Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) mocked Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) for reading a long list of “special interests” at a House oversight committee hearing on Wednesday. The Democrat later posted the exchange (which you can watch below), writing, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
The hearing on “third-party litigation funding” had Democrats arguing that outside backing of lawsuits allowed plaintiffs to take on big corporations while testimony from Johnson & Johnson called for more disclosure on the identity of those financing lawsuits.
Mace gave a nod to organizations that “reached out” for the meeting.
“One last note of business. I’d like to say thank you to the many groups and organizations that reached out in anticipation of this hearing today with letters outlining their stances on the issue,” Mace said.
“I’d like to enter into the record letters to the committee from the American Tort Reform Association, American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, the Institute for Legal Reform, the International Legal Finance Association, National Association of Manufacturers, Jerry Theodorou at the R Street Institute. Without objection, so ordered. … I would now like to yield five minutes to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.”
“I thank [you] for the listing of all the special interests involved in addition in this hearing,” Ocasio-Cortez sniped.
Rim shot!
Ocasio-Cortez then used the litigation-funding focus to call out the high court.
“When I first heard that the Republican side was going to be calling a hearing on third-party influence in our courts, I was so excited because I thought, finally we are going to address the biggest scandal in American democracy that we are currently having right now, which is the extraordinary corruption and wholesale purchase of members of the Supreme Court,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“And I also find it amusing that we just heard from the Republican side, ‘Ucchh, why do we want to talk about this?’” she added. “Because women have lost the right to choose, because Indigenous people have lost rights, because minorities have lost rights, because working people across the country have lost rights due to this level of corruption.”
For a longer look, fast-forward to 2:50:16:
Ocasio-Cortez and Mace have a combative history. They also beefed when Mace questioned the Democrat’s personal account of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
