Elected U.S. Legislators

Representative Ritchie Torres is a fighter from the Bronx who has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to him, and he governs from a place of lived experience.

Ritchie’s mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Ritchie grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to office in the Bronx.

At the City Council, Ritchie stood out, and during his seven-year tenure he tenaciously tackled problems big and small for the Bronx and New York City. He passed over forty pieces of legislation, including legislation protecting the City’s affordable housing stock and tackling the city’s opioid epidemic. As the Chairman overseeing NYCHA, he held the first committee hearing ever in public housing, which led to a $3 billion-dollar FEMA investment, the largest in NYC history. As Chair of the Oversight & Investigations Committee, Ritchie has led investigations into the heating outages and lead poisoning at NYCHA, the Taxi Medallion scandal, the City’s controversial Third-Party Transfer program, and Kushner Companies.

Ritchie currently lives in the Bronx and represents NY-15 in Congress. He is a member of the Committee on Financial Services and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez is currently serving her fourteenth term as Representative for New York’s 7th Congressional District. In the 116th Congress, she is the Chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee and a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

She has made history several times during her tenure in Congress. In 1992, she was the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In February 1998, she was named Ranking Democratic Member of the House Small Business Committee, making her the first Hispanic woman to serve as Ranking Member of a full House committee. Most recently, in 2006, she was named Chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, making her the first Latina to chair a full Congressional committee.

Given these achievements, her roots are humble. She was born in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico – a small town of sugar-cane fields – in 1953, and was one of nine children. Velázquez started school early, skipped several grades, and became the first person in her family to receive a college diploma. At the age of 16, she entered the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. She graduated magna cum laude in 1974 with a degree in political science. After earning a master’s degree on scholarship from N.Y.U., Velázquez taught Puerto Rican studies at CUNY’s Hunter College in 1981.

But her passion for politics soon took hold. In 1983, Velázquez was appointed Special Assistant to Congressman Edolphus Towns (D-Brooklyn). One year later, she became the first Latina appointed to serve on the New York City Council.

By 1986, Velázquez served as the Director of the Department of Puerto Rican Community Affairs in the United States. During that time, she initiated one of the most successful Latino empowerment programs in the nation’s history – “Atrevete” (Dare to Go for It!).

In 1992, after months of running a grassroots political campaign, Velázquez was elected to the House of Representatives to represent New York’s 7th District. Her district, which encompasses parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Lower East Side of Manhattan, is the only tri-borough district in the New York City congressional delegation. Encompassing many diverse neighborhoods, it is home to a large Latino population, Jewish communities, and parts of Chinatown.

As a fighter for equal rights of the underrepresented and a proponent of economic opportunity for the working class and poor, Congresswoman Velázquez combines sensibility and compassion, as she works to encourage economic development, protect community health and the environment, combat crime and worker abuses, and secure access to affordable housing, quality education and health care for all New York City families.

As the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, which oversees federal programs and contracts totaling $200 billion annually, Congresswoman Velázquez has been a vocal advocate of American small business and entrepreneurship. She has established numerous small business legislative priorities, encompassing the areas of tax, regulations, access to capital, federal contracting opportunities, trade, technology, health care and pension reform, among others. Congresswoman Velázquez was named as the inaugural “Woman of the Year” by Hispanic Business Magazine in recognition of her national influence in both the political and business sectors and for her longtime support of minority enterprise.

Although her work on the Small Business Committee and the House Financial Services Committee (where she is the most senior New York Member on the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity) keeps her busy, Congresswoman Velázquez can often be found close to home, working for the residents of her district.

Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis is serving her second term representing New York’s 11th Congressional District which encompasses Staten Island and parts of Southern Brooklyn. Malliotakis was named to the House Committee on Ways and Means for the 118th Congress. Throughout her tenure, Malliotakis has been focused on making America’s cities safe again, securing the southern border, tackling inflation to strengthen our economy and unleashing America’s energy potential.

