Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will co-lead one of Joe Biden’s policy task forces on climate issues, the former vice president announced in an interview with a Las Vegas television station Tuesday night.
Over the last month, Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign have been negotiating who will be on six joint policy task forces — on the economy, education, criminal justice, immigration, climate change and health care. The committees are a core part of Biden’s outreach to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and were a major part of Sanders’ endorsement of the former vice president in April.
Ocasio-Cortez, who was one of Sanders’ picks to be on the task forces, is the first confirmed participant — a major win for progressives who have been looking to push Biden’s campaign more to the left on climate policy.
“She made the decision with members of the Climate Justice community — and she will be fully accountable to them and the larger advocacy community during this process,” Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez said.
The task forces will be asked to offer policy recommendations as well as influence the kind of personnel who would fill a possible Biden administration and arm Biden with possible executive orders that he could issue quickly should he be elected president.
As previously reported by HuffPost, the Sanders campaign has also been weighing other prominent progressive policy voices, including Darrick Hamilton, the Ohio State University economist who has become one of the leading academics on the racial wealth gap in the United States, and Stephanie Kelton, an economist at Stony Brook University who has championed modern monetary theory: the idea that governments can never run out of money and that deficit spending on major domestic programs would lead to economic growth.
Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ former campaign manager, told HuffPost in April that the task forces will not include any “shrinking violets.” The Biden campaign echoed the sentiment, noting that the committees will “represent the diverse viewpoints of the Democratic Party,” according to an aide.
Biden, who did not emphasize policy in his campaign over the course of the last year, has signaled an openness to making some adjustments to his platform, crediting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sanders, two former candidates often considered leaders of the progressive wing of the Democratic presidential field. In the last two months, Biden has backed making public colleges and universities tuition-free for students from families with incomes less than $125,000 a year, eliminating student debt for those making less than $125,000 a year and lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60.
The Sanders team is hoping to persuade Biden to move even further to the left.