Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday tried to explain her lack of office hours by saying she’s still taking “baby steps” — but said constituents who can’t work with her sporadic schedule should follow her on Twitter.
Almost four months after her inauguration, the freshman congresswoman only recently opened a Queens office and still doesn’t have one in the Bronx.
Instead, on Thursday, she appeared at the Westchester Square Library for just two hours during the workday, where she met with 17 locals.
“Right now we’re just taking these baby steps and adapting according to community feedback,” the 29-year-old told The Post when asked why her brief availability was in the middle of the day.
“We don’t want to be too concrete, we adapt to the feedback of the community, so if we hear that folks want more evening hours we’re happy to do that.”
Asked what people with jobs should do in the meantime, she suggested: “You can give us a call, you can email us, you can add us on social media.”
Ocasio-Cortez added that she’s “constantly” attending community events, noting that she’d be at Bronx Community Board 9 that night.
But when asked for a schedule of future events she’d be attending so her constituents could find her, the self-described Democratic socialist claimed she wasn’t “allowed.”
“Due to safety reasons I’m not allowed to, so Capitol Police, uh, yeah, it’s intense, so, Capitol Police recommend that we don’t give specific details about where we will be and when too far in advance,” she said.
The Capitol Police said it wouldn’t comment on its “consultations” with “Member offices on security-related matters,” but a Democratic House aide said the cops “have nothing to do with the decision to have a public schedule or not.”
“The police don’t tell us what to do. The police did not send out a memo that we advise you not to send out a public schedule,” said the aide.
“You still have to provide the information publicly so your constituents can come.”
In a Time cover story published Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez’s staffers said they’d been trained on how to screen visitors because of the mounting number of death threats targeting the freshman lawmaker.
The rattled aides said they now worry whenever they hear a knock on the door of her office on Capitol Hill.
With Bob Fredericks
Comments