In her first term, Malliotakis’ office resolved over 7,510 constituent cases, helped nearly 80 immigrants become United States citizens, and delivered over $141 million to the district including federal funding for the NYPD, U.S. Coast Guard Sector New York, several area hospitals, and the St. George Theatre.

Malliotakis delivered on her promise to secure New York’s fair share of federal mass transit funding as a member of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure with her vote for the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Over $31 million has already been committed to NY-11 from the IIJA for various projects including the rehabilitation of bridges over the Staten Island Expressway, Gowanus Expressway, and dredging in Arthur Kill Terminal. Malliotakis also worked to get the Staten Island Seawall Project back on track after costly redesign requests made by the city caused years of delays and has ensured the federal share of the project will be fully funded to completion alleviating the financial burden on the city and state.

As a member of the House Committee of Foreign Affairs, Malliotakis has been a strong voice for American values overseas, reducing our reliance on China and against the spread of communism in Central and South America. She has stood up for our allies, such as Greece, Cyprus, and Israel against neighboring authoritarian regimes. Malliotakis successfully inserted language into the National Defense Authorization Act requiring more transparency regarding Iran’s nefarious activities on U.S. soil and helped pass a bipartisan amendment establishing congressional oversight on any sale of F-16 fighter jets and military equipment to Turkey.

Prior to Congress, Malliotakis spent five terms in the New York State Assembly where she fought to restore ethics in Albany, expand transit service in her district, improve programs for senior citizens, reform education, better New York’s economic climate and help her community rebuild after Hurricane Sandy.

Malliotakis is the daughter of immigrants, her father from Greece, and her mother a Cuban exile of the Castro dictatorship. She is a passionate advocate for animal rights and the strengthening of animal cruelty laws. In her spare time, Malliotakis enjoys spending time with her chihuahua, Peanut.

Born in the Parkchester neighborhood of The Bronx, Alexandria’s parents moved the family 30 minutes north to Yorktown in search of a stronger public school for her and her brother. Alexandria’s mother was born and raised in Puerto Rico and worked throughout her childhood as a domestic worker. Alexandria’s father was a second-generation Bronxite, who ran a small business in The Bronx. Throughout her childhood, Representative Ocasio-Cortez traveled regularly to The Bronx to spend time with her extended family. From an early age, the stark contrast in educational opportunities available to her and her cousins, based on their respective zip codes, made an impression on her.

After high school, Alexandria attended Boston University, and graduated with degrees in Economics and International Relations (and tens of thousands of dollars in student loans). During this period she also had the opportunity to intern in the office of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Her role in Senator Kennedy’s office provided a firsthand view of the heartbreak families endured after being separated by ICE. These experiences led the Congresswoman to organize Latinx youth in The Bronx and across the United States, eventually, she began work as an Educational Director with the National Hispanic Institute, a role in which she helped Americans, DREAMers and undocumented youth in community leadership and college readiness.

Following the financial crisis of 2008, tragedy struck when her father passed away suddenly from cancer. The medical bills and other growing expenses placed their home at risk of foreclosure. Alexandria pulled extra shifts to work as a waitress and bartender to support her family, deepening her commitment to issues impacting working-class people.

U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat proudly represents New York’s Thirteenth Congressional District.

Representative Espaillat is the first Dominican American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and his congressional district includes Harlem, East Harlem, West Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, Inwood, Marble Hill, and the north-west Bronx.

First elected to Congress in 2016, Representative Espaillat was sworn into office on January 3, 2017, during the 115th Congress and is serving his fourth term in Congress.

Representative Espaillat serves as a member of the influential U.S. House Committee on Appropriations responsible for funding the federal government’s vital activities and is ranking member of the legislative branch subcommittee on the committee. Additionally, Representative Espaillat serves on the House Budget Committee. He is Deputy Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and is Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI). Representative Espaillat is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and is a Senior Whip of the Democratic Caucus. Through his committee assignments and caucus leadership positions, Representative Espaillat helps advance and amplify legislative priorities and accomplishments that aim to improve the lives of families around the nation.

