Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez was a political sensation when she combined organizing prowess,
extraordinary skill with social media, and a keen sense of what voters wanted
in New York’s 14th Congressional District to unseat a long-serving
Democrat last year. That by itself would
guarantee her a prominent place in our political culture. Since arriving in Washington, however, she
has proven herself even more of an innovator in defining the role of a Member
of Congress than she had as a candidate.
This post examines some of what she has been doing and seeks to draw
broader lessons about how power is wielded in Congress. The goal most definitely is not to contribute
to the trend toward hagiography; on the other hand, institutional innovators of
her caliber do not come along often and are worth observing in real time.
First, she has
dramatically advanced and deepened the understanding of money’s role in
politics. The power of campaign
contributors and bundlers has long been widely discussed. Her refusal of special interest contributions,
while laudable, was hardly very dramatic:
running against a Ways and Means Committee Member in the primary, she
was not going to be getting any special interest money anyway; running in a solidly Democratic
district in the general election, she did not need any. But her decision
to establish a minimum congressional staff salary far above customary levels is
profoundly important.
Members of
Congress cannot themselves stay on top of the broad array of issues on which
they are asked to vote. They inevitably
will need staff; the only question is whether the crucial advice will come from
staff paid with public funds or from lobbyists advancing their clients’
interests. Every move made to weaken official
congressional staff helps special interest lobbyists function as Members’ informal
staff. Staff paid a small fraction of
what lobbyists make may well wish to please lobbyists whom they see as
potential future employers. Yet even
aside from that, the constant turnover resulting from low congressional staff
pay greatly expands lobbyists’ access.
New staff rely on lobbyists to get them up to speed; veteran staff can
more readily exercise independent judgment.
Staff turnover also erases institutional memory of which lobbyists are
dishonest, thus lowering the costs of deception.
More generally,
congressional staff inevitably make or facilitate enormously important
decisions for the country. Their working
conditions on the Hill are appalling, crammed together several to an office
with little opportunity for the careful study and reflection momentous
decisions require. Paid as little as
they are – especially in a city where housing prices are rising rapidly – staff
may be forced to live in group houses with similarly little privacy. These are not conditions conducive to making
important decisions with far-reaching effects.
The alternative, of course, is to hire staff from families who can
subsidize them during a two- or four-year sojourn on the Hill. That can lead to a subtler skew in favor of
the affluent.
Just as shorting
staff pay is penny-wise-and-pound foolish, she has had the courage to start a
conversation about how holding down congressional salaries causes Members to
seek money on the side, commonly from interests with business before Congress.
Second, Rep.
Ocasio-Cortez is contributing to a remarkable revival of the congressional
hearing. To appreciate this, one must
understand how ghastly and worthless hearings have become. When someone proudly tells me that they are
testifying, I assume either that they are a neophyte who does not understand
how actually to influence legislation or that they who hope to impress neophyte
funders or clients. Whenever possible, I
have deflected invitations to testify; I only have testified when those efforts
failed. Testifying at congressional
hearings consumes a great deal of time but almost never has any impact on
actual legislation. Typical attendance
is one Member – and that is only because rules require the hearing to stop when
only staff is present. Others on the
committee may come in the Members’ entrance, catch the eye of the committee
clerk to be recorded as present, and then leave without ever taking their
seats. Staff install name-plates on
Members’ desks only when they arrive and whisk them away as soon as the Member
departs, all to prevent photographs of the Member’s desk sitting empty. Staff for Members not planning to attend commonly
do not attend themselves. When Members in
attendance get their turns, they read windy opening statements and spend their
time allotted for questions either creating soundbites for the cameras or
throwing softballs to their preferred witnesses (who often write the questions they
want to be asked).
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez
not only condemned
the traditional model of congressional hearings, she set out to change it. Despite being a non-lawyer in a sea of
attorneys, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has approached hearings much as a skilled litigator
would. She spends none of her time
posturing for the cameras (she can get plenty of air time elsewhere). She follows the litigator’s maxim of never
asking a question to which she does not already know the answer. Perhaps as a result, unlike most Members of
Congress, she patiently and effectively pursues witnesses trying to evade her
questions. Several confirmation
hearings, notably the one for former Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, could have gone quite differently had senators been more adept
with follow-up questions. I strongly
encourage my students who want to work on the Hill to take trial advocacy courses
to hone their questioning skills. Rep.
Ocasio-Cortez has struck
pay-dirt
enough times
already that other Members may start investing more effort into hearing
questions. Her performances also, of
course, highlight the wisdom of her approach to staff hiring and compensation.
Third, she has
shown that there is nothing inconsistent about having strong political views
that disquiet many in her party, on the one hand, and being a team player, on
the other. In an environment of
shameless self-promoters, she repeatedly goes out of her way to praise and elevate
other Members. Some of the Democrats that she is having to
work with on her committees are extremely difficult; I have no doubt she has copious
frustrations with them, but she keeps those to herself. Instead, she presents a relentlessly positive
picture of her caucus. The one occasion she
criticized fellow Democrats was when she and other progressives felt
blind-sided by conservative Democrats’ voting for a Republican motion to
recommit. On that occasion and others,
she has taken pains to endorse other Democrats’ right to espouse different
policy preferences.
Finally, she has
shown remarkable creativity in finding ways of being effective as a new Member
without crossing more senior Members whose support she needs to succeed. Most new Members accept that their role is to
be seen and not heard; a few seek more consequential roles and are rudely
slapped down by their elders. Rep.
Ocasio-Cortez has shrewdly exploited the opportunities congressional procedure
affords new Members, such as asking questions at hearings, while leveraging her
high public profile to change the conversation.
Particularly noteworthy was her approach to launching the Green New
Deal. Sponsoring major legislation is
typically a role for full committee chairs; even very senior subcommittee
chairs commonly get shoved aside. She,
however, couched the proposal as a notional resolution rather than formal
legislation. In this Congress, the
difference is negligible: nothing remotely
like this could make it through the Senate, much less get signed by this
President. Most Members would
nonetheless want to introduce a proposed law, but she wisely recognized that any
legislative vehicle would be only symbolic and so took the route that avoids invading
senior colleagues’ turf. Avoiding a
formal bill also enabled her and her allies to introduce it quickly, in time
for most debates, without having to work through all of the mechanics of their
proposed program or negotiate with Members having qualms about this or that
detail.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez
is not perfect: she has made some
mistakes and inevitably will make many more.
It nonetheless is exciting to see a bright, creative, hard-working
person take a fresh look at the creaky, inbred culture that has developed in
Congress over the years. It also is delightful
to see her so openly and proudly treat this process as an education. That may once have
been more common, but today the custom of claiming omniscience obstructs honest
communication and worthwhile innovation.
@DavidASuper1