Hakeem Jeffries is choosing calm over chaos as Democrats work to win the House majority

PALMDALE, Calif. — This choicehe warned, it’s about the economy. Freedom. Stop Project 2025 and the extremes of MAGA.

And after January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitolit’s about democracy.

And yet, Hakeem Jeffriesto make history as the House’s first black speaker, says he’s choosing to remain calm as Democrats work to tighten control of The Chaotic House of the USA from the republicans.

“In this unprecedented moment that we’re in, we’ve come to the conclusion that calm is a deliberate decision,” Jeffries told The Associated Press during an interview at a cafe near the park in between. the campaign stops in southern California.

“We have to continue to make the decision to stay calm, execute the plan, cross the finish line,” he said. “And then let’s put it in the hands of the American people.”

Always tight, the campaign for control of the House it’s a letdown, playing out in unlikely corners of the country far from the presidential race, including Jeffries’ home state of New York and California. Just one contested seat, out of 435, could make the difference if Democrats can flip the majority and unseat Republicans. Mike Johnson from the speaker’s office.

Never before in the nation’s nearly 250-year history has a black American come so close to taking the gavel. Jeffries, 54, is part of a younger generation of leaders, along with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harrisproposing a new way forward, past the era of the former Republican president Donald Trump.

But Jeffries, a lawyer before coming to Congress, doesn’t want to talk about the milestone of becoming speaker of the House and won’t venture to predict that Democrats will sweep the House majority. He wants to talk about the election to the voters right now.

“Everything we care about is on the line. Everything we care about is on the ballot. We can either move this country forward or turn back the clock,” he said early Sunday morning in the high desert community of Palmdale , dusty. remote areas of Los Angeles County.

“We’re not going back!” chanted the hundreds of volunteers, ready to knock on doors to get out the vote for Democrat George Whitesides in the race against Republican Mike Garcia.

Brooklyn-born Jeffries took over as House Democratic leader when Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi he stepped aside, making him heir to the speaker’s office. He is poised to win the party’s internal poll as leader again later this year, regardless of the election results. However, if Democrats win majority control, he would run for election as speaker of the full House when the new Congress convenes in January.

One of the party’s most effective communicators, Jeffries’ free-form speeches on the floor of the House stand out among modern oratory, bursting with cultural references of the times. He is sometimes compared to former President Barack Obama.

Now, the congressman’s skills and prowess are put to the test as he criss-crosses the country raising funds for the party.

He is open and accessible to colleagues, methodical and even meditative, although sometimes slow in action and keeps his advice very close. He apparently told almost no one what he told President Joe Biden when the two spoke privately during an event tumultuous Julybefore the president announced his decision to withdraw from the race and endorse Harris.

“A rock,” said Rep. Grace Meng, a fellow New York Democrat who saw Jeffries as a mentor. “He takes everyone seriously.”

Driving 25,000 miles and visiting more than 30 states to change Parliament, Jeffries is proposing a “robust” Democratic agenda, which he described as lowering inflationary costs, creating better jobs and safer communities, and confronting with the affordable housing crisis.

The Democratic-led House would vote to approve access to reproductive care following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that ended abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, he said. And it would pass by John R. Lewis voting rights bill to expand and protect voting access.

On the California campaign trail, Jeffries spent Saturday afternoon rallying voters at a banquet hall in Orange County’s Little Saigon, near Disneyland, in one of the most contested seats of the cycle.

By Sunday, he was at one of the older black churches in the Lancaster area, in what residents said was a segregated part of town. He urged the congregation to gather family and friends and “vote for enlightened leadership, people who have your best interests in mind, who want to work together.”

In many ways, Jeffries has already acted as the de facto carrier of the House, the leader who can be depended on after Republicans bumped Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s desk and threw the room into chaos.

It was Jeffries who delivered the Democratic votes to ensure Congress passed major legislation, including preventing a government shutdown and arming Ukraine while fighting Russia, when Johnson could not control his own majority GOP.

And it was Jeffries who saved Johnson’s job as speaker, again giving Democrats the votes needed to turn back far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s effort to unseat him.

Asked what kind of speaker he would be if Democrats win, Jeffries said he has already shown it.

“Putting ‘people over politics’ is not just a slogan,” he said of the party’s message. “It was a way of life of government.”

Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, once the highest-ranking black leader as House Democratic whip, said Jeffries’ ascension to the speakership would point the nation’s way “toward a more perfect union.”

“These are all stepping stones,” he said. “And you keep going until you make a breakthrough. And I think we have a chance to make a breakthrough here.”

As the families played in a nearby park, Claudette Reynolds, a retired postal official, saw Jeffries enter the Orange County cafe.

She was quick to snap a selfie, and later shared their conversation.

“We told him we were going to make him the next speaker of the House,” she said.