Together with his Democratic colleagues, Representative Espaillat worked to pass more than 900 bills during the 116th Congress, including bipartisan legislation to clean up government, defend access to affordable health care, lower prescription drug costs, respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, invest in our nation’s infrastructure, and support policies for job creation and economic growth. Additionally, during the 116th Congress, Representative Espaillat introduced more than 40 bills and resolutions aimed at improving the lives of constituents, helping small businesses become more competitive and recover from the pandemic, protecting the rights of immigrants, securing funds to complete the Second Avenue Subway’s extension into East Harlem, and helping to secure federal grant funding for New York’s 13th congressional district.

A steadfast champion for working- and middle-class New Yorkers, Representative Espaillat is a staunch advocate of a fair living wage, immediate and effective investments in affordable housing, meaningful criminal justice reform, infrastructure improvements, expanded youth programs, and better educational opportunities.

Throughout the tenure of his career in public service, Representative Espaillat has been a vocal advocate for protecting tenants, improving schools, and making serious, smart investments in economic development, job creation, and environmental protection. Prior to coming to Congress, he served as a New York State Senator during which he represented the neighborhoods of Marble Hill, Inwood, Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, West Harlem, the Upper West Side, Hell’s Kitchen, Clinton, and Chelsea.

While in the New York State Senate, he served as the Ranking Member of the Senate Housing, Construction, and Community Development Committee; Chairman of the Senate Puerto Rican/Latino Caucus; and as a member of the Environmental Conservation, Economic Development, Codes, Insurance, and Judiciary committees. Prior to his tenure as a state senator, he served in the New York State Assembly, and in 1996 became the first Dominican American elected to a state legislature. In 2002, Espaillat was elected chair of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus.

Prior to entering elected office, Representative Espaillat served as the Manhattan Court Services Coordinator for the NYC Criminal Justice Agency, a non-profit organization that provides legal services to those in need and works to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention and post-sentence incarceration costs. He later worked as Director of the Washington Heights Victims Services Community Office, an organization offering counseling and other services to families of victims of homicides and other crimes, and as the Director of Project Right Start, a national initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to combat substance abuse by educating the parents of pre-school children.

Representative Espaillat is a proud father and grandfather and is a member of the historic Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated.

Hailing from central Brooklyn, Congresswoman Yvette Diane Clarke feels honored to represent the community that raised her. She is the proud daughter of Jamaican immigrants and takes her passion for her Caribbean heritage to Congress, where she co-chairs the Congressional Caribbean Caucus and works to foster relationships between the United States and the Caribbean Community. Clarke is a Senior Member of both the House Energy and Commerce Committee and House Committee on Homeland Security. Clarke has been a member of the Congressional Black Caucus since coming to Congress in 2007 and today chairs its Immigration Task Force.

As the Representative of the Ninth Congressional District of New York, Congresswoman Clarke has dedicated herself to continuing the legacy of excellence established by the late Honorable Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman and Caribbean American elected to Congress. In the 117th Congress, Congresswoman Clarke introduced landmark legislation, which passed in the House, the Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6). This legislation would give 2.5 million DREAMers, temporary protected status, and deferred enforcement departure recipients a clear citizenship pathway.

Clarke is a leader in the tech and media policy space as co-chair of the Smart Cities Caucus and co-chair of the Multicultural Media Caucus. Congresswoman Clarke believes smart technology will make communities more sustainable, resilient, and livable and works hard to ensure communities of color are not left behind while these technological advancements are made. Clarke formed the Multicultural Media Caucus to address diversity and inclusion issues in the media, telecom, and tech industries. Clarke is one of the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, which develops programs to support the aspirations of Black women of all ages. Congresswoman Clarke is also the co-chair of the Medicare for All Caucus, where she is fighting for the right to universal health care.

Prior to being elected to the United States House of Representatives, Congresswoman Clarke served on New York’s City Council, representing the 40th District. She succeeded her pioneering mother, former City Council Member Dr. Una S. T. Clarke, making them the first mother-daughter succession in the City Council’s history. She cosponsored City Council resolutions that opposed the war in Iraq, criticized the federal USA PATRIOT Act, and called for a national moratorium on the death penalty.

