This Week, Ocasio-Cortez Learned That Legislating Is Nothing Like Campaigning

Mike Norris, Co-Editor, The American Dossier

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has had an unusual beginning to her Congressional career. Although she has only been in Congress for three months, she is more well known than any other member. A crowd follows her every move, a spotlight she initially enjoyed. But after a series of missteps, AOC is finding out that legislating is nothing like campaigning.

Prior to her Congressional campaign, AOC’s political experience consisted solely of an internship on the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. AOC’s work on the Sanders campaign introduced her to operatives that would go on to establish three political entities: Brand New Congress PAC, Justice Democrats PAC and Brand New Congress, LLC.

In 2017, AOC filed to run against Rep. Joseph Crowley, a 10-term incumbent. Her campaign, supported by Brand New Congress PAC and Justice Democrats PAC, would go on to defeat Crowley. Young, ethnic and (more importantly) a woman, AOC checked off all of the boxes Democrats were looking for in a future star.

In a November 2018 interview with the New York Times, AOC lamented that she could not afford a D.C. apartment, before she began work as a Congresswoman. Many took her claims at face value, praising her for drawing attention to housing security issues. Despite affordable housing being a key plank of her campaign, a February 2019 report stated that AOC now lives in a luxury complex whose owners specifically do not offer units under D.C.’s “Affordable Dwelling Units” program.

In January 2019, AOC drew the ire of Democratic leadership, when she threatened to back Primary opponents of Democrats she viewed as “too moderate.” She then started an internet movement to lobby Speaker Pelosi to name her to the powerful Ways and Means Committee, despite her lack of professional experience on tax issues and her status as a freshman.

AOC found herself facing the wrath of New Yorkers, when she declared victory after Amazon announced that it would not build a second headquarters (known as HQ2) in Queens. The HQ2 would have brought 25,000 – 40,000 high wage jobs to NYC. Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it a “lost economic opportunity,” blaming “a small group [of] politicians [who] put their own narrow political interests above their community.”

The announcement of AOC’s “Green New Deal” brought a wave of positive news coverage. Her far reaching, innovative plan calls for a vast remake of the U.S. economy, by encouraging a massive build of alternative transportation, including high-speed rail, electric cars, and lots of public transit. Then, the headlines started coming in.

Since declaring her candidacy in May 2017, AOC listed 1,049 campaign expenditures for ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, even though a subway station was just 138 feet from her campaign office. Campaign expense reports only list 52 MetroCard transactions. By comparison, Rep. Max Rose, also a member of the NYC delegation, listed only 329 ride sharing expenses.

In a February 24 Instagram video filmed in her kitchen, AOC railed against plastic grocery bags, then appeared to throw two of them into her garbage can, rather than her recycling bin. “It drives me crazy,” AOC says of plastic bags. “I wish they didn’t exist.”

On February 27, AOC was photographed dining out with Saikat Chakrabarti, her Chief of Staff. In the photo, Mr. Chakrabarti was eating a hamburger with AOC. A Green New Deal fact sheet, distributed by AOC staff just days earlier, listed “farting cows” as a major impediment to the U.S. becoming carbon neutral.

Then, the accusations went from curious to serious. Last month, the FEC first reported that Brand New Congress PAC paid AOC’s boyfriend, Riley Roberts, during the campaign. A week later, the Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed a complaint with the FEC, alleging that the campaign illegally funneled money to Roberts.

On Tuesday, the National Legal and Policy Center also filed a complaint with the FEC. The new complaint alleges that AOC violated the law by funneling approximately a million dollars from Brand New Congress PAC and Justice Democrats PAC into Brand New Congress LLC during her campaign. Both PACs were run by Chakrabarti, who was also AOC’s campaign manager.

It will be weeks before we know the resolution to the complaints filed against AOC. One thing is for sure, you can bet she is learning that legislating is nothing like campaigning.