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Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is poised to win a history-making pistillate and marque past of his own.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the archetypal pistillate to clasp that position, announced Thursday that she would measurement down arsenic the apical Democrat, paving the mode for Jeffries, 52, president of the House Democratic Caucus, to question the job. If elected by House Democrats, Jeffries would go the archetypal Black lawmaker to pb a enactment successful Congress.
In a statement, Jeffries paid tribute to Pelosi but made nary notation of his plans to question the enactment job, though his determination has been wide reported. Pelosi “is the astir accomplished Speaker successful American past and our state is unquestionably amended disconnected for her bonzer leadership.” He went connected to telephone her “the dependable manus connected the gavel during immoderate of the astir turbulent times the federation has ever confronted.”
Jeffries, successful a motion to their history-making emergence successful the House, added: “The Speaker often reminds america that our diverseness is our strength. I cognize we volition gully connected that contented arsenic we travel unneurotic arsenic a Caucus to statesman a caller chapter.”
One of Pelosi’s longtime colleagues, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), announced that helium besides volition measurement down from his enactment post. Jeffries is expected to beryllium joined by Reps. Katherine M. Clark (D-Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), who volition question the No. 2 and No. 3 positions, respectively.
Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) volition permission his station arsenic House bulk whip but go an adjunct leader, a presumption that volition present beryllium 4th successful the enactment structure.
Jeffries, a lawyer, is from central Brooklyn, the epicenter of New York’s Democratic power. He is simply a self-described progressive who has forged relationships with Democratic constitution figures successful Washington portion navigating the ascending near successful his backyard.
He took bureau successful 2013 and has been seat of the House Democratic Caucus, a enactment post, since 2019. In that role, helium has been the youngest subordinate of leadership.
With the moves connected Thursday, House Democrats were connected the cusp of important generational alteration — from octogenarians specified arsenic Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn, to Jeffries; Clark, 59; and Aguilar, 43. Leadership elections are the week of Nov. 28, and the enactment appeared unified down the caller slate.
In an interrogation with the Atlantic last year, Jeffries described wherever helium acceptable into successful today’s governmental landscape, saying, “I’m a Black progressive Democrat acrophobic with addressing radical and societal and economical injustice with the fierce urgency of now.” He added, “There volition ne'er beryllium a infinitesimal wherever I crook the genu to hard-left antiauthoritarian socialism.”
Jeffries, a postgraduate of the State University of New York astatine Binghamton, Georgetown and New York University Law School, was archetypal elected to the New York State Assembly successful 2006, aft unsuccessfully challenging a Democratic incumbent favored by the Brooklyn Democratic machine, Roger Green. After Jeffries mislaid an earlier situation to Green, Democratic lawmakers promptly redrew the assembly territory to exclude Jeffries’s location astatine the time.
The blatant determination to stifle a young, striving governmental endowment became the taxable of a documentary successful 2010 astir gerrymandering. In that film, Jeffries was the reform-minded person challenging the establishment.
Jeffries was elected to Congress successful 2012 aft longtime Rep. Ed Towns abruptly announced that helium would not question reelection. Jeffries was wide expected to triumph aft Towns’s departure but abruptly faced a superior situation from Charles Barron, a Black Panther and longtime officeholder successful New York. The fearfulness that Brooklyn could nonstop Barron to Congress prompted a nationalist effort by constitution Democrats to enactment Jeffries, which proved successful.
Once successful Congress, Jeffries represented not lone a premix of wide and constitution politics, but besides youthful Brooklyn swagger.
He erstwhile paid tribute to the slain rapper from his district, Christopher Wallace, amended known arsenic the Notorious B.I.G. Jeffries called Wallace “the classical embodiment of the American Dream.”
He invoked respective of the rapper’s signifier names successful 2017, adding: “Biggie Smalls, Frank White, the king of New York. He died 20 years agone contiguous successful a calamity that occurred successful Los Angeles. But his words unrecorded connected forever.”
Then Jeffries rapped lyrics from 1 of the rapper’s astir celebrated songs, “Juicy”: “It was each a dream/ I utilized to work Word Up magazine/ Salt-N-Pepa and Heavy D up successful the limousine/ Hangin’ pictures connected my wall/ Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl.”
In 2015, Jeffries considered moving for politician of New York City, arsenic the Democratic politician astatine the time, Bill de Blasio, failed to present connected his run committedness of wholesale changes to the city’s wide criticized policing tactics.
In 2020, Jeffries served arsenic an impeachment manager successful President Donald Trump’s archetypal impeachment trial, a reflection of Pelosi’s spot successful him.
Jeffries besides helped sharpen Democrats’ connection arsenic helium often deed the run way and was disposable for interviews with reporters.
In 2020, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for Joe Biden to suspend his statesmanlike run during the Senate proceedings of Trump. When a newsman asked Jeffries astir McCarthy’s comment, Jeffries, the New York Times wrote, simply replied, “Who?”
If elected Democratic leader, Jeffries volition find himself tangling with McCarthy, who is seeking the speakership successful adjacent year’s Republican-controlled House.
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