After helping to push President Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is now reportedly trying to tank Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s bid to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Top Democrats say that while the 35-year-old is seen as the favorite in the race to take on the role, Rep. Gerry Connolly, 74, still has a chance.
A number of ranking members on various panels who are in their seventies are facing challenges from younger colleagues.
“Many members are concerned about [the] precedent these races are setting,” a House Democrat told Axios.
Two House Democrats told the outlet that Pelosi has been reaching out to members, pushing them to support Connolly instead of Ocasio-Cortez. They both want to replace the current ranking member on Oversight, Rep. Jamie Raskin.
Punchbowl News initially reported on Pelosi’s outreach.
A House Democrat told Axios that Ocasio-Cortez “has pretty much the entire [Oversight] Committee with her.”
The House Democrats Steering Committee, set to meet Tuesday to make recommendations on postings, will take such support seriously, they added.
Another Democratic member told the outlet that their “gut tells me she gets it.” Connolly was diagnosed with cancer last month, which is “working against him,” they added.
However, lawmakers noted that Ocasio-Cortez’s ascension is not a sure thing. The entire Democratic caucus has to vote on whether to support the recommendations made by the Steering Committee.
A number of younger Democrats are pushing out older ranking members ahead of the incoming Trump administration.
The 61-year-old Raskin managed to become the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee after Rep. Jerry Nadler, 74, agreed to step down.
Similarly, Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raúl Grijalva, 76, stepped down to make room for Rep. Jared Huffman, 60. But Huffman is now being challenged by Rep. Melanie Stansbury, 45.
The ranking member on the Agriculture Committee, 79-year-old David Scott, is believed to have to give way to one of either Rep. Jim Costa, 72, or Rep. Angie Craig, 52.
Last week, Pelosi told Axios that she was backing “some” challenges against current ranking members and two Democratic members told the outlet that she has been making calls for Costa.
Pelosi was reportedly instrumental in getting Biden to step aside this summer, and she has said that Democrats might have done better in the election if he had done so at an earlier stage.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” she told The New York Times last month.
“The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she added.
Pelosi said that Vice President Kamala Harris would have performed well in such a primary and that it would have made her “stronger going forward.”
“But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened,” she said. “And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
