House Democrats’ decision Tuesday to go with 74-year-old Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the party’s leading voice on the House Oversight Committee was met with disappointment and anger among many progressives.
The 131-84 secret ballot in favor of Connolly was partly the work of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who reportedly was whipping votes on behalf of the Virginia Democrat. The optics of that move—an 84-year-old going to bat for someone just 10 years younger and who also happens to have esophageal cancer—spurred comments condemning the “gerontocracy.”
“At this point almost nothing the Democratic Party does makes any damned sense,” MSNBC anchor Joy Reid wrote in a social media post Tuesday afternoon. “They are hanging onto their gerontocracy and consultant class at the expense of their most loyal voters. And let’s just be clear, they’ll be fine while our communities pay the price.”
On her show later that night, Reid similarly vented her frustrations. “This gerontocracy seems like it’s intractable,” she said, before faulting the Democratic National Committee for being “run by donors and consultants and people who are locked into the old ways of doing things.”
After the vote, Connolly said Democrats took into account experience and ability rather than age. “My colleagues were measuring their vote by who has got experience, who is seasoned, who can be trusted, who has a record of productivity,” he said. “That prevailed.”
Still, the outcome didn’t sit well with many.
Former Bernie Sanders senior adviser David Sirota wrote that the vote is a “reminder that no change agent will be able to ‘nice’ their way to power inside the Democratic Party—power will have to be ripped away from the establishment. They’re not gonna give it away in exchange for good manners or being a ‘team player.‘”
Pod Save America co-host Dan Preiffer suggested that the factors behind Tuesday’s result also ultimately harmed Democrats in the presidential race.
“Valuing seniority over political and messaging chops is exactly how Democrats got into this mess in the first place,” he wrote on X.
And John Stoeher, editor and publisher of The Editorial Board, argued that even though Connolly may be the most qualified, he doesn’t represent the future.
“Pelosi is not hearing criticism from her side,” he wrote. “The point isn’t whether Connolly is the best person for the job. The point is that AOC represents new ideas and the future. Picking Connolly sends the signal that the Democrats are stuck in the past.”
