Ana Maria Archila, the woman who had a widely seen confrontation with former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) last year over his support for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, on Tuesday will attend the State of the Union address as a guest of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Archila, who is the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, in September confronted Flake in an elevator when he was on his way to a Senate Judiciary Committee vote to advance Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination to the Senate floor.
Archila, who is from Queens and is one of Ocasio-Cortez’s constituents, told The Intercept that she was “moved” by Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to invite her to the address.
{mosads}“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 said.
Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet Monday that Archila is “living proof that the courage within all of us” can change the world.
When Archila confronted Flake in September, she told the then-senator that he was allowing someone who “violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court.”
“What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court. This is not tolerable. You have children in your family. Think about them,” Archila when she confronted Flake.
Flake had announced earlier that day that he would support Kavanaugh, but following the confrontation, he called for a one-week delay in a Senate floor vote to allow for an FBI investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.
Flake ultimately voted to confirm Kavanaugh, who now sits on the Supreme Court.
Updated at 12:21 p.m.