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Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, has bowed out of the race to become the top Democrat on a key committee that is currently probing former President Joe Biden’s alleged mental decline.
Democratic firebrand Crockett was gunning to become the next ranking member, a title given to the senior member of the minority party, on the House Oversight Committee.
“It was clear by the numbers that my style of leadership is not exactly what they were looking for, and so I didn’t think that it was fair for me to then push forward and try to rebuke that,” Crockett told reporters.
House Democrats held the election during their weekly closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday morning.
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However, in a smaller election by a key House Democratic panel on Monday night, Crockett and two others lost to Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. Crockett signaled she came in last of the four, telling reporters on Tuesday, “They were clear that I was the one that made the least sense in their minds.
“I accept that, and I think that you have to make sure that you are going to be able to work with leadership if you are going to go into a leadership position,” she said. “I think the people may be disappointed, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to move forward in this country, we’ve got ot move forward for this world, and I don’t want to be an impediment.”
She promised to still be “loud and proud” and a “team player” for Democrats.
The House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., played a marquee role in the last Congress as Republicans pursued an impeachment inquiry against the previous president.
Comer’s panel is back in the headlines now for another Biden-focused probe, this time looking into allegations that former senior White House aides covered up signs of the elderly leader’s cognitive decline.
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is expected to act as a foil to Republicans’ anti-Biden pursuits.
In addition to those issues, however, the committee is also charged with overseeing the federal workforce and the U.S. government’s ownership and leases of federal buildings – both key matters as President Donald Trump and Republicans seek to cut government bloat.
Crockett is already a member of the committee and has been known to make headlines during its hearings. She infamously got into a spat with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., during an oversight hearing last year after Greene mocked Crockett as having “fake eyelashes.”
Crockett retorted that Greene had a “bleach blonde, bad-built butch body.”
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However, in her pitch to House Democrats, Crockett styled herself as a serious but potent messenger.
“Our work cannot be solely reactive. We must also be strategic in laying the groundwork to win back the House majority,” she wrote in a letter earlier this month. “Every hearing, every investigation, every public moment must serve the dual purpose of accountability and must demonstrate why a House Democratic majority is essential for America’s future.”
The previous ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., died late last month after battling esophageal cancer.
