 |
| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez |
On Monday afternoon, just a block from the White House, a dozen of the country’s most liberal lawmakers gathered in the lobby of the AFL-CIO’s headquarters. The mood was jubilant as Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus—introduced 10 new members of the group to the Washington press corps. A throng of reporters had come to see some of the Resistance’s brightest stars, like New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley, together in the nation’s capital for the first time.
“The press is paying attention to us!” Jayapal said. “I like this!”
Representatives from the progressive groups MoveOn and Indivisible were there, too, eager to celebrate a group of new lawmakers who they view as closely aligned with the the priorities of liberal activists.
The 2018 midterms have transformed the CPC from a caucus Pocan described as once having “weak, skinny arms” into a 90-member behemoth that makes up nearly 40 percent of all House Democratic membership. And there may be more to come—the CPC is floating invitations to a handful of other incoming freshmen who ran on progressive platforms. The House’s largest values-based caucus, which has never really exercised much voting or policy influence, might finally have enough sway to push an ambitious array of legislation that includes immigration reform, Medicare-for-All, and climate action.
