Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) took aim at Democrats for choosing Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to be the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in the upcoming Congress.
“While I think both are absolutely qualified, I do think that within the Democratic Caucus, we are really stuck in our old ways of doing things, which is you get there by seniority. And so, if you’ve been there longer, you get the post, and I don’t think we fully sit there and say, ‘Who may be best equipped for this moment?'” Crocket said on MSNBC on Saturday, as highlighted by Mediaite.
Crocket, a member of the committee, added that while she doesn’t necessarily think Connolly isn’t equipped to lead the committee at this time, she believes that Democratic voters are looking for leaders in Congress to be open to new moves.
“I think they are saying, ‘We are looking towards y’all to show us that you’re willing to shake it up if it means we can move this country forward,'” Crockett said.
Connolly beat Ocasio-Cortez for the top spot for Democrats on the committee in a vote earlier this month. Connolly’s win was the expected result after Monday, when the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, headed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), voted to recommend the Virginian for the role.
Connolly had also been endorsed by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who lobbied on his behalf.
During the interview, Crockett also suggested that Democrats should think about adopting time limits for committee leadership positions — a strategy that would align with the Republican Conference’s rule of limiting chairs and ranking members to serving no more than three consecutive terms.
“I think that within the caucus we will have some conversations about how we do leadership because on the Republican side they have term limits and so you can’t sit in those posts very long, so they end up shipping out their leadership a lot more frequently than we do on the Democratic side,” Crockett said.
