Midterms coverage: Live results | What to know | Stories around the countryStay connected: NPR Politics Podcast | NPR Politics newsletter | NPR app After helping to deliver a decisive victory for House Democrats in the midterm elections, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., appears all but certain to become the first Black lawmaker to be elected speaker of the House. Jeffries was elected House minority leader in 2022 and is the first Black politician to lead either party in the House or Senate.
As speaker, Jeffries would be second in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president. His elevation to speaker would represent the pinnacle of a nearly 14-year House tenure, a span that has seen Jeffries rise from a rank-and-file member focused on criminal justice policy to a top party lieutenant under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and then minority leader. It's a rise that has meant securing buy-in from a diverse and often fractious House Democratic caucus — a task that may prove only more challenging as the Democratic Party now looks to make good on its promises to voters.
"This is a change election, and we understand as House Democrats that we need to deliver dramatic change," Jeffries said on Tuesday night. We need a Congress that puts the American people first." Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Jeffries has represented parts of the borough in Congress since 2013 and served as a leader in both the influential Congressional Black Caucus and the House Democratic caucus. Before entering politics, Jeffries served as a lawyer in private practice and credits his time helping members of his community through a law school legal clinic as sparking his interest in criminal justice reform.
"I think over time it did inform that if I had the opportunity to go into the practice of law, or eventually public service, that I wanted to do something about the broken criminal justice system," Jeffries said in a 2023 interview with NY1. He served for six years in the New York State Assembly, where he worked on regulating warrantless stop-and-frisk searches by the New York City Police Department. As a policymaker in Washington during the first Trump administration, Jeffries led the effort to pass the bipartisan First Step Act, which reduced sentences for some drug crimes.
That effort required working closely with President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. He told Time that "to get things done in this town you need a coalition of unusual suspects." "There was a real partnership [with Kushner] that produced real results," Jeffries said. The lawmaker faced blowback from some inside his party this year for meeting privately with Kushner, first reported by The New York Times and later confirmed by Jeffries.
He later said he took the meeting at Kushner's request to discuss affordability, adding that Democrats intend to hold the administration accountable. Jeffries was once a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a sponsor of Medicare for All proposals, though he has long drawn skepticism from outside activists from his party's left wing. As speaker, he will have to contend with how to best incorporate, or sideline, a growing flank of Democratic Socialists of America-aligned and far-left members in the legislative process in the new term.
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