Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was one of just a handful of radical left-wing lawmakers elected to Congress in 2018, and who banded together to form the “Squad” to push once-fringe policies like the Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-all” — but in 2020, that small group’s numbers are expanding.
Last week’s congressional elections led to victory for a number of progressive candidates who share the New York congresswoman’s outlook, and with the defeat of a number of moderates elsewhere, policies like the Green New Deal, free college, “Medicare-for-all” and defunding the police will be getting more attention in 2021.
One of those elected last week in Ocasio-Cortez’s home state is Congressman-elect Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y. Along with “Medicare-for-all” and the Green New Deal, he has backed calls to partially defund police departments, along with the abolition of cash bail.
“Congress must cease all funding that militarizes police forces, repeal the 1994 Crime Bill that accelerated mass incarceration, and abolish cash bail, which condemns poor people to pretrial detention while more affluent people await trial from the comfort of their homes,” he wrote in an article in June.
He said that dismantling White supremacy involves “moving funding away from police departments and toward programs that improve public safety by helping to address the roots of systemic inequality.”
Congressman-elect Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., similarly backs the Green New Deal, canceling student debt, free college, and “Medicare-for-all,” while also calling for the “shifting funding and resources from police departments, jails, and prisons” to “new agencies designed to protect public health.”
He has pushed a “Reconstruction Agenda” that includes forming a “National Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate, document, and assess the federal government’s role in America’s history of racism.”
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