Time - USA (2020-02-03)

16 Time February 3, 2020

Hill office, the policy agenda of House Democrats

remained front and center—regardless of whether I

was asking about it. Asked about the three decades

that separate him from Pelosi, 79, and House major-

ity leader Steny Hoyer, 80, Jeffries touted their unity

during Trump’s government shutdown. “At this

point,” he continued, “we’re aggressively moving

forward to advance our ‘For the people’ agenda.”

When I asked again, he grinned. “[ Pelosi]

embraces the perspective we bring to bear, and I’m

happy to inject my own sentiments based on the

experiences that I’ve had in Brooklyn, including

the occasional hip-hop reference.” A calibrated

demeanor is a minimum requirement for a job that

demands keeping a disparate group of Democrats

united. In his weekly press briefings over the past

year, Jeffries relentlessly stuck to the Democratic

policy agenda when reporters were less interested

in drug pricing than in intraparty divisions and

impeachment. “He knows how to keep us together,

and he knows how to keep us on message,” said

Representative Gregory Meeks, the Democrat whose

district borders Jeffries’ and who is close to him

personally. “He’s inclusive of everybody.”

The combination of discipline and oratorical

flair is partly why, in a chamber that emphasizes

seniority, Jeffries scaled the ranks from freshman

to leadership in just under six years. Jeffries grew

up in Crown Heights when it was a working- class

hub, not the gentrifying neighborhood it is today.

He wanted to give back to his community, he says,

but didn’t figure out how to do it until 1992, as he

watched Los Angeles implode into riots after four

white police officers were acquitted in the beat-

ing of Rodney King. Transfixed by the television

and angered by the blatant racial injustice, he de-

termined he would get a law degree and ultimately

run for office. “It was a searing reminder that while

we had come a long way in the United States... we

still had a long way to go,” he says.

His cHance didn’t come right away. Jeffries lost

his first two runs for the New York State assem-

bly, the first in 2000, just three years out of New

York University law school as a corporate lawyer at

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. In 2006

he finally got to Albany and six years later reached

the U.S. House seat after effectively forcing the dis-

trict’s longtime incumbent into retirement through

a primary challenge. His current district, which

includes the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, is

adjacent to his childhood home of Crown Heights.

But getting to the top tier of House leadership is

a notoriously uphill climb, and less than two terms

into Jeffries’ tenure in Congress he considered leav-

ing. Pelosi and her top two deputies, Hoyer and ma-

jority whip Jim Clyburn, have been in their roles for

more than a decade. Other rising stars before him

On Jan. 15, when seven hOuse DemOcraTic
lawmakers marched under the ornate Capitol
dome to deliver articles of impeachment against
President Donald Trump to the U.S. Senate, Repre-
sentative Hakeem Jeffries was the one in the third
row, on the left. As an impeachment manager, Jef-
fries is arguing before the 100 Senators turned
jurors why the two charges the House brought
against the President in December—abusing the
power of his office by allegedly withholding aid to
Ukraine in exchange for extracting a promise of a
politically beneficial investigation, and obstructing
Congress as it tried to probe it— warrant his con-
viction and removal from office. As only the third
presidential impeachment trial in the nation’s his-
tory, it is by definition a gravely historic event.
And in terms of party politics, it carries im-
mense risks for both sides: Democrats are calculat-
ing that, by building their case through the Consti-
tutional process, the gravity of Trump’s behavior
will come home to voters in ways it so far has not
to elected Republicans, who largely paint the pro-
ceedings as an effort to undo the last presidential
election. For the GOP, the risk lay in summoning
a principled defense around a President who, in
making the party his own, may have stripped it of
principle.
Jeffries is among those positioned for what-
ever comes next: a New York City native who has
emerged as a rising star in the Democrat firmament,
the second highest-ranked African-American mem-
ber in the House and at 49, a bridge from a geriat-
ric leadership to voters who knew who Jeffries was
quoting on Day One of the trial, when, in the well of
the Senate, he concluded: “And if you don’t know,
now you know.”
In offering a reply to the question from a Trump
attorney who had asked, “What are we dealing with
here? Why are we here?” Jeffries did not mention
Notorious B.I.G. by name. But that was part of the
point. As chair of the Democratic Caucus, Jeffries
ranks fifth in the House leadership, and is seen as
a more mainstream alternative to prominent new
activists like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez, who explicitly went to Washington to shake
up the system. He’s valued for his discipline, an
establishment vanguard who can quote rappers
while staying “on message.”
When I met him last year in his spacious Capitol

JEFFRIES

QUICK

FACTS

Hometown

pride

He’s a die-

hard New York

sports fan—

and likes both

the Yankees

and the Mets.

Musical

preferences

He often

listens to

hip-hop

soundtracks

when he

works on

legislation,

and has

created a

playlist of

various rap

battles.

Following

in famous

footsteps

He is the

third African

American

to hold the

position of

Democratic

caucus chair.

TheBrief TIME with ...

Establishment hope

Hakeem Jeffries moves

onstage in the Democrats’

fight to impeach Trump

By Alana Abramson