Ocasio-Cortez creates PAC to push back on the Democratic Party's 'blacklisting' rule
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) announced she had formed a political action committee on Saturday to help raise funds for progressive primary candidates.
The congresswoman has been a vocal opponent of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s policy to “blacklist” vendors and firms that work with candidates mounting primary challenges against Democratic incumbents. Ocasio-Cortez was one such candidate, having run a successful primary campaign against Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) in 2018.
Democratic leadership sees the rule as necessary to protect seats and win elections, but critics like Ocasio-Cortez and fellow 2018 upset victor Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) say it prevents fresh voices from reaching Congress and could encumber efforts to increase diversity in the halls of the Capitol.
Ocasio-Cortez has also not paid her dues to the DCCC during this campaign cycle and said she did not plan to pay. The funds are traditionally provided to the DCCC by House members to redistribute among other important races.
Fox News reported that nearly 100 members had yet to pay their dues as of October.
“DCCC made clear that they will blacklist any org that helps progressive candidates like me,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “I can choose not to fund that kind of exclusion.”
Instead, Ocasio-Cortez said that she would raise money for candidates herself and that she had raised over $300,000 for other candidates.
The PAC, along with Ocasio-Cortez’s decision not to pay her dues and to donate to candidates instead, draws yet another clear dividing line between the freshman congresswoman and the Democratic Party apparatus.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/12/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-pac-dccc-dues/?utm_campaign=wp_politics&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
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We’re sure as heck not going to take the money that was given to AOC by small-dollar donors and turn it over to the DCCC. Instead, we’re founding a brand new PAC: Courage to Change.
Courage to Change will be like a progressive version of the DCCC, bankrolling grassroots candidates who are systematically disadvantaged in a corrupt campaign finance system where billionaires can buy elections.
Every $5,000 we raise allows us to support one more candidate on the federal level. So far, we’ve raised enough to support ten. But we’d like to eventually raise enough to back dozens if not hundreds of progressive candidates. That all hinges on the amount of interest we see from YOU — our base of powerful small-dollar donors.
Bolding is mine.
Questions:
Is the DCCC demanding anything from AOC?
Is AOC aware of the DCCC's designation as the official campaign arm of the Democrats in the House of Representatives and an official committee of the Democratic Party? If she is, why is she leading donors to the mistaken conclusion that her PAC is a different "version" of an official party committee?
