Long-serving Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was formally ousted on Wednesday when Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was elected to lead the Democratic Party in Congress.
Pelosi and her team will formally step aside at the beginning of next year.
The House Democrats moved seamlessly from Pelosi’s leadership, choosing the 52-year-old New Yorker who has vowed to “get things done” as their next leader… even after Republicans won control of the chamber. The closed-door vote was unanimous, by acclamation.
“It’s a solemn responsibility that we are all inheriting,” Jeffries told reporters on the eve of the party meeting. “And the best thing that we can do as a result of the seriousness and solemnity of the moment is lean in hard and do the best damn job that we can for the people.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are struggling to unite around longtime Republican Party establishment leader Kevin McCarthy as the new House speaker.
Conservatives have pushed for a more principled leader as Republicans prepare to take control when the new Congress convenes in January.
Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said Wednesday there were around 20 “firm” no votes aligned against McCarthy.
Andy Biggs says Kevin McCarthy is “around 20” votes short of the 218 needed to be elected speaker of the Housepic.twitter.com/rNj8vEA8yr
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 30, 2022
BREAKING REPORT: There are Currently 20 Firm 'NO' VOTES on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Becoming Speaker…
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) November 29, 2022
Wednesday’s internal Democratic caucus votes of Jeffries and the other top leaders came without challengers.
The trio led by Jeffries, who will become the Democratic minority leader in the new Congress, includes 59-year-old Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts as the Democratic whip and 43-year-old Rep. Pete Aguilar of California as caucus chairman. The new team of Democratic leaders will take over positions held by Pelosi and her top lieutenants — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina — as the octogenarian leaders make way for the next generation.
But in many ways, the trio has been transitioning in plain sight, as one aide put it — Jeffries, Clark, and Aguilar working with Pelosi’s nod these past several years in lower-rung leadership roles as the first woman to have the speaker’s gavel prepared to step down. Pelosi, of California, has led the House Democrats for the past 20 years, and colleagues late Tuesday granted her the honorific title of “speaker emerita.”
“It an important moment for the caucus — that there’s a new generation of leadership,” said Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., ahead of voting.
While Democrats will be relegated to the House minority in the new year, they will have a certain amount of leverage because the Republican majority is expected to be so slim and McCarthy’s hold on his party fragile.
The House’s two new potential leaders, Jeffries and McCarthy, are of the same generation but have almost no real relationship.
The Democrat is best known for leveling nasty political barbs at Republicans from afar, particularly over the GOP’s embrace of former President Donald Trump. Jeffries served as a House manager during Trump’s first impeachment.
“We’re still working through the implications of Trumpism,” Jeffries said, “and what it has meant, as a very destabilizing force for American democracy.”
Jeffries said he hopes to find “common ground when possible” with Republicans but will “oppose their extremism when we must.”
On the other side of the Capitol, Jeffries will have a partner in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as two New Yorkers are poised to helm the Democratic leadership in Congress. They live about a mile apart in Brooklyn.
“There are going to be a group, in my judgment, of mainstream Republicans who are not going to want to go in the MAGA direction, and Hakeem’s the ideal type guy to work with them,” Schumer said in an interview, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Jeffries has sometimes been met with skepticism from party progressives, viewed as a more centrist figure among House Democrats.
But Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a progressive and part of the “squad” of liberal lawmakers, said she has been heartened by the way Jeffries and his team are reaching out, even though they face no challengers.
“There’s a genuine sense that he wants to develop relationships and working partnerships with many of us,” she said.
[Video] Trump addresses Nancy Pelosi’s promise to ‘punch him out’
The Associated Press contributed to this article.