Congresswoman Clarke is a graduate of Oberlin College and was a recipient of the prestigious APPAM/Sloan Fellowship in Public Policy and Policy Analysis. She received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa from the University of Technology, Jamaica, and the Honorary Doctorate of Public Policy from the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Congresswoman Clarke currently resides in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she grew up.

Hakeem Jeffries represents the diverse Eighth Congressional District of New York and is serving his sixth term in the United States Congress.

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. Such bills included measures to ensure veterans and their families have access to benefits information (H.R. 2093, Public Law No. 117-62), to measure the progress of recovery and efforts to address corruption, rule of law and media freedoms in Haiti (H.R. 2471, Public Law No. 117-103), to protect attorney-client privilege for incarcerated individuals corresponding electronically with their legal representatives (H.R. 546) and to eliminate the federal sentencing disparity between drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine once and for all (H.R. 1693).

In the 116th Congress, Rep. Jeffries was similarly active in the legislative process, with many of his bills passing the House of Representatives and becoming law. They included bills to create a copyright small claims board allowing the creative middle class to protect their works (H.R. 2426, Public Law No. 116-260), to expand scholarship opportunities available to Pakistani women (H.R. 4508, Public Law No. 116-338) and to provide entrepreneurship counseling and training services to formerly incarcerated individuals (H.R. 5065).

In January 2020, Rep. Jeffries was selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as one of seven House Impeachment Managers in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump, becoming the first African American man to serve in that role. During the nearly three-week trial, Congressman Jeffries argued that President Trump should be removed from office for abusing his power by pressuring a foreign government, Ukraine, to target an American citizen as part of a corrupt scheme to interfere in the 2020 election. The House Impeachment Managers established with a mountain of evidence that crimes against the Constitution were committed. Nevertheless, the Senate failed to remove the President without hearing from a single witness during the trial.

On March 9, 2021, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1280, the “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act” for the second time through the House. During both pushes, Rep. Jeffries helped lead the charge with respect to passage of this historic police reform bill, which included legislation authored by the Congressman to criminalize the chokehold and other inherently dangerous tactics such as a knee to the neck. Rep. Jeffries remains dedicated to working with his colleagues to make transformational police reform a reality and breathe life into the principle of liberty and justice for all.

Rep. Jeffries has played a major role in shaping the Congressional response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has fought hard to assist state and local governments whose budgets have been devastated by the virus, pushed for an extension of the emergency unemployment benefit and supported efforts to keep everyday Americans in their homes. Rep. Jeffries also worked across the aisle with Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to secure billions of dollars in funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the CARES Act (H.R. 748, Public Law No. 116-136), which became law in March 2020. At home, Rep. Jeffries partnered with the Governor to expand testing in hard-hit communities of color by establishing walk-in sites at houses of worship throughout New York City. He denounced discriminatory social distance policing that targeted communities of color and helped bring about a change in policy. In the community, Rep. Jeffries continues to personally distribute food, masks, gloves and hand sanitizer to residents in need.

In the 115th Congress, Rep. Jeffries worked across the aisle as the lead Democratic sponsor of the FIRST STEP Act (S. 756, Public Law No. 115-391), a strong, bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that the President signed into law in December 2018. Rep. Jeffries partnered with Congressman Doug Collins, a conservative Republican from rural Georgia, on the legislation, which is widely viewed as the most meaningful criminal justice reform effort in a generation.

The FIRST STEP Act provides retroactive relief for the shameful crack cocaine sentencing disparity that unfairly destroyed lives, families and communities. The law shortens sentences by ensuring inmates can earn the 54 days of good time credit per year. Congress intended to apply the change retroactively, to the benefit of thousands of currently incarcerated mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. It provides $375 million over five years to expand re-entry programming, including education and vocational training, which is proven to dramatically reduce recidivism and help prepare for a successful transition back into society. In order to strengthen and preserve family relationships, the bill requires the Bureau of Prisons to house incarcerated individuals within 500 driving miles of their relatives and permits the transfer of lower-risk inmates to home confinement. In addition, the FIRST STEP Act bans the immoral practice of shackling women throughout the duration of their pregnancy, during childbirth and for three months postpartum.

