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On January 3, 2023, Jeffries was unanimously elected House minority leader of the 118thCongress. 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. Minority leaders may engage in numerous activities to publicize their party's priorities and to criticize the opposition's.
History
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”. 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. Jeffries will be replacing California Representative and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as head of the Democratic caucus. After winning their elections and weeks of preparation, Members-elect were sworn in as Members of the U.S.
Members of the 117th Congress Sworn In
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.
Democrats and durability
But any luster left after 2006 was lost when he went to prison for bank fraud charges stemming from hush money payments he had made to a former student he admitted to having sexually abused decades earlier. In 1994, two years into the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, Gingrich organized a campaign around a 10-item agenda called the "Contract with America." It provided a unified message for the party's nominees, who flipped more than 50 seats and stormed into the majority. The approval of the Senate and the House of Representatives is required for a bill to become law. Both Houses must pass the same version of the bill; if there are differences, they may be resolved by a conference committee, which includes members of both bodies.
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. From an institutional perspective, the rules of the House assign a number of specific responsibilities to the minority leader. The minority leader also has other institutional duties, such as appointing individuals to certain federal entities.
About state leadership positions
After this period, the Speaker-designate is also chosen in a closed-door session by the largest caucus although the Speaker is formally elevated to the position by a public vote of the entire House when Congress reconvenes. The minority leader is often assisted by whips, who help ensure that minority party members are present for votes during floor sessions and support the party's legislative agenda. The minority leader is often assisted in their role by whips, who work to enforce party discipline on votes deemed to be crucial by the party leadership and to ensure that members do not vote in a way not approved of by the party. As House minority leader, Jeffries will become the first Black person to lead a major political party in Congress.
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The Brooklyn native delivered a stirring floor speech on behalf of House Democrats before handing the gavel to McCarthy symbolizing the peaceful transfer of power. The leadership elections marked a sea change for the caucus, which for two decades has been led by the same three leaders, who effectively froze out dozens of more junior lawmakers who had been waiting to ascend. 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.
Members were sworn into office on January 7, 2023
Representative Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) was re-elected Speaker and will preside over the chamber for the next two years. Representative Steny Hoyer (MD-5) was elected Majority Leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy (CA-22) was elected Minority Leader. Rep. Jeffries was born in Brooklyn Hospital, raised in Crown Heights and is a product of New York City’s public school system, having graduated from Midwood High School. Hakeem Jeffries represents the diverse Eighth Congressional District of New York and is serving his sixth term in the United States Congress. Crow said that episode shows that Jeffries "knows where he's going, but he also knows where he's from. And I think that's important as a person and as important as a leader to never forget your background, never forget who you are." More details about the Members of the House of Representatives are available from the Clerk of the House.
Comparison to the Senate
One advantage of the Committee of the Whole is its ability to include otherwise non-voting members of Congress. During debates, a member may speak only if called upon by the presiding officer. The presiding officer decides which members to recognize, and can therefore control the course of debate.[62] All speeches must be addressed to the presiding officer, using the words "Mr. Speaker" or "Madam Speaker". Only the presiding officer may be directly addressed in speeches; other members must be referred to in the third person. In most cases, members do not refer to each other only by name, but also by state, using forms such as "the gentleman from Virginia", "the distinguished gentlewoman from California", or "my distinguished friend from Alabama". The House also has the power to formally censure or reprimand its members; censure or reprimand of a member requires only a simple majority, and does not remove that member from office.
Biden will need the teamwork of Democratic leaders Jeffries and Schumer to make that happen. Jeffries, 52, will assume the role of minority leader when the new Congress is sworn in early next year, inheriting the position held for nearly two decades by Pelosi, a towering figure in Democratic politics who was the first female speaker. 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.
McCarthy was eventually elected minority leader in 2018, after Democrats won the House. 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. Passing meaningful legislation from the party’s agenda is unlikely now that Republicans control the House. Democrats will instead have to navigate being on the defense as Republicans plan to launch congressional investigations into the Biden-Harris administration.
Prior to that, the last Republican speaker had been Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who died in 1931. Technically, he died as speaker, but his party lost its majority before the next Congress convened and elected a Democrat to the job. Two colleagues had spoken up to say they would join Greene in such a vote, giving her enough to defeat the speaker if all the chamber's Democrats voted to do the same. That's what the Democrats did when a motion to vacate the chair ousted the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, last fall. Just such a "motion to vacate the chair" was filed against Johnson in March by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
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. During the four days and 15 rounds of voting it took for Republicans to decide on who would assume the speaker role, Jeffries was unanimously nominated by his party each time. While Democrats did not have the numbers to elect Jeffries, he is almost certain to make history as the first African American speaker of the House. That is if or when Democrats win back the House majority, certainly a goal in the 2024 election.
The whip keeps track of all legislation and ensures that all party members are present when important measures are to be voted upon. Under Rule XIII, clause 6, the Rules Committee may not (except in certain specified circumstances) issue a "rule" that prevents the minority leader or a designee from offering a motion to recommit with instructions. Since Snell's description, other responsibilities have been added to the job. Before examining the institutional and party assignments of the minority leader, it is worth highlighting the historical origin of this position.
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