Congress
Generational change meets its limits with Connolly’s win over AOC
Rep. Gerry Connolly’s triumph over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the top Democratic spot on the Oversight Committee illustrates the limits of the party’s demand for generational change, with a well-established centrist beating out a progressive standard-bearer.
While the victory went beyond ideology, there were simmering fears among centrists about how elevating Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken liberal who has gone viral for her moments on the panel before, would turn out. There was also a sense that it was Connolly’s turn, after he had previously run for the Oversight spot twice and served on the panel for 15 years, according to interviews with eight Democratic lawmakers.
Connolly also used his strong relationships in the centrist New Democrat Coalition, considered the largest ideological bloc in the caucus, to build significant support, after Ocasio-Cortez surged early on. Incoming New Democrat Coalition Chair Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) made calls on behalf of Connolly after the group’s endorsement Friday, said a person granted anonymity to discuss the private outreach.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi also phoned other lawmakers on his behalf — a factor other lawmakers said was significant, but not nearly as decisive as Connolly’s own relationships throughout the caucus.
“The membership comes together and makes these decisions. Members make individual decisions,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). “I’ve seen leadership weigh in on races in the caucus and win some and lose some.”
Connolly’s internal whip count of roughly 130 lawmakers that POLITICO reported Friday almost exactly mirrored the final whip count of 131 votes for him on Tuesday morning.
Ocasio-Cortez’s allies had projected early confidence in the race and had hoped to capitalize on a post-election appetite for change in the caucus. But while other ranking members largely fell to or stepped aside for younger challengers, members still largely felt it wasn’t right to bypass 74-year-old Connolly for the 35-year-old progressive darling. And despite the calls for a shift in leadership and some concerns about Connolly’s recent cancer diagnosis, House Democrats aren’t totally willing to abandon their attachment to seniority.
“I think that there are challenges in totally abandoning the seniority system here, because if seniority is not the rule, money becomes the rule,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who’d been the first Democrat to call for President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid earlier this year.
Lawmakers cemented their decisions to cast aside other senior committee leaders even as they elevated Connolly on Tuesday morning, electing Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.) as ranking members to succeed lawmakers who’d faced questions about their health and attendance in Congress.
Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, a former top Democratic leader, spoke up in caucus in support of deferring to seniority. He said he did so on behalf of Pelosi, who was absent from Tuesday’s meetings while she recovered from hip replacement surgery after a fall. In addition to Connolly, Pelosi had also backed Huffman and Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who failed in his bid to take the ranking position on the Agriculture Committee, as part of a push by the California delegation to back their own.
“The fact that you’re senior does not necessarily mean you have the ability,” Hoyer said after the elections. “But if you have the ability, then seniority certainly reflects service, experience, knowledge of the committee, and I think that’s perhaps what made the difference in the Connolly race.”
Leading up to the vote, Ocasio-Cortez had sought to neutralize concerns from centrists in the party. She indicated to members of the Steering and Policy Committee on Monday, who ultimately recommended Connolly for the spot, that she could stop backing primary challengers to sitting lawmakers.
“I think a lot of members know Ocasio-Cortez would be best, but I think there’s some heartburn with New Dems and [moderates] she would put them in a tough spot by going hard on cultural issues,” said one neutral Democratic leadership aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Ocasio-Cortez’s loss left her allies fuming. Hill progressives had cited the New Yorker’s power to mobilize millions on social media and her skills as a communicator as a huge benefit for a job that will largely involve messaging against the right.
“There is one person in our caucus that has the ear of millions and millions of people with just the touch of her finger, and that is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.).
And some members warned not to expect that Tuesday’s elections will be the end of intergenerational contests in the party.
“Those of us who have come up more recently within the Congress understand that the American people have had it with seniority issues,” Balint added. “Nobody in our districts cares about relationships in the building.”
Sen. John Cornyn said Monday he will not support Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general absent a written modification to the settlement agreement President Donald Trump entered into with his own administration.
Opposition from the Texas Republican could sink Blanche’s nomination in a highly anticipated Judiciary Committee vote scheduled for Thursday.
While Cornyn said he is in talks with Blanche and others at the Justice Department, he has not secured changes he has demanded to the settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS. Those include formally rescinding a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” and restricting the scope of tax audit immunity granted to the president and his family.
Cornyn told reporters he needs the document to be signed by Blanche but did not specify whether Trump also needs to sign it.
“We’re talking about that. That hasn’t been fully resolved yet,” Cornyn said in a subsequent interview when asked if Trump needs to sign the modification as well. “We’re still talking. I mean, there’s different ways to approach it.”
Time is running out for Blanche to meet Cornyn’s demands ahead of Thursday’s committee vote, where any one Republican’s opposition could be fatal to the nomination. The senator said Blanche and the administration have been so far “reluctant” to follow through.
At his nomination hearing last week, Blanche testified that plans for the payout fund were dead and that the audit agreement was more limited than set out in the settlement. But Cornyn honed in on the text of the agreement, which states that it “may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.”
Blanche acknowledged during the hearing that, without a written change to the agreement, the anti-weaponization fund could still be revived.
“That’s what we’re trying to get them to agree to, which is again what his sworn testimony was,” Cornyn said. “So I don’t know why they’re so reluctant to do that.”
The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence — though Democrats won’t be helping him get there.
The news: The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton’s nomination, teeing up a final vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm him as the next head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. No Democrats joined their GOP counterparts in support of Clayton.
Clayton, the top prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and a former SEC chair, will take over from acting spy czar Bill Pulte and join Trump’s Cabinet when he’s confirmed by the full Senate.
Why it matters: At some level, that’s a win for Democrats, who have been eager to replace Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security, since the president named him to the post last month. But after an up-and-down confirmation process for Clayton, Democrats have new reservations about the incoming intel adviser, as Monday’s vote underscored.
During his Senate confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clayton refused to say that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Panel to vote against his nomination. That marked a reversal from June, when Senate Democrats worked with their GOP counterparts to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for renewing a powerful spy law. That deal fell apart after Trump intervened, alleging on social media that Democrats weren’t delivering on their end of the deal.
Open question: Though Clayton’s confirmation now looks imminent, Senate action on the spy statute that was supposed to be part of the deal — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — is not.
With the House already gone for the August recess, the Senate appears unlikely to vote on Section 702 until September.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with lawmakers in Washington to discuss American leadership on artificial intelligence, the company said Monday.
A spokesperson for the chipmaker said Huang would hold talks with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to talk about latest developments with the technology.
“Jensen is in DC to meet with leaders on both sides of the aisle to discuss American leadership in AI, including leading in open source,” the spokesperson said.
Huang is scheduled to sit down Tuesday with Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has expressed serious concern about security threats following last week’s OpenAI autonomous cyberattack.
The senator’s office confirmed the meeting. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It comes as Huang defended open-source AI on X, writing that such models “strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”
Huang’s visit comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also expected to meet with Warner, although a spokesperson for the senator said the talks were separate. Earlier Monday, Open AI announced it was in talks with Nvidia, a technology company that makes chips to use artificial intelligence, for a data center project.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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