Rep. Jeffries also played a key role in the House passage of the historic Music Modernization Act (MMA) (H.R. 5447, Public Law No. 115-264), which became law in 2018. Heralded as a sweeping update to our copyright laws, the MMA will improve the licensing process so that songwriters, artists and musicians can continue to share their creativity with the world. Because of the MMA, songwriters are more likely to get paid a fair price for their work, and digital music providers like Spotify and Pandora will be able to operate more efficiently. In an era of crisis and dysfunction in Washington, the power of music brought Democrats and Republicans in Congress together to collaborate on groundbreaking legislation, ushering our music copyright system into the 21st Century.

In April of 2018, the President signed the Rep. Jeffries-authored Keep America’s Refuges Operational Act (H.R. 3979, Public Law No. 115-1689) into law. Each year, 47 million Americans visit wildlife refuges, generating almost $2 billion in local economic activity. This law will keep America’s refuges operational by supporting the volunteers who dedicate thousands of hours to maintain our public lands. Passage of this bill was part of a bipartisan, bicameral effort to ensure Americans can visit, explore and study wildlife and experience our nation’s vast natural beauty for generations to come.

Several other pieces of Rep. Jeffries-authored legislation passed the House of Representatives in the 115th Congress, including bills to investigate the public health impact of synthetic drug use by teenagers (H.R. 449, Public Law No. 115-271) and updating federal regulations to remove racially offensive terminology from use (H.R. 995). Rep. Jeffries’ H.R. 3229 (Public Law No. 95-521), which helps protect judicial officers from threats, harm and harassment by those who would seek to compromise the integrity of our judicial branch, also passed the House in 2017, and was signed into law in March 2018. Additionally, Rep. Jeffries authored H.R. 3370 (Public Law No. 95-921), the Fry Scholarship Enhancement Act, which became law as part of the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017. It will expand the availability of education benefits to the children and spouses of service members killed in the line of duty.

In the 114th Congress, Rep. Jeffries teamed up with Congressman Peter King to pass the Slain Officer Family Support Act of 2015 (H.R. 1508, Public Law No. 113-227), which President Obama signed into law. That law extended the tax deadline so that individuals making charitable donations to organizations supporting the families of assassinated New York Police Department (NYPD) Detectives Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, could apply such tax deductions to the prior year’s tax return.

In the 113th Congress, Rep. Jeffries successfully passed H.R. 5108 (Public Law No. 113-227), legislation that established the Law School Clinic Certification Program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) into law. This program had been operating in a pilot capacity since 2008 and enabled students at participating law schools to gain experience in patent and trademark law while providing legal assistance to inventors, tech entrepreneurs and small businesses. The bipartisan bill, which was signed by President Obama, expanded the program by removing its “pilot” status, making it available to all accredited law schools in the country that meet the program’s eligibility requirements.

Rep. Jeffries has been actively involved in the passage of a number of other key pieces of legislation, including the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 (H.R. 152), a bill that provides billions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy recovery to the Eighth District and other affected areas. The Congressman also sponsored — and passed as part of the National Defense Authorization package — the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument Preservation Act, which directs the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to study the feasibility of designating the Prison Ship Martyrs’ mausoleum in Brooklyn as a national monument. Consisting of a 100-foot-wide granite staircase and a central Doric column 149 feet in height, the monument in Fort Greene Park houses the remains of 11,500 Revolutionary War soldiers who were kept as prisoners of war by the British.

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 New York City’s public school system, having graduated from Midwood High School. He lives in Prospect Heights with his family.

