Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first arrived on Capitol Hill with a dose of star power, having toppled a giant in her party.
Now in her third term, the Bronx and Queens representative’s personal power inside Congress is growing as she takes on an influential new role as the No. 2 Democrat on a key committee.
Late last month, Ocasio-Cortez was selected for the job of vice ranking member of the powerful House Oversight Committee. The position puts her in a prime spot to push back on the GOP agenda.
Excited and humbled to share that this evening I was selected to serve as @RepRaskin’s #2 on the House Oversight Committee.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 31, 2023
Thank you to my colleagues on @OversightDems for entrusting me with this responsibility. I’m thrilled to get to work with our incredible Oversight team!
“We need to steer the Republican majority back into focusing on the issues that matter to everyday Americans and everyday New Yorkers,” she said in an interview.
Already, she has proved herself more than eager to spar with the panel’s Republicans.
“We could be talking about bringing down the costs of prescription drugs. We could be talking about abortion rights, civil rights, voting rights, but instead we’re talking about Hunter Biden’s half-fake laptop story,” she said at a recent hearing regarding Twitter. “This is an embarrassment.”
So far, in addition to Twitter, the Republican-led committee has held hearings on the southern border and the misuse of coronavirus aid.
At the COVID relief hearing, she publicly questioned the committee’s GOP Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, asking why he recently chose to send letters to three Democrat-led states — including New York — with allegations of fraud.
Why, she wondered aloud, not Republican-led states, too?
“The bipartisan nature of oversight is what gives it its power,” she said. “The methodology for these three states is highly questionable.”
Asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s handling of her new role, Comer said, “I think she represents a certain block of the American people really well.”
“I don’t agree with her ideology, but certainly I take her very seriously and I respect her position,” he continued.
Meanwhile, the congresswoman’s Democratic colleague Rep. Dan Goldman, a freshman who is new to the panel, praised her as cutting through the noise.
“Her lines of questioning have been very incisive and very much on point, calling out the Republican nonsense on the other side,” said Goldman, who represents Manhattan and Brooklyn.
As vice ranking member, Ocasio-Cortez is deputy to Maryland Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin. The two have worked together previously, including teaming up last Congress to demand answers on the conditions at the Rikers Island jail complex.
In an interview, Comer said investigating Rikers is not something on his agenda “right now.”
Ocaso-Cortez’s office stressed that even as the minority party in the House, Democrats can still continue to press for answers, including sending letters like they did last Congress.