Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) will bring a woman to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address who protested then-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) in a Capitol Hill elevator over his support for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s comfirmation.
Ana Maria Archila, co-executive direct of the progressive advocacy group the Center for Popular Democracy, confronted the Arizona Republican as he made his way to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to advance Kavanaugh’ nomination to a full Senate floor vote.
In a statement to The Intercept, Archila said expressed gratidue for Ocasio-Cortez’s invitation to Tuesday’s high-stakes speech.
“I just feel particularly moved that in her first participation in the State of the Union she is inviting me to join and inviting that moment of the elevator, my confrontation with the men who do not understand the life of women and the lives of people who are not in power, that she’s inviting that into the imagination of people again,” Archila told the news outlet.
Ocasio-Cortez hinted at her guest’s identity on Saturday, tweeting a photo of a pin that reads: “Well behaved women rarely make history.”
“Y’all aren’t ready for NY-14’s #StateOfTheUnion guest!” the freshman congresswoman wrote. “Here’s a hint: I just picked up this gift for them at our very own Lockwood Shop in Jackson Heights.”
In her Semptember 28 confrontation with Flake, Archila shouted at the lawmaker: “What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court.”
“This is not tolerable,” she added. “You have children in your family. Think about them.”
As Breitbart News’ Aaron Klein and the Washington Free Beacon reported, Archila’s Center for Popular Democracy is funded by progressive billionaire George Soros:
CPD is highly involved in anti-Trump activism. In May 2017, CNN reported that the Center for Popular Democracy Action fund unveiled an “$80 million effort to coordinate the work of dozens of smaller progressive groups from around the country” as part of what the news network characterized as the anti-Trump “resistance” movement. Just as she does with the parent group, Archila serves as co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund.
Since it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit political organization, the CPD action fund is not required to publicly release its donor list. However, the fund and its associated main group, Archila’s Center for Popular Democracy, both have been financed by Soros, as the Free Beacon reported.
Flake credited the confrontation for recomending the final full-Senate vote on Kavanaugh be delayed for an additional week in order for the FBI to conduct another background check on the judge. He told the Atlantic that the confrontation was “poignant” for him and “it certainly struck a chord.”
With Flake’s support, the Senate ultimatly voted 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh as the 114th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
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