
Connolly, 74, is a senior member of the Oversight Committee and was first elected to Congress in 2008. Even though he announced last month he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, he beat back a challenge from Ocasio-Cortez, 35, the progressive hero who was first elected in 2018.
The more senior Democrat also won the steering committee’s endorsement in the Natural Resources race. Huffman, 60, who was elected in 2012 and would be the second most senior Democrat on the committee next year, bested Stansbury, 45, a relatively junior member of the committee who won a special election in 2021.
With Huffman’s likely ascension to ranking member, Natural Resources will have a younger Democratic leader than in the past. Earlier, Huffman launched a surprise challenge to Rep. Raul Grijalva, of Arizona, 76, who was elected to Congress in 2002 and had been the committee’s top Democrat since 2015.
But in the Agriculture race, the younger insurgent prevailed. Craig, 52, a Democratic “Frontliner” and one of the panel’s least senior members, knocked off the incumbent, Scott, 79, who was first elected in 1982 and had been suffering from health issues for years, and another senior member, Costa, 72, a third-generation farmer who was next in line in seniority after Scott.
“I’m ready to help us win back rural Americans and with them a strong Democratic majority,” Craig said after the vote. “I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues across the full Democratic caucus tomorrow.”
While Democrats will remain in the minority in the new Congress that begins in January, the party committee leaders would wield enormous oversight power should Democrats retake control of the House in the 2026 midterm elections.
Ocasio-Cortez is an excellent spokesperson for the New York district she represents but nationally is not what the Democratic Party needs at this time.
Tony
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