Liberal New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , D-N.Y., is gunning for one of the top roles in Congress, a move that has surprised many as it would land her under the purview of incoming President-elect Donald Trump.
Here are details of AOC’s potential new role, and what it means for the House.
Last last Friday, AOC launched a bid to serve in the top Democratic role on the House committee leading investigation efforts into the federal government.
In a letter sent to fellow lawmakers on last Friday, AOC announced her candidacy to serve as ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability for the 119th Congress.
The position currently held by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who is set to run to become the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee in 2025, according to the Associated Press.
In her desired new role, AOC noted that her focus would be to lead a Democratic effort against the incoming administration under Trump.
“This is not a position I seek lightly,” AOC wrote in the letter.
“The responsibility of leading Democrats on the House Oversight Committee during Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is a profound and consequential one. Now, more than ever, we must focus on the Committee’s strong history of both holding administrations accountable and taking on the economic precarity and inequality that is challenging the American way of life.”
“In the 119th Congress, Oversight Committee Democrats will face an important task: we must balance our focus on the incoming president’s corrosive actions and corruption with a tangible fight to make life easier for America’s working class,” she continued.
According to a Fox News report, AOC will also be competing for the seat against Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who recently declared his bid for the Oversight role.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., currently serves as chairman of the committee, which focuses on ensuring efficiency and accountability within the federal government and its agencies.
AOC’s bid to become one of the most powerful members of Congress comes on the heels of less-than-favorable news from her home district of Queens, NY where other liberal allies have accused AOC of abandoning her constituents.
As previously reported by The Horn News, Ramon Ramirez Baez, an author and former Democrat committee member for the 39th Assembly District who helped AOC build historic grassroots support before her first election win said in a scathing interview that the liberal lawmaker has abandoned and “betrayed” her constituents in a Queens neighborhood that has been riddled with crime under her leadership, including open-air prostitution, robberies and petty crime.
Baez said the quality of life in AOC’s district has rapidly deteriorated since her historic upset in 2018, unseating longtime Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley to become the nation’s youngest congresswoman.
Many constituents have likened conditions along Roosevelt Avenue (a popular street in AOC’s district) to those of a Third World country, while others say the migrant women soliciting sex in front of businesses remind them of a red-light district in Bangkok.
The area has garnered national attention for its unsanitary nature where illegal vendors overtake sidewalks selling unregulated food, secondhand clothing and other counterfeit merchandise.
Ramirez Baez said that AOC promised to work hard for the people of Corona, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst and to be an on-the-ground presence for them, unlike career politician Crowley, who at that point was a 10-term incumbent and eyeing to be the next House speaker.
We will continue to report on AOC’s potential bid for the role.