GOP lawmakers groaned when liberal darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., voted for Nancy Pelosi to become the next House speaker on Thursday.
Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman elected to Congress, publicly endorsed Pelosi’s speakership bid in November. But her voice vote Thursday, which helped Pelosi secure the 213 votes she needed to retake the gavel, provoked a response from House Republicans that her congressional colleagues did not receive.
.@AOC votes for Pelosi, generating cheers from the left and boos from the right pic.twitter.com/mgJ0NB7R1n
— jordan (@JordanUhl) January 3, 2019
Some reporters in the chamber described the reaction as “boos,” while others said they were “groans.”
Michael Barbaro, of the New York Times, tweeted that the rumbling from the GOP side did not appear to be malicious.
“Republicans gently and playfully boo as AOC votes for Pelosi,” he wrote.
Republicans gently and playfully boo as AOC votes for Pelosi.
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) January 3, 2019
While Ocasio-Cortez supported Pelosi for speaker, she and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., announced Wednesday they would oppose a rules package proposed by Democratic leaders that would continue a requirement for mandatory spending cuts or tax increases for any provision that increases entitlement spending.
Pelosi previously served as the first female House speaker in 2007 and held the position until 2011 when the Democrats lost the House.
