An 87-year-old Democrat is reportedly hoping to nab a top seat on the powerful House Oversight Committee.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has represented the District of Columbia as a congressional delegate since 1991, is currently mulling a run to be the ranking member of the investigative panel, she told Axios.
“I may,” Holmes Norton told Axios in an interview at the Capitol Wednesday when asked if she would consider succeeding current ranking member, Rep. Gerry Connolly.
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Connolly, 75, announced earlier this week that he would be stepping down from the role “soon” amid a battle with esophageal cancer.
Holmes Norton claimed she hadn’t “given it much thought,” but confirmed to Axios that she was considering the position.
Holmes Norton’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, 70, is slated to temporarily fill in for Connolly and serve as an interim ranking member in the meantime. He has expressed his intent to properly run for the role later, with Connolly’s backing.
The House Oversight Committee is one of Congress’ most powerful bodies.
It is an investigative panel that serves to keep the entire federal government in check, including the White House and the entire executive branch. The ranking member job is an important role that sets the priorities for the minority members of the committee, which is currently the Democrats.
Other House Democrats that are also reportedly eyeing the role include Rep. Jasmine Crockett, 44, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35.
Ocasio-Cortez previously ran against Connolly for the role last year, before losing by a 131 to 84 margin in December. The fight for the seat spurred an intergenerational and ongoing civil war between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party, spotlighting the party’s continuous—many have argued harmful—pattern of favoring its older members whose “time has come” over its new talent.
