Rep. Jeffries is the Democratic Leader, having been unanimously elected to that position by his colleagues in November 2022. In that capacity, he is the highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. He is also the former Chair of the Democratic Caucus, Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and previously co-chaired the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee where he helped develop the For The People agenda.

In Congress, Rep. Jeffries is a tireless advocate for social and economic justice. He has worked hard to help residents recover from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, reform our criminal justice system, improve the economy for everyday Americans and protect our healthcare from right-wing attacks.

Since President Biden took office in January 2021, Rep. Jeffries has been instrumental in House Democratic efforts to put people over politics by lowering costs, creating better-paying jobs and fighting for safer communities. Over the past two years Democrats have passed the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

In 2022, Rep. Jeffries was able to secure $21.9 million for projects in Brooklyn to provide food for the hungry, fund overdue improvements to medical centers, support organizations working to uplift our neighborhoods, deepen our cultural understanding and more through the 2022 Community Project Funding process. In the spring of 2022, he successfully fought against the splitting of Bedford Stuyvesant into multiple Congressional Districts during the broken and gravely flawed redistricting process unleashed by partisan Republicans and their judicial co-conspirators in New York.

Last Congress, Rep. Jeffries was one of the most effective legislators, passing multiple bills through the House of Representatives and into law with substantial bipartisan and stakeholder support. These measures touched on diverse subject matters and were drafted with the intention of making meaningful improvements to our federal laws and programs. While he remains committed to working diligently in Washington on behalf of New York's Eighth Congressional District, Rep. Jeffries also works tirelessly to keep in close contact with constituents. In January, the Congressman begins each year with annual remarks to the district. During the spring and summer, he holds "Congress on Your Corner" outdoor office hours throughout the district. At each stop, the Congressman sets up a table in front of a local post office or on neighborhood corners where constituents are able to meet with him one-on-one. He also hosts regularly-scheduled telephone town hall meetings that provide an opportunity for constituents to speak directly with the Congressman about local and national issues.

Prior to his election to the Congress, Rep. Jeffries served for six years in the New York State Assembly. In that capacity, he authored laws to protect the civil liberties of law-abiding New Yorkers during police encounters, encourage the transformation of vacant luxury condominiums into affordable homes for working families and improve the quality of justice in the civil court system.

In 2010, Rep. Jeffries successfully led the first meaningful legislative reform of the NYPD's aggressive and controversial stop-and-frisk program. His legislation prohibits the NYPD from maintaining an electronic database with the personal information of individuals who were stopped, questioned and frisked during a police encounter but not charged with a crime or violation.

In the same year, Rep. Jeffries sponsored and championed groundbreaking civil rights legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State. This archaic practice of counting incarcerated individuals at the location of their imprisonment, rather than their homes, undermined the fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote. After passage of Jeffries' legislation, New York became the second state to count incarcerated individuals in their home districts in census calculations.

Congressman Jeffries obtained his bachelor's degree in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he graduated with honors for outstanding academic achievement. He then received his master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University. Thereafter, Rep. Jeffries attended New York University School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude and served on Law Review.

After completing law school, Rep. Jeffries clerked for the Honorable Harold Baer Jr. of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He then practiced law for several years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, an internationally renowned law firm and served as counsel in the litigation department of Viacom Inc. and CBS. He also worked as of-counsel at Godosky & Gentile, a well-regarded litigation firm in New York City.

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. He lives in Prospect Heights with his family.