U.S. Congresswoman Grace Meng is serving her sixth term in the United States House of Representatives, where she represents New York’s Sixth Congressional District. Grace’s district is located entirely in the New York City borough of Queens, including west, central, and northeast Queens.
Grace is the first and only Asian American Member of Congress from New York State,and the first female Congressmember from Queens since former Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro.
In Congress, Grace serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, where she is New York’s senior member and is the Vice Ranking Member. Grace sits on both the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee and the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies subcommittee. The House Appropriations Committee is responsible for funding the federal government’s programs and activities.
Grace serves as the First Vice-Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, a co-Chair of the House Bipartisan Taskforce for Combatting Antisemitism, and as a Vice-Chair of the LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus.
Grace has proudly passed several pieces of her legislation into law. This includes legislation on several important issues affecting the lives of her constituents – from laws supporting religious freedom, making Queens historic sites part of the National Park Service, striking “Oriental” from federal law, protecting public housing residents from insufficient heat, championing improvements to broadband and internet access for students across the country to help close the homework gap, and establishing the first step in creating a national museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture. Also signed into law were her measures to assist veterans and members of the military, and provisions to improve consumer protections and safeguards for children.
Additionally, in order to combat the rise in hate and violence that increased during the coronavirus pandemic, Grace passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law.
At every turn, Grace has fought to expand opportunities for communities of color, young people, families, small businesses, and women.
Prior to being elected to Congress, Grace served in the New York State Assembly. Before entering public service, she worked as a public-interest lawyer.
Born in Elmhurst, Queens, and raised in the Elmhurst, Bayside, and Flushing sections of the borough, Grace attended local schools and graduated from Stuyvesant High School. She also attended the University of Michigan (Go Blue) before earning her law degree from Yeshiva University’s Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.
Grace is raising her family in Queens, where she lives with her husband, Wayne, and their two sons.

From public housing to the nation’s Capital, Gregory Weldon Meeks has lived a true American success story. Known for his compassionate and tenacious representation of his constituents, and his coalition-building skills, Meeks proudly serves the constituents of New York’s Fifth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Congressman Meeks’ compassion and ability to collaborate are rooted in his upbringing. His family ventured north during the Great Migration from Rock Hill, South Carolina, eventually settling in East Harlem. He grew up in a public housing project and knew in his early years that he wanted to be a lawyer. He was inspired by a mother and father who worked hard to ensure that their children would have opportunities for advancement that they never did. Meeks’ parents passed on to him a profound sense of social justice, commitment to community, and willingness to extend a helping hand to those in need.

He carried these values with him to Adelphi University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history. At Howard University Law School, Meeks embraced the jurisprudence of his idol, Thurgood Marshall, and of Charles Hamilton Houston. In the years to follow, Congressman Meeks worked as a Queens County Assistant District Attorney, a prosecutor for a special anti-narcotics taskforce, and chief administrative judge for New York State’s worker compensation system. In 1992, he was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he served until 1998, when he won a special election to represent the Fifth Congressional District of New York.

Congressman Jerrold “Jerry” Nadler represents New York’s 12th Congressional District, one of the most dynamic and diverse districts in the country. The district includes Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Morningside Heights, Chelsea, Yorkville, Carnegie Hill, Kips Bay, Roosevelt Island, Tudor City, Gramercy Park, Central Park, Turtle Bay, Hell’s Kitchen, Murray Hill, Lenox Hill, Theater District, Clinton, the Garment District, Sutton Place, Midtown, Union Square, Times Square, Lincoln Center, and Stuyvesant Town.

Rep. Nadler began his career in public service in 1976 in the New York State Assembly. Representing the Upper West Side, he served as a Democratic Assemblyman for 16 years and played a significant role in shaping New York State law concerning child support enforcement and domestic abuse, as well as making major contributions to housing, transportation and consumer protection policy in the state. In 1992, Rep. Nadler was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election and has served in Congress ever since. He was re-elected to his seventeenth full term in 2024.

Congressman Nadler served as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2022 and as Ranking Member from 2023 to 2024. Congressman Nadler previously served as Chairman or Ranking Member of its Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties for 13 years and also served as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Nadler led two successful impeachments of former President Donald J. Trump, the only person ever impeached twice.

Rep. Nadler is a graduate of Crown Heights Yeshiva, Stuyvesant High School, Columbia University and Fordham Law School. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his wife, Joyce Miller.