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House minority leaders also hold joint news conferences and consult with their counterparts in the Senate—and with the president if their party controls the White House. The overall objectives are to develop a coordinated communications strategy, to share ideas and information, and to present a united front on issues. Minority leaders also make floor speeches and close debate on major issues before the House; they deliver addresses in diverse forums across the country, and they write books or articles that highlight minority party goals and achievements.
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He is the first Black American in the role and the first person born after World War II elected to lead House Democrats. Part of a new generation of leaders, Jeffries succeeds Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as House speaker and to lead a party in Congress. Jeffries said he has an "open mind" in terms of his relationship with the top House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was nominated to serve as the speaker. McCarthy is still working to secure the votes he needs to be elected by the full House. 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.
Gun laws
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the current whip, won a vote to become assistant Democratic leader in an election on Thursday. Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island briefly challenged Clyburn for the post, citing a need for LGBTQ representation in leadership. Jeffries, whose district encompasses large parts of his native Brooklyn, was first elected to Congress in 2012 and steadily ascended the party ranks, ultimately becoming chairman of the Democratic caucus in 2019. He served in the New York State Assembly prior to his election, and was a corporate lawyer before launching his political career, with stints as in-house counsel at Viacom and CBS.
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“He’s very good at reaching out to people of many ideologies,” Mr. Schumer said, predicting that Mr. Jeffries would be able to reach across party lines. ” lawmakers chanted as they nominated Mr. Aguilar, using a nickname his grandmother gave him, according to two people in the room. 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.
Origin of the post
Although many of the basic leadership responsibilities of the minority and majority leaders are similar, the minority leader speaks for minority party and its policies and works to protect the minority's rights. Information on the current activities of the minority leader is available from the The Office of the Minority Leader's website. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, had considered trying to remain in leadership and said he had the support to do so, but ultimately decided against it. And Representative Adam B. Schiff of California had considered a challenge to Mr. Jeffries for the post of minority leader, but many Democrats said he lacked the votes. Last week, Mr. Schiff told Mr. Jeffries that he was instead exploring a run for Senate and wished the representative well in the upcoming leadership election, according to a person familiar with the private conversation who disclosed it on the condition of anonymity.
Party functions
During the Trump presidency, he built a national profile as a sharp-tongued critic and impeachment prosecutor, while also working with Republicans to pass criminal justice reform legislation. But House rules require that the speaker receive a majority of the votes cast, something neither Mr. Jeffries nor Mr. Jordan got in the first round of voting, because 20 Republicans voted for other candidates. The position of Assistant Democratic Leader was established by Nancy Pelosi on January 3, 2011, and filled by Jim Clyburn to avoid a battle for whip between then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and then-Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.
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The chairman of the Appropriations Committee was nominated by the party conference but withdrew after a magazine story accused him of marital infidelity. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said Wednesday he’s ready for the “chaos” that has plagued the House for much of 2023 and 2024 to end next week, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers is expected to vote to quash a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his post. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'minority leader.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. “From the very beginning of this Congress,” Jeffries and the other leaders said, “House Democrats have put people over politics and found bipartisan common ground with traditional Republicans in order to deliver real results. At the same time, House Democrats have aggressively pushed back against Maga [pro-Trump] extremism.
He then attended New York University School of Law, where he served on the Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1997. Jeffries attended Midwood High School, a New York City public school in an area that was a haven away from his Brooklyn neighborhood, which was riddled with drugs and gangs. At Midland High School, Jeffries excelled in honors courses, was a member of the baseball team, and shared in the school yearbook his aspiration to one day become a lawyer.
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Beginning in 2000, Jeffries ran for office twice, unsuccessfully, before winning a seat in the New York State Assembly in 2006. Supporters and the media called him “The Barack of Brooklyn;” he was young, charismatic, and born on the same day as another Black politician, future President Barack Obama. Hailing the Democratic caucus as a “beautiful mosaic of the country”, Aguilar acknowledged the significance of being a Latino in a leadership role. "I have studied history long enough to know that evolutions are much better than revolutions," Clyburn said. "And I think that anybody watching their caucus, our caucus over the years, could see the evolving leadership."
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. In his senior year, Jeffries was elected the political representative for the Black Student Union. That year, the organization invited Hakeem’s uncle Dr. Leonard Jeffries, a political scientist, professor, and chair of the Black Studies department at City College of New York, to speak at SUNY Binghamton.
From a party perspective, the minority leader has a wide range of partisan assignments, all geared toward retaking majority control of the House. Democrats have been preparing Mr. Jeffries, the former chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, for several years as a potential leader. But it was only after Ms. Pelosi decided to resign as speaker after last year’s midterm elections that he stepped forward, alongside Mr. Aguilar and Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, his top deputies. House Democrats formally elevated Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York to be their leader on Tuesday, uniting around a liberal lawyer and disciplined political tactician as the face of their opposition to the new Republican majority.
Minority Leaders who have played prominent roles in opposing the incumbent president have included Gerald Ford, Richard Gephardt, Nancy Pelosi, and John Boehner. Since 1995, the only two Majority Leaders to become Speaker are John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy, though indirectly as their party lost control in the 2006 and 2018 midterm elections. Boehner subsequently served as House Minority Leader from 2007 to 2011, and McCarthy served from 2019 to 2023. Both were elected Speaker when the House reconvened after gaining a majority in their respective midterm elections. In 1998, when Speaker Newt Gingrich announced his resignation, neither Majority Leader Dick Armey nor Majority Whip Tom DeLay contested the Speakership, which eventually went to Chief Deputy Whip Dennis Hastert. Like Pelosi, current Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland declined to seek another leadership post.
House Minority Leader Weekly Briefing March 21, 2024 - C-SPAN
House Minority Leader Weekly Briefing March 21, 2024.
Posted: Thu, 21 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, is struggling to win the support he needs to become speaker amid a revolt on his right flank. A historically weak midterm performance has handed the G.O.P. a thin House majority for the next Congress, making the job of leading it exceedingly difficult. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi named Jeffries was one of the seven impeachment managers in the January 2020 impeachment of President Donald Trump, who was accused of pressuring Ukraine to investigate his opponent Joe Biden in that year’s presidential election. In his closing argument, Jeffries called Trump “a clear and present danger to our national security,” calling for the former president’s removal from office.
The Republicans narrowly regained control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. Pelosi subsequently announced that she would step down from the House Democratic leadership and that she would not pursue the role of minority leader in the new Congress. A noted strategist and coalition builder, he ultimately ran unopposed, and on November 30, 2022, the House Democrats selected him to replace Pelosi as the party’s leader in the upcoming Congress. In addition, the minority leader has a number of other institutional functions. Informally, the minority leader maintains ties with majority party leaders to learn about the schedule and other House matters and forges agreements or understandings with them insofar as feasible. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic minority leader, made his position clear on Tuesday in a statement with other party leaders that cited Johnson’s recent success in passing a foreign aid package despite opposition from the far right of Republican ranks.
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