WASHINGTON — Republicans can’t stop thinking about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). They see her everywhere — including in the sheen of their recently retired green congressional pins.
Turns out, when Republicans see green these days, they see a flash of Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal she’s championed. That proved to be the driving reason behind why the GOP-controlled House of Representatives scrapped the official congressional lapel pin — which help Capitol Police officers quickly identify lawmakers — during the 118th congressional session.
“I hated the color,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) — while rocking a large defund the World Health Organization button — told Raw Story while walking across the Capitol grounds. “It reminded me too much of the Green New Deal.”
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Like most of her Democratic colleagues, Ocasio-Cortez says this political pin drama shows how unserious, hypocritical and out of touch today’s Republican Party has become.
But the AOC-Green New Deal dust-up itself was “news” to Ocasio-Cortez.
“I don't know why they changed the pin,” Ocasio-Cortez told Raw Story while walking to cast her vote on the House floor last week. “I had heard it was maybe a [George] Santos thing, but then, like, he can still use his pin, so I don’t know.”
Sporting twin pins — including his old congressional member pin — ousted Republican Rep. George Santos of New York talks with U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) ahead of the annual State of the Union address by President Joe Biden during a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
When Raw Story caught up with her, Ocasio-Cortez was pinless — “I have the front, but I don’t have the magnetic back!” — and initially perplexed when informed her that a fellow Democrat had indeed picked green to in part signify environmentalism.
“Usually they don’t make political statements with them,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But if that's what it is, I'll take a victory lap!”
While Ocasio-Cortez’s head is high, many on the right are embarrassed that the retired green pins were replaced with new, dark blue-and-gold ones that cost an extra $40,000 — even as the party regularly berates Biden over the ballooning national debt.
Embarrassment aside, House Republicans have left a lot of their actual work undone, which Democrats are quick to point out.
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“It's bizarre, isn't it? Why when we haven't funded Ukraine are we worrying about the color of the pin?” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told Raw Story.
In the last Congress, when Democrats were in charge, Lofgren chaired the House Administration Committee where she tried to mix things up by literally going green.
“I just thought, it's usually, like, either red or blue, right? Which fits in with the divide in the country. I thought, well, let’s have something that's neutral,” Lofgren said. “Green is agriculture. Green is the environment. Green is in the middle. Why not?”
Pin politics are real
Lofgren seems to have underestimated the juvenile nature of the contemporary Congress.
“I know what it was, the pins were designed when Democrats were in the majority so it was thought it was, you know, the Green New Deal,” Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) told Raw Story from behind his shiny green pin. “I thought it was whining, and I thought it was a waste of money to redo them mid-term. We don't have that kind of money here.”
As chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Glenn’s one of the rare Republicans embracing the green pins, which are still official 118th Congress pins — just this Congress now has two official pins.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) sporting the now-defunct green congressional member pin while walking through the U.S. Capitol on May 31, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“It's a Farm Bill year, so I own the green one. Given the fact that 92 percent of all planted acres are represented by Republicans, every Republican should embrace it, and I don't like wasting money,” Thompson said, before divulging his plan for what he sees as unnecessary replacement pins. “Never taken out of the envelope, but it's beautiful. It’s going in my collection, but I'm not gonna wear it.”
Thompson’s not just an outlier in the GOP. The green pins were initially off-putting to many Democrats, too.
“Originally it was kind of like, ‘Huh?’” Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) told Raw Story.
But many Democrats — or at least their wardrobes — just evolved along with the gaudy green pins.
“Everybody started buying green clothes. I went and bought a green suit,” Payne said, before ripping on pouting Republicans. “Ridiculous. Just live it out.”
While the new pins are reported to cost an estimated $40,000, no one in power seems to want to talk about that price tag, let alone petty pin politics, in general. Raw Story’s requests for comment from the Architect of the Capitol (the office charged with running all things Congress, including the pin program), House Administration Committee and Speaker Mike Johnson’s office were not returned.
Washington’s pin culture
Washington is weird. That’s not news. But Capitol Hill has a particular fetish for pins and buttons.
This Congress kicked off with many Republicans rocking aggressive AR-15 lapel pins, which did the trick and offended their gun-control supporting colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
“It’s hard to imagine they put AR-15 pins on,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) told Raw Story at the time.
House Freedom Caucus memeber Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) sports an assault rifle tie pin during a news conference where he announced that he and many of his fellow caucus members would oppose the deal to raise the debt limit outside the U.S. Capitol on May 30, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Not all pins are meant to personally offend the opposing party, although lawmakers are all about making statements.
