Hakeem Jeffries

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Hakeem Jeffries (2013)

Hakeem Sekou Jeffries (born August 4, 1970 in Brooklyn , New York City ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . Since 2013 he has represented the New York districts of Brooklyn and Queens in the House of Representatives of the United States .

Family, education and work

Hakeem Jeffries is the elder of two sons of Laneda and Marland Jeffries. The father worked as a social worker and in drug counseling, the family lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn . Jeffries graduated from Midwood High School in 1988 and began his studies at Binghamton University in Vestal , which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in politics in 1992 as a member of the mostly African-American Kappa Alpha Psi . He continued his studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC , where he received his Masters in Public Policy in 1994 . He then studied law at the Law School of New York University and worked on the law review there before graduating with a Juris Doctor in 1997 . In 1997 and 1998 he served as a law clerk in the federal district court for southern New York State .

Jeffries was admitted to the bar in 1997; he worked for the major international law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and for the media companies Viacom and CBS . He has two children with his wife, Kennisandra Arciniegas-Jeffries. They live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Political career

From 2007 to 2012, Jeffries was a member of the New York State Assembly . In the years 2000 and 2002 he had already run unsuccessfully in his party's primary election for this body. In the state parliament he was a member of six committees and four sub-committees and was committed to reforming the criminal law. Among other things, he initiated laws that deleted the register of police measures of the stop and frisk and

In the 2012 election , Jeffries was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington with over 90 percent of the vote in the eighth congressional constituency of New York state , where he succeeded Jerrold Nadler , who moved to the tenth district, on January 3, 2013 . The area, which now mainly makes up the eighth district, had previously represented Ed Towns for thirty years , who decided not to run again because of Jeffries' appearance in the party primary .

Jeffries was a backbencher as a young MP, but joined the Congressional Black Caucus and became its whip . He continued his work on criminal law reform legislation and campaigned against economic inequality, two central issues in the Democratic Party. Jeffries has always served on the Judiciary Committee and several subcommittees, and served intermittently on the Budget Committee and the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

On November 28, 2018, Jeffries was elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in the 116th Congress , one of the key leadership positions for the Democrats in the House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi . He prevailed against Barbara Lee , who had announced her application for the post months earlier; Jeffries, who belongs to a younger generation than the then 72-year-old Lee, broke the unwritten rule of seniority when filling executive positions in Congress. This makes Jeffries one of the favorites to succeed Pelosis as speaker. He would be the first African American to hold this post.

Web links

Commons : Hakeem Jeffries  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ^ A b c KC Washington: Hakeem Jeffries (1970–). In: Black Past , April 17, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b Nolan D. McCaskill, John Bresnahan: The chairman fight pits old guard vs. new generation of black leaders. In: Politico , November 20, 2018
  3. ↑ See on the position Democratic Caucus Chairmen (1849 to present). In: History, Art & Archives , United States House of Representatives .
personal data
SURNAME Jeffries, Hakeem
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jeffries, Hakeem Sekou (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York