Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and several other of her peers, have signed a letter, warning Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden against enlisting C-suite level corporate executives or corporate lobbyists for Senate-confirmed positions in a potential Biden administration.
Katie Porter, Ayanna Pressley, Raúl Grijalva and candidate Jamaal Bowman and 39 progressive groups lent their signatures to the letter, which was presented to Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell on Friday morning.
“One of the most important lessons of the Trump administration is the need to stop putting corporate officers and lobbyists in charge of our government,” they wrote in the letter obtained by POLITICO. “As elected leaders, we should stop trying to make unsupportable distinctions between which corporate affiliations are acceptable for government service and which are not.”
Organizers told the publication that the letter was also “intended to send a message to Joe Biden’s transition team” — which vets potential candidates.
“It’s not addressed to Biden, but there’s an understanding that he’d be in charge and be the person making nominations,” said Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, who drafted the letter.
The letter asserted that Democrats would look hypocritical if they selected corporate-friendly executives after slamming the Trump administration for getting in bed with major corporations.
“Just imagine explaining to the American people why those names, with those affiliations, are unacceptable, but similar names with similar-sounding affiliations are not only unobjectionable, but necessary to the proper functioning of the federal government,” the progressives wrote. “The revolving door needs to stop, not just change direction every few years.”