Some plug their home states, such as Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), whose lapel pin is the shape of his home state.
“I don’t know — might have been the cheesemakers — but it was some Wisconsin group and I put it on to show how appreciative I was,” Grothman said.
Other pins may not be head turning, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hyper-political.
Take these little red heart pins with two baby feet in the center, which signal support for a national abortion ban covering any human fetus whose heartbeat has been detected.
It’s not meant to offend, said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who added that he doesn't mind if his liberal colleagues are offended regardless.
“Everything though is gonna have a political bent to it, right?” Kelly told Raw Story. “We can't do anything normal.”
Former history teacher Rep. John Larson (D-CT) is on his 13th term in the House, so he’s ditched the official congressional pin for years now. In its place: a rectangular JFK pin — paying perpetual homage to his political hero of a bygone era.
“I haven’t worn anything but this since 2017,” said Larson, who also now wears a blue and yellow pin to show his solidarity with the people of Ukraine. “I’ve been around long enough, so people recognize you.”
Source: Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin’s Instagram account, where he muses, "Did I wear my U.S.-North Korea pin to the DMZ? You are gosh darn right I did."
Of course, American flag pins abound, along with solidarity pins showing the American flag alongside U.S. allies. Washington Post foreign policy columnist Josh Rogin even found a North Korean-American flag solidarity pin for sale at the State Department that he couldn’t resist wearing regularly at the Capitol — or even while traveling to the DMZ with former Vice President Mike Pence.
An array of rainbow flags are also everywhere in the Capitol these days. And if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll likely see at least one neon bicycle pin, which is worn — and peddled to visitors! — by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). Blumenauer co-chairs the Bike Caucus, as well as the Cannabis Caucus, but for the latter role, he usually rocks a marijuana leaf-dotted bow tie.
It’s rare, but occasionally you’ll catch a campaign button, such as those on the made-for-clicks outfit Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wore at this year’s State of the Union address.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), while sporting several pins and a "Make America Great Again" hat, shouts at President Joe Biden as he delivers the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained inventor Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) sports an ever-rolling digital clock on his lapel.
What does it signify?
“Debt clock, I built it,” Massie told Raw Story. “It’s got WiFi. Goes to Treasury [Department] once a day and calibrates.”
“Where we at right now?” Raw Story asked Massie on the Capitol steps last week.
“34,585,640,78-dot-dot-dot-dot,” we read along with Massie.
“I wanted to induce anxiety in my colleagues,” Massie said.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wears a pin showing the U.S. national debt during a meeting of the House Rules Committee to consider H.R. 3746 - Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 at the U.S. Capitol May 30, 2023 in Washington, D.C. The number has since ticked up by more than $3 trillion. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
As for the new pin? Massie may be a millionaire from his time in tech, but he’s also always looking to make a buck.
“Mine's new in the wrapper. I didn't take it out. It's still on the placard with the spouse pin. One day when everything blows up, I'm gonna sell it on eBay,” Massie said. “And the bonus. Just wait, there's more: The Republicans thought they were so ugly, they made their own pin. So now I got a three pin set, new in the wrapper, never-been-worn-before condition.”
‘I'm trying to think of what else they've done, and I can't’
Pins and buttons may make statements, but members of Congress were sent to Washington to make policy.
No pin can mask this Congress’ historical level of dysfunction-induced gridlock.
Like other conservatives — including Greene, who dropped the same motion to vacate on Speaker Johnson that was used to oust McCarthy — Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is still upset GOP leaders broke the party’s 72-hour rule and released the final $1.2 trillion government funding measure last Thursday before bringing it to a vote on Friday.
“Now we're a little bit back to the usual way of doing things where things are cooked up behind closed doors or dropped on us,” Roy told a gaggle of reporters after last week’s last House vote. “We need to get back to what we're doing last year. It was working, and let's try to do that.”
U.S. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, wears Congress' new navy blue-and-gold member pin at a press conference about a government funding bill at the U.S. Capitol on March 22, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“You forgot, you all were able to change the color of the congressional pin!” Raw Story reminded Roy as he was walking back to his office across the street from the Capitol.
“I know,” Roy replied through a smile. “That is one thing!”
Democrats weren’t impressed with how the GOP functioned — or dysfunctioned? — last year, but they can’t help but agree that this do-nothing Congress has now accomplished one tangible thing: Republicans successfully lobbied to ditch their green pins.
“Literally. I'm trying to think of what else they've done,” Ocasio-Cortez told Raw Story. “And I can't.”
