Team AOC - Dealing with the Clown Car

 

We’re three weeks into the 118th Congress, and committee assignments have still not been finalized.

At Alexandria’s town hall last week, a concerned constituent asked what Alexandria would do to offset the ‘lunacy’ from Republican-led congressional committees.

This was her response:

“Committee assignments are not official yet… but from what we’ve heard through some of our conversations, it seems as though, on the Republican side, they have appointed Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Paul Gosar to the House Oversight Committee … Usually when you are an incumbent on a committee, you have first preference to decide if you stay on that committee. That's usually how that goes. My intention is to stay on the House Oversight Committee and provide full support to Ranking Member Raskin. And we’re also going to have to manage this clown car that’s going on on the other side.”

She continued:

“I will say that in the past, we have been able to secure certain bipartisan hearings. Now depending on the incoming chair — Congressman [James] Comer — we will see what his appetite is to continue doing that… in the past, we have held bipartisan hearings going after defense contractors and abuse of our public funds by defense contractors.

The DOD is one of the only agencies that has not really been able to pass an audit… I vote against the defense budget every year, and one major reason for that is because of this complete lack of accountability. And we know: if you’ve been a teacher in a school, every single penny that you spend must be accounted for. Every single dollar. In healthcare, in all of this… So in the past, that has been a point of bipartisan hearings, and I've been able, through my questioning, to really go after some of these contractors that have actually resulted in getting funds back from them. But it really depends on what they [Republicans] choose.

Our alternative is to start sending letters directly to the Biden administration on some of these issues. We’ve already started doing that with respect to some issues around immigration, defense, et cetera. Because whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican, Oversight is necessary.”

You can watch Alexandria’s full response here:

In solidarity,

Team AOC

Alexandria has been adamant about holding 

government contractors and corporations accountable 

to taxpayers — and she will continue to do so on the 

House Oversight Committee. But with the addition 

of far-right committee members, holding these 

groups accountable may get harder.