Hakeem Jeffries Elected Leader of House Democrats The New York Times

Table Of Content

• House Democrats elect Hakeem Jeffries as first Black leader in Congress
• Black History
• Members of Congress ‘saddened’ by the death of New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne Jr.
• Leadership
• Congressional Black Caucus
• Clyburn calls the leadership change an 'evolution'
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calls on Republicans to release funding for Haiti
• Rep. Summer Lee’s decisive PA primary win signals momentum for pro-Palestine movement

At a press conference following the vote, Jeffries noted how his confirmation landed on the birthday of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress. As someone who represented some of the same neighborhoods that she did, Jeffries framed the significance of his election by reflecting on her legacy and what his party could learn from it. In Congress, Jeffries chaired the House Democratic Caucus from 2019 to 2023. The members of the caucus unanimously elected him to succeed Nancy Pelosi as leader in November 2022. This made him the first African American to lead a party in either chamber of the United States Congress.

House Democrats elect Hakeem Jeffries as first Black leader in Congress

House Minority Leader News Conference on Speaker Election - C-SPAN

House Minority Leader News Conference on Speaker Election.

Posted: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

The No. 3, McCarthy, soon ran aground over remarks in a TV interview and lacked the votes to be speaker. The party settled on Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had not sought the gavel but agreed to take it. The 30-year saga began with Gingrich of Georgia, who was the first member of his party to gain "the big gavel" since the early 1950s and the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Black History

At this time, it is unclear if or when Greene will introduce a motion to vacate Johnson as House speaker. With Republicans having trouble settling on a speaker, Mr. Jeffries has pitched a coalition government that he describes as an “enlightened arrangement.” But the idea is a long shot. Earlier this week he said “informal conversations” had occurred but did not share details. Though he will take the reins of a party in the minority, Jeffries struck a confident note at a press conference on Wednesday, promising to “get stuff done”.

Members of Congress ‘saddened’ by the death of New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne Jr.

“It is disgraceful that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is reportedly planning to issue baseless and illegitimate arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials,” Johnson said in a statement. Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled. Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis met on Sunday for a golf course breakfast in an apparent attempt to thaw their relationship after the Republican primary. Ballotpedia features 486,995 encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., told theGrio that Greene is making a “mockery” of her position in Congress. For weeks now, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has threatened to oust Speaker Johnson because she believes he is prioritizing the needs of Democrats over the GOP caucus.

According to the group Open Secrets, which tracks campaign contributions, Jeffries also counted pro-Israel advocacy groups such as AIPAC among his top supporters. AIPAC has also endorsed dozens of Republican candidates who attempted to roll back or discredit the results of the 2020 election. Pelosi announced she would step aside as party leader on November 17 along with two other top House Democrats, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer and South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn. Jeffries will be replacing California Representative and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as head of the Democratic caucus.

Democratic leaders have indicated they are open to this, and it essentially repeats the strategy that allowed Johnson to pass the Ukraine portion of the aid bill earlier this month. The Georgia congresswoman made the proposal more than a month ago, after the speaker worked with Democrats to pass government funding bills that Greene objected to. In the weeks since, he has again worked with the House minority to pass legislation approving aid to Ukraine and Israel, and reauthorizing a controversial surveillance law.

Clyburn calls the leadership change an 'evolution'

Asked if the continued presence of Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn might be a burden, Jeffries said the new leaders felt honored to “stand on their shoulders”. Jeffries is a former lawyer who represents a diverse district in Brooklyn and Queens once represented by Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to serve in Congress. He is known on Capitol Hill as a disciplined tactician with a measured style and a penchant for pop culture references. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Pelosi, who has led Democrats since 2003, announced that she intended to pass the torch and would support Jeffries, another barrier-breaking leader. “Today is a day of transition and hope and a renewal of the shared values of our caucus,” Clark told reporters.

Katherine ClarkAssists leadership in managing party's legislative program. The list of the 10 speakers who served in the job longest includes just one Republican (and in the ninth slot at that). That speaker was Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois, notorious as the autocratic "Czar Cannon" during three two-year tours as speaker that ended with his party's historic defeat in 1910. Those eight years actually made Hastert the longest-serving Republican speaker in history.

Hakeem Sekou Jeffries (/ˌhɑːˈkiːm/ hah-KEEM; born August 4, 1970[2]) is an American politician and attorney who has served as House Minority Leader and Leader of the House Democratic Caucus since 2023. He has been the U.S. representative for New York's 8th congressional district since 2013 and was a member of the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2012. As House minority leader, Jeffries played an important role in negotiations on the 2023 bill to extend the debt ceiling and limit federal expenditures to avert a catastrophic U.S. government default in early June. The debt ceiling bill passed the House on May 31 and moved to the Senate, where it passed the next day. On June 3, President Joe Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, averting a crisis.

Delivering part of the House managers’ closing arguments on February 3, he called for Trump’s removal from office, describing him as “a clear and present danger to our national security.” Two days later, however, Trump was acquitted by the Senate in an almost party-line vote. Second, Democrats have always elevated their minority floor leader to the speakership upon reclaiming majority status. In 1919, for instance, Republicans bypassed James R. Mann, R-IL, who had been minority leader for eight years, and elected Frederick Gillett, R-MA, to be Speaker. Like the Speaker of the House, the Minority Leaders are typically experienced lawmakers when they win election to this position.

They are a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; names the members of the Democratic Leadership Council; chairs the Policy Committee; and heads theSteering Committee. Examples of other assignments are making "recommendations to the Speaker on all Democratic Members who shall serve as conferees" and nominating party members to the Committees on Rules and House Administration. Republican rules identify generally comparable functions for their top party leader.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a work day for the House GOP without some infighting. Rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has proposed ousting speaker Mike Johnson from office, citing, among other things, his support for Ukraine. The warning has lingered for more than a month and only one other Republican has signed on, but Greene continues to insist that Johnson’s “days as Speaker are numbered” – we’ll see if she makes any progress when she returns to Capitol Hill today. In the short term, the two leaders ordered their national security teams to work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights.

Hakeem Jeffries (born August 4, 1970, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.) American Democratic politician who serves in the U.S. The House minority leader from 2023, Jeffries is the first Black person to lead a major party in either house of Congress. Mr. Jeffries said Democrats would join Republicans to elect a speaker only if they agreed to change House rules to allow “governance by consensus”; in other words, allowing bills with bipartisan support to come to the floor. Democrats gained control of the White House and majorities in both branches of the US Congress in 2020. But Republicans won a majority of seats in the House during the recent midterm elections, with new members set to be sworn in on January 3.

In 2012, Jeffries was elected to New York’s diverse 8th Congressional District. A member of the House Judiciary Committee and House Budget Committee, Jeffries was elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in November 2018. He is also the former whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and previously co-chaired the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. After completing a bachelor’s degree in 1992, Jeffries enrolled at Georgetown University, where he earned a master’s degree in public policy two years later. He then attended New York University School of Law, where he served on the Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1997. In 1988, Jeffries enrolled at SUNY Binghamton, a bucolic campus only a 4-hour drive from Brooklyn but culturally worlds apart.

Jeffries said he has more experience with the incoming majority leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and said he would look for areas of common ground. But he stressed that McCarthy has a lot of members Jeffries considers "extreme" and he is prepared to oppose GOP efforts to push far-right policies. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., ran unopposed for the position of House Democratic leader. He replaces Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who announced she would not run for the top leadership post after Democrats lost control of the House in the midterms.