'Backroom sabotage': Nancy Pelosi accused of hijacking AOC over festering feud

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is facing likely defeat in her candidacy to lead the Democratic minority on the House Oversight Committee, after previously building momentum for the role — because Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been working behind the scenes to thwart it.

This "backroom sabotage" is not a healthy development for Democrats, wrote Alexander Sammon for Slate — and it's a reflection not of legitimate debate over who is best to lead the committee, but a yearslong vendetta Pelosi is unable to let go of, and a reluctance to truly pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.

Pelosi "now appears to be score-settling over a feud with Ocasio-Cortez that is six years old," she wrote.

"After November’s drubbing, House Democrats signaled that they were prepared to accept a changing of the guard atop some of the important House committees," wrote Sammon, including Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) stepping aside for relatively younger leaders.

But when Ocasio-Cortez stepped up for Oversight, and began to attract support, things changed.

"Not one to let a young person ascend quietly, Nancy Pelosi entered the fray," wrote Sammon. "The patron saint of Democratic gerontocracy, 84-year-old Nancy Pelosi is supposedly retired from leadership, but this month, she actively threw her weight behind 74-year-old Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, who was just diagnosed with throat cancer. Now, Pelosi is whipping votes for Connolly, whose potential promotion would cap off this 'changing of the guard' by replacing a 61-year-old with a guy in his mid-70s. And because Pelosi suffered a fall in Germany and had to have her hip replaced, she’s essentially whipping votes from a hospital bed."

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Ocasio-Cortez's outspoken progressive record has made some more centrist lawmakers uneasy, Sammon noted, but she is arguably perfect for this role: "During a second Trump presidency, Oversight will be one of the most important bully pulpits to expose and interrogate the incoming administration’s flagrant corruption," and AOC, who already serves on Oversight, has repeatedly gone viral demolishing Trump allies in that committee. "Her ability as an explainer is top-notch, and her penchant for conveying outrage and injustice is sorely lacking in the party’s upper echelons."

Connolly has extensive experience on the committee, said Sammon, with "a positive reputation for his work beating back Republican witch hunts during the Barack Obama years" — but "it’s pretty obvious which one of these representatives has a bigger megaphone to explain what’s going on. Ocasio-Cortez has 8.1 million followers. Connolly has 4,600."

Pelosi, Sammon noted, was instrumental in building the consensus to force President Joe Biden out of running for a second term — but those same tactics are "harder to justify when an eminently qualified rising star — who, whether Pelosi likes it personally or not, is widely known to be a cornerstone of the party’s future — pushes for a simple promotion."