The Democratic Party is long overdue for new leadership

As Democrats begin the long process of recovering from their 2024 election defeat, the list of prescriptions for reshaping the party’s core governing agenda and messaging is getting longer. But one short-term pressure point in the fight is showing some encouraging signs of change: the battle for leadership positions in the upcoming 119th Congress.

The power struggle in Congress is not the stuff of ideological showdowns, especially when one party continues to tour the minority. But as the next House session prepares to begin next month, some important generational and political shifts have already begun. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, 61, replaces Jerry Nadler, 77, as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, while Raskin ranks on the House Oversight Panel The departure from the position, after he passed over, created another important leadership vacancy. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, hopes to fill Raskin’s oversight vacancy, challenging the nine-term Virginia Rep., 74, who is battling esophageal cancer. Gerry Connelly. Other House committees, such as Agriculture and Natural Resources, are also preparing to see younger members ranked ahead of leaders who have traditionally claimed seniority.

This proto-youth movement was not a stampede to wrest control of the party from senior politicians, but a salutary recognition of the need to reshape the party in fundamental ways. The House Republican Conference imposed term limits on committee leaders; they serve for three terms, and the party’s steering and policy group issued exemptions for a fourth term. Indeed, this system creates a lot of volatility for Republican initiatives in Congress—though the broader leadership challenge facing the party appears to be ideological rather than structural, as groups like the Freedom Caucus Hard-line anti-government groups have effectively exercised veto power over the Republican congressional agenda.

Democrats, by contrast, have maintained that seniority is a key pillar of power in the House and Senate and across government. Longtime House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi withstood challenges to her tenure during Trump’s first term, and Democrats saw Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and President Joe Biden Den remained in power far beyond their optimal efficiency in office, with disastrous consequences. Against this backdrop, the current changes in Congress leadership are a welcome departure from form for a party that has increasingly ossified into gerontocracy.

“As the House minority, Democrats have the best support they could hope for,” said Matthew Green, a political science professor at Catholic University and a former Democratic congressional staffer. “If they act as a team, they have the ability to get Donald Trump Trump and his agenda have become very difficult. But it’s not just about numbers. It’s about who those in leadership are — what they stand for, how they are perceived by voters, and what they adopt. strategies and tactics.

In this regard, Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez are particularly compelling harbingers of change. Raskin used his oversight position to serve as a leader on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, an investigative body that Trump has threatened to criminally prosecute members of. Ocasio-Cortez has fueled speculation as a possible 2028 presidential candidate. It’s also worth remembering that her surprise victory in the 2018 primary represented another blow to the Democratic seniority system, as she defeated incumbent New York Rep. Joseph Crowley, whom Pelosi had been grooming to be the eventual successor to the Democratic leadership).

There’s a broader political lesson to watch for future leadership changes: The modern Republican Party, long a minority in Congress, was similarly stagnant until the early 1990s when new House leader Newt It took Newt Gingrich to bring it back into play. Gingrich used his position on the House Ethics Committee to attack then-Democratic Speaker Jim Wright, targeting allegations related to book marketing and real estate dealings. After the accusations led to Wright’s resignation, Gingrich was promoted to minority whip. His partisan campaign to oust Wright became the model for the 1994 Compact with America, which propelled the party to its second majority in more than half a century. Gingrich’s ideological takeover also became the template for subsequent Tea Party and MAGA right-wing insurgencies, while authorizing a model of congressional governance that, in stark contrast to the Democratic opposition, often retaliated once party leaders lost ideological support. Abandon them.

Greene, the author of a study of Gingrich’s career as a party power broker, noted that the former speaker’s rise occurred in a political environment far removed from today’s fiercely partisan Congress. “When Gingrich was the first chairman of the House, in the ’70s and ’80s, the House became increasingly partisan, but it was still very bipartisan,” he said. “There’s a culture that you don’t attack your colleagues on the campaign trail, you don’t use speeches as a means of attracting attention. Gingrich described his plan, I think accurately, to change the party’s The culture, if not the House, has gone from, “Okay, let’s all work together to appropriate money and compromise to get things done.” After all, we are a minority. Yes, you want to win, but what do you do? Gingrich’s response was, “No, we are opposition. We fight for committee membership, we fight for everything.

Raskin and Ocasio-Cortez are unlikely to serve as the bomb-throwing arbiters of power that Gingrich did — and that’s a good thing. Gingrich’s much-vaunted republican revolution soon collided with the bitter internal divisions of the Republican conference itself and with Gingrich’s own moral lapses. Within four years, he was also forced to resign as Speaker. But they can still be effective and innovative prophets of party revitalization – even in the realm of media appeals. Green noted that the two gained widespread attention on social media after posting a live video on Instagram mocking then-Republican leader Kevin McCarthy for his eight-hour speech in Congress that blocked the passage of a climate bill. “This highlights how these newly minted ranking members and possible future committee chairs are familiar with and comfortable with messaging on new media,” Green said. “This may seem superficial and partisan, but it’s important for reaching new audiences. It is of strategic significance.”

Of course, new information-savvy leaders in Congress won’t immediately solve Democrats’ long-term electoral woes the way the party’s smug advisory class will. But a more nimble and aggressive group of House leaders could at least focus more on a cohesive agenda for the incoming Congress ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, and a strong Democratic majority in the 119th Congress is a step toward an indispensable first step on a new political path. We can only hope that the broader pro-movement logic behind this early committee action will carry over into next month’s vote for a new chair of the Democratic National Committee — another key pressure point as the Democratic Party rebuilds the Democratic Party from the ground up.