Jeffries Moves to Lock Down Speakership as Progressive Grumbling Grows but No Challenger Emerges

This week, allies of Representative Hakeem Jeffries began circulating a letter among House Democrats, asking them to put their names to a public statement of support for his bid to become speaker. The New York Democrat, currently the minority leader, is trying to close out his nomination quickly and by a wide margin at the House Democrats' closed-door leadership elections on Wednesday, leaving critics little room to maneuver.

Some of his allies believe he has earned election by acclamation, a unanimous voice vote that would skip the secret ballot where dissenters could register opposition quietly. Jeffries has not said whether he wants that. Meanwhile, his team has been collecting endorsements from whole blocs. The New Democrat Coalition, which counts 114 center-left House Democrats and at least 40 members-elect, issued a statement of support this week, a move that implicitly signals the outcome is settled.

Jeffries has been meeting privately with incumbents and new members, though he has not yet reached every member-elect. Next week he is due at the Congressional Progressive Caucus board meeting, according to two people familiar with the plans. His goal is to have spoken directly with every member by Wednesday.

He is in line to be the first Black speaker, after presiding over sweeping Democratic victories and a historic majority. Still, an energized left wants a new face leading the party in the next Congress. No one has stepped forward to challenge him. Several Democrats elected last week declined during their campaigns to commit to backing him, and many members are getting calls and emails from progressives who call themselves fed up with the party establishment and see Jeffries, a reserved moderate, as an emblem of the status quo and beholden to corporate interests.

Jeffries has shrugged it off in public. "You think I don't have the votes nailed down?" he asked a reporter this week, smiling, though he also said he takes "nothing for granted." Representative Jared Huffman, a progressive California Democrat in the whip operation, described confidence that the votes are overwhelmingly there, alongside an active effort "to take no chances" and make things "airtight."

That effort has irritated some incoming members. Representative-elect Don Leonard of Ohio wants votes on ending U.S. aid to Israel and on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. In a video he posted online, he said unnamed "senior House Democrats" threatened to make his life a "living hell" if he did not back Jeffries. He said the pressure feels different in person, from people who expect him to "wear the team jersey." He later said he spoke with Jeffries and raised his concerns privately. Representative-elect Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist from Colorado who beat an incumbent in her primary, told CNN the process has felt "undemocratic" and that new members are being told what the leadership will be.

Jeffries's allies are unmoved. Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey said Jeffries deserves acclamation, but that if a historic majority isn't enough for a few members, "let them vote 'no.'" Representative Joseph Morelle, who oversees new member orientation, said this is the easiest whip operation he has seen. He has spoken to nearly all the new members, and none has said they plan to stand in the way.

Some progressives are using the moment for leverage. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a former Progressive Caucus chair, wants a promise of a committee markup next year on Medicare for All. She conceded her leverage is minimal with no rival in the race, saying "you can't beat somebody with nobody," and would not say how she would vote without a concession. Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois told Drop Site News she met Jeffries about floor action on the Block the Bombs Act, which would withhold certain offensive weapons from Israel, and that he did not say no.

The situation inverts Nancy Pelosi's in 2018, when moderates resisted her. Huffman predicts only "a surprisingly small number of protest votes." Wednesday's election will show whether he is right, and whether Jayapal and Ramirez get anything in return.