Whereas Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries is very centered on November 5, and the chance for his occasion to flip just a few seats and retake the Home, there’s one other consequential date weighing on his thoughts. “One of many causes it’s extraordinarily essential for Home Democrats to win the bulk in November,” he advised me this previous week, “is in order that we’ve the gavel in our fingers on January 3 and may certify the outcomes of the presidential election on January 6.”
This coming January 6 will mark 4 years since then president Donald Trump incited a mob of supporters who stormed the US Capitol to attempt to cease the certification of Joe Biden’s victory within the 2020 election. There was no precedent for the MAGA mob’s assault, which disrupted a constitutionally mandated train lengthy handled as a formality. And the trauma stays buried within the residing reminiscence of an establishment constructed on precedent and order.
Each lawmaker has a narrative of that fateful day. Jeffries, for one, was locked contained in the Home chamber alongside fellow Democrats Colin Allred, Eric Swalwell, and Ruben Gallego as insurrectionists broke into the Capitol and stole from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s management suite. Some rioters chanted “Grasp Mike Pence!” as a result of vice chairman’s position as president of the Senate, whose job is to steer the joint session of Congress; it’ll be Kamala Harris in that place this coming January.
If Home Democrats are victorious in simply over 5 weeks, it’s anticipated that Jeffries, 54, will ascend to turn into Speaker, a place presently held by Mike Johnson, who, as a rank-and-file Louisiana consultant, helped advance a discredited authorized idea to attempt to preserve Trump in energy. He was one of many 147 Republicans who tried to overturn the outcomes of the election on January 6 within the aftermath of the violent siege on the Capitol.
Johnson nonetheless has no regrets about his actions virtually 4 years in the past, and Democrats are understandably involved about how he, as Speaker, would deal with certification. Earlier this month, Politico’s “Playbook” ran through the methods Johnson might doubtlessly throw a wrench within the works, from rewriting guidelines for vote counting to encouraging Republican objections to the outcomes.
Final week I asked Johnson if he would decide to following common order within the certification course of even when Harris beats Trump. “Effectively, after all,” mentioned Johnson, earlier than including a broad caveat: “If we’ve a free, truthful, and protected election, we’re gonna observe the Structure, completely.”
That response might sound anodyne—honorable, even—however Democrats have warned that Johnson is a wolf in sheep’s clothes. “His nice advantage is his civility and politeness and Southern appeal,” Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who led the argument in opposition to Johnson’s push to decertify Biden’s presidency, advised me in January, including: “However he’s a raging theocrat who doesn’t imagine within the fundamental precepts of the Structure.”
Once I later requested Jeffries if he was apprehensive Republicans would discover methods to vary the foundations, he reiterated the significance of controlling the Home heading into the brand new 12 months: “Home Republicans haven’t any capability to vary the foundations for the 119th Congress within the 118th Congress.”
Jeffries was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, by his mom, Laneda, a social employee, and his father, Marland, a substance abuse counselor. Spurred by a pointy uptick in police brutality circumstances in the course of the early Nineteen Nineties, Jeffries attended regulation college at New York College and later ran to symbolize Brooklyn within the New York State Meeting, successful a statehouse seat earlier than being elected to symbolize New York’s eighth District in Congress. After chairing the Home Democratic Caucus for 4 years, from 2019 to 2023, Jeffries was elected by his members to be their occasion chief, with the consultant persevering with to function minority chief within the 118th Congress.
If Jeffries claims the Speaker’s gavel, he would arguably have probably the most highly effective job in Congress, charged with choosing committee chairs and hiring one of many largest management staffs on the onset of a brand new Congress. He would even have the near-unilateral authority to determine when, which, and what number of items of laws are delivered to the Home flooring.
Former Speaker Pelosi, who served as Democratic chief for 20 years and preceded Jeffries, went unmentioned after I requested Jeffries to call his mentors in Congress. “The nice Jim Clyburn,” he replied when pressed. Clyburn, nonetheless, laughed after I requested if he thought of Jeffries his mentee. “No, I don’t,” mentioned the South Carolina elder of the Congressional Black Caucus. “I’m honored that he feels that manner about me,” he added, chuckling because the down-elevator’s doorways closed and Clyburn, alongside fellow Congressional Black Caucus Democrat Ilhan Omar, disappeared into the Capitol basement tunnels.
The next day, after I requested if he believed Democrats would win again the Home in November, Jeffries supplied solely top-line Democratic Occasion speaking factors. “Home Democrats are gonna work laborious to speak our imaginative and prescient to the American individuals because it pertains to decreasing prices, rising the center class, and defending freedom, after which we’ll put it within the fingers of the American individuals to take advantage of acceptable resolution about their future,” he mentioned, fully avoiding my query—so I repeated it.
“Similar reply,” Jeffries shot again, undeterred.
Jeffries’s capacity to string collectively speaking factors with ease has not gone unnoticed amongst his Democratic colleagues. “I don’t assume he is aware of what a teleprompter is,” Steve Cohen, a Memphis Democrat and good friend of Jeffries, advised me. “He doesn’t want one.”
Jeffries can also be well-known for his distinctive sense of calm within the face of chaos. “It’s my view,” mentioned Jeffries, “that calm is an intentional resolution after we discover ourselves coping with a critical, extraordinary, and unprecedented occasion.”
Election Day will virtually certainly be heavy on all three adjectives—critical, extraordinary, and unprecedented. But when Jeffries holds the gavel on January 6, Democrats shall be much better outfitted to maintain this 12 months’s chaos from boiling over into the calamity of practically 4 years in the past.
