The move has rankled senior Democrats who believe the separate panel is unnecessary and would step on the authority of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has legislative jurisdiction over climate policy. And it has raised the question of how Ocasio-Cortez intends to use her star power in the new House majority. Will she amplify the Democratic Party’s message as it seeks to confront President Trump, while laying the policy groundwork for what it hopes will be another shot at controlling the White House and Congress after 2020? Or will Ocasio-Cortez direct the confrontation inward at the Democrats’ aging leaders, leading a bloc of other young House progressives to push the leadership to be more aggressive—on policy and political strategy—than it plans to be?

Despite the waves she’s made this week, the answers to those questions are not fully clear. For example, on the crucial decision facing House Democrats—whether to return Pelosi to the speakership—Ocasio-Cortez has shown a more pragmatic side. While she called for “new leadership” during the campaign, she has not joined the group of Democrats agitating to oust Pelosi, nor has she ruled out backing the 78-year-old Californian.

Read: The Nancy Pelosi problem

“Members who come in with big names tend to go in one of two directions,” observed a longtime senior House Democratic aide who spoke anonymously to discuss Ocasio-Cortez. “They can try to trade on that name and make issues all about themselves. Or they can put their head down and work.”

“Obviously,” the aide continued, “it’s far too soon to say which one she’ll be.” But the aide noted that, in private, Ocasio-Cortez had been respectful to members and constructive in internal party debates. Out of the three full meetings of the Democratic caucus that have taken place this week, Ocasio-Cortez has spoken up in just one of them, to advocate for the new climate committee. “She’s not out there saying, ‘Hey, look at me, look at me, look at me,’” the aide told me.

How Ocasio-Cortez adjusts to Congress—whether she becomes a headache for or an ally to her party’s leadership, or somewhere in between—will take time to assess. But she has clearly chosen to speak, and for now, her Democratic colleagues are listening.

The moment when Ocasio-Cortez realized her life as she knew it had changed was not the one captured live on television on the night of June 26—the one that would be rebroadcast countless times in the days to come—when the young political activist screamed “Oh my God!” and then clapped a hand over her mouth after learning that she had defeated Crowley, one of the country’s most powerful Democrats, in a congressional primary.

That moment of realization occurred a few hours later, after Ocasio-Cortez had partied with her supporters late into the night, returned home to her one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx for what amounted to a nap, and left again around dawn for a post-upset appearance on Morning Joe.