Yahoo News After Party Losses In November, Younger Democrats Reach For Power In Congress
WASHINGTON — A group of House Democrats is making moves to fill leadership roles typically taken by older and longer-serving members, a sign that some believe the message from the November elections is that Americans want fresh faces in charge.
Both parties have long stuck to a seniority system for awarding top committee posts. But younger members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are looking to leapfrog their peers in bids to be the highest-ranking Democrats on influential committees.
“Having multigenerational leadership in the party sends a strong message that we can really rely on the leadership of seasoned senior leaders and that we are also a party that cultivates a new generation of leadership to help carry that work forward,” Ocasio-Cortez, who is 35, told HuffPost on Wednesday.
Ocasio-Cortez is running for the ranking member spot on the House Oversight Committee, which Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has vacated in his run for the top Democratic slot on another committee, the House Judiciary Committee.
“We are on the cusp of potentially adopting a multigenerational suite of leaders that can really speak to the entirety of the country,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) agreed that there’s a big shift underway while also downplaying it in the context of committees.
“House Democrats have really been in the midst of a generational transition,” Jeffries told reporters Wednesday.
He noted that on several committees, such as panels focused on appropriations and energy, Democrats are keeping their long-serving ranking members.
“I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that committee challenges have emerged in certain quarters,” he said.
House Democrats will decide who gets all of these top committee seats next week during an internal, secret-ballot election.
The push by some for a generational reshuffling follows Democrats’ defeat in the November election, during which President Joe Biden’s advanced age and frailty were such a problem that the party abruptly switched out Biden for Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee in the final months of the campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez is one of several younger lawmakers seizing this moment.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), who is 45, launched a bid Monday to lead Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. She’s vying for the seat being vacated by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), 76, who is stepping aside as he recovers from cancer treatments.
Stansbury is running against 60-year-old Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). She has Grijalva’s backing in her campaign for the top seat, as Huffman has been touting his support from various former committee members and Native American tribes.
“The next four years will be a fight against Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ plan,” Grijalva, who has been in Congress since 2003, said in a statement. “House Natural Resources will be the frontline of this fight, and I am confident Rep. Stansbury is the right person to lead this critical committee.”
In her letter to colleagues asking for their support, Stansbury ticked off her decades of experience as a public servant — she’s worked on natural resources issues as a state legislator, at the federal Office of Management and Budget, on a Senate committee, and now as a House member — but emphasized that part of what she’d bring to this leadership role is a fresh face.
“I have spoken to countless members of our communities and Members of our Caucus, and I know the time to lead is now,” said the New Mexico Democrat, who has been in Congress since 2021. “The American people are hungry for change and are ready to make history by choosing the first woman to lead this Committee and I humbly ask for your support.”
Meanwhile, Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), who is 52, and Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who is 72, are vying to replace 79-year-old Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) as the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. Craig, who just won reelection to a fourth House term, didn’t say anything about age in a letter to her colleagues last November.
“Right now, I worry that too many rural Americans don’t trust that Democrats have their best interests at heart,” Craig wrote. “It’s my mission to work with you to help change their minds.”
The generational shift hasn’t been painless.
Scott has not said that he plans to step aside from his top seat on the committee, despite mounting health problems. And the current ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), only made way for Raskin after Raskin made it clear he was gunning for the job and would likely win support from their colleagues. Nadler is 77; Raskin is 61.
“I was not-so-voluntarily pushed aside,” Nadler told HuffPost on Tuesday, declining to comment further.
Top House Democratic leaders previously made room for new blood when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who’d been in charge for 20 years, announced she’d step down at the end of 2022. Jeffries succeeded Pelosi as minority leader, and House Democrats reelected him as their leader in November.
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), a former longtime member of leadership who stepped down when Pelosi did, said Tuesday that youth itself was not a qualification for leadership.
“I’m 84 years old. I feel fine,” Clyburn said. “It always matters to have a good bench. The age thing is a distraction.”
In the case of Ocasio-Cortez, she’s facing off against Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) for the House Oversight Committee job. He told HuffPost he didn’t think their contest was about generational differences, even as he is nearly 40 years older than her.
“To me, it’s not generational. It’s about experience and record and capability,” said Connolly, who is 74. “She’s a new talent and has a lot of promise, but I’m the only one in the race … who, in fact, has a subcommittee. I’m invested in the committee. I think that’s really important.”
