Democratic Party leader – Hakeem Jeffries succeeds Nancy Pelosi – News




Group leader of the Democrats – Hakeem Jeffries follows Nancy Pelosi – News – SRF

























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  • The US Democrats have elected Hakeem Jeffries as the first black faction leader in the House of Representatives.
  • The 52-year-old was elected by his party peers in the Congress Chamber after 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi announced her departure.
  • The MP from New York was already a member of the parliamentary group executive committee and had announced after the congressional elections that he wanted to lead the Democrats in the House of Representatives in the future.

The call for a generation change had recently become louder within the party. Again and again there were MPs from their own ranks who spoke out against Pelosi and called for change and rejuvenation. Critics saw her as a representative of the old guard and called for her to make way for someone younger after so many years in Congress and at the head of her faction.

Jeffries with less power

Her successor, however, will have less power because the Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. As a result, Jeffries will lead his party as a minority in the House of Representatives – and not as “Speaker of the House”, i.e. chairman of the House of Representatives. A Republican will hold that position. Republican lawmakers have nominated Kevin McCarthy as their nominee to chair the House of Representatives — the vote is early January.

Assessment by SRF USA correspondent Andrea Christen


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Legend:

Hakeem Jeffries: A new generation.

Greg Nash/Pool via REUTERS

Hakeem Jeffries is at the forefront of his faction for generational change. Unlike his influential predecessor Nancy Pelosi, he will not be able to set the direction in the House of Representatives. As of January, Republicans will hold a slim majority there.

New Yorker Hakeem Jeffries sees himself as a progressive Democrat, but distances himself from the extreme left of the party. In the past, he has sharply criticized the faction leader of the opposite side of the Republicans. He called the Republican Party a sect around former President Donald Trump.

With a criminal law reform, however, he has also proven that he can find common ground with Republicans. This is particularly important in the new role. Hakeem Jeffries hopes his party will regain a majority in two years’ time. That would make him the first African American speaker, i.e. the chairman of the House of Representatives.

However, McCarthy should not have it as easy as Jeffries, behind whom the Democrats have gathered relatively united. The Republican has to fear dissenters – a problem given his party’s thin majority in the House of Representatives.

A black man in his fifties in a light blue shirt and dark blue suit.

Legend:

Hakeem Jeffries is the first black leader of the US Democrats in the House of Representatives.

REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/


SRF 4 News, November 30, 2022, 6 p.m.;


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