Not ready to give up their piece of the taxpayer’s pie.
Via The Hill:
Some septuagenarian House Democrats have a message for their younger colleagues clamoring for a spot at the leadership table: Age ain’t nothin’ but a number.
Democrats in their 70s have started pushing back against some of the more youthful members of the House Democratic Caucus who are making noise about launching leadership bids in the wake of caucus Chairman Joe Crowley’s stunning primary loss last week to 28-year-old democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York.
Older lawmakers argue that just because House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), 78, and her top lieutenants are getting up there in years doesn’t mean they’re not progressive or effective. Instead, they say it’s their decades of experience fighting in the trenches on a range of issues — from the gender pay gap and gun control to LGBT rights — that make them the right ones to lead the fight against President Trump and the Republicans.
“If we get back the House, Nancy Pelosi deserves to be the speaker,” said Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), a Pelosi ally. “She is leading this effort to get these candidates elected. She is barnstorming the country. She is helping to fashion the message.”
Frankel, who turned 70 in May, noted that septuagenarians of all stripes are some of the most popular politicians in the country today: former Vice President Joe Biden, 75; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 76; and President Trump, who is 72.
“This should not be a generational fight at all,” Frankel added. “And people who want to make it into a generational fight are, quite frankly, people who don’t like seniority because they want power.”
Because House Democrats’ top three leaders — Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), 79, and Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (S.C.), 77 — have held a firm grip on power in the caucus for more than a decade, it’s created a bottleneck for other ambitious senior members looking to rise through the ranks.
Seasoned veterans have been waiting patiently in line, so the leadership scramble triggered by the defeat of Crowley, 56, last week has many of them now raising their hand and saying they are ready to lead, while some of their younger colleagues also vie for power.