Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) called out Democrats for being “stuck in our old ways” following Rep. Gerry Connelly (D-VA) being elected by the House Democratic Caucus to head the Oversight Committee over a push for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to take on the leadership role.
Crockett appeared on MSNBC on Saturday where she had plenty of criticism for Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, but she also said there’s one area where Democrats can learn from the GOP: term limits for committee leadership positions.
Crockett praised Connelly as a qualified choice, but argued that after Democrats’ election loss to Trump, voters are looking at the party and whether they are “willing to shake it up.” She added “seniority” is prioritized over the “best equipped.” Ocasio-Cortez reportedly lost her bid for the leadership position after Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was actively working to tank the possibility.
House Democrats rejected six year caps on committee leadership positions in 2022.
Crockett said:
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? That is not to say that Connelly is not but that is what we see out of the Democratic Caucus and I think that America is looking at us and saying, wait a minute, we lost the election, and we know that the Senate lost seats, now, the House we picked up seats, right? But I think they are saying, we are looking towards y’all to show us you’re willing to shake it up if it means we can move this country forward.
Crockett, who serves on the Oversight Committee, predicted things will be “great” under Connelly, but argued a strategy more like Republicans who switch out committee leadership more often is likely a more effective road for the party.
She added:
He’s very true to this and I think that within the caucus we will have 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 more a lot more frequently than we do on the Democratic side.
Watch above via MSNBC.
