AOC Searching For New Campaign Manager After Previous One Blamed For Met Gala Fiasco

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is looking for a new campaign manager after her previous one was blamed for dropping the ball on payments related to her Met Gala appearance. That lapse led the House ethics office to find “substantial reason to believe” the congresswoman violated ethics laws by “accept[ing] impermissible gifts.”

In September 2021, the New York Democrat attended the Met Gala, famously wearing a white dress with “Tax the Rich” scrawled across the backside. That appearance led the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics to launch an investigation. Its inquiry discovered that Ocasio-Cortez did not pay for her dress, hair styling, makeup and other services until after the investigation was launched, five months after the gala.

Ocasio-Cortez told investigators she planned to personally pay for those services and had authorized her campaign manager to coordinate payments with the vendors, according to a transcript of her interview. “I continued to follow up on this thing because it was stressing me out, and I genuinely do not know what had happened,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I had continued to get this kind of holding pattern response [from her campaign manager].”

“I just never, ever, ever would have allowed that to happen knowing what I have learned, but that I wasn’t privy to the invoices,” the congresswoman said.

The campaign manager, who was still employed by Ocasio-Cortez at the time of her interview in May 2022, provided investigators with a similar account. The campaign manager said she didn’t pay for the dress as she didn’t think the invoice was final. She didn’t pay for the hairstylist until after it threatened to file a complaint with New York City’s Office of Labor Policy and Standards for Workers because the bill “fell off my radar,” and she didn’t have access to the congresswoman’s personal credit card. Overall, the campaign manager said, “other things kind of took precedence.”

The campaign manager’s name is not included in the transcripts, but other exhibits included in the investigation’s report identify her as Rebecca Rodriguez.

“The staffer is no longer with the campaign,” said Communications Director Lauren Hitt in a statement, declining to explain if the ethics investigation led to the split. Forbes was unable to reach Rodriguez for comment.

Ocasio-Cortez began looking for a new campaign manager on or before Feb. 7, according to the first date Google indexed the posting. Responsibilities for the position, which pays $120,000 to $165,000 a year, include “partnering with the candidate to design and oversee the campaign strategy, set and execute priorities, and manage a skilled team of staff, advisors, consultants, and volunteers in a community-focused, unconventional year-round campaign operation.”

Overseeing compliance is another responsibility. The ad does not mention that duty may include ensuring Ocasio-Cortez’s hairstylist receives prompt payments.