Meet Hakeem Jeffries, the former corporate lawyer at CBS and Viacom turned politician.
The Crown Heights, Brooklyn native was the Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New York’s 8th congressional district in Brooklyn and Queens. He received his bachelor’s in political science from Binghamton University with honors and graduated from New York University School of Law as well as obtaining a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University.
One of his most notable moments during his tenure? Working on reforming the criminal justice system, addressed gun violence and assisted neighborhoods in the district that were devastated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
A member of the bipartisan House Task Force on Over-Criminalization, Jeffries is one of five Democrats joined with five Republicans from different cross sections of the country, all committed to addressing the explosion of the incarcerated population in America.
Jeffries introduced the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument Preservation Act (H.R. 1501; 113th Congress) into the United States House of Representatives in 2013. The purpose: the bill would direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument in Fort Greene Park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn as a unit of the National Park System.
In 2014 he introduced the To establish the Law School Clinic Certification Program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a bill that would establish the Law School Clinic Certification Program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to be available to accredited law schools for the ten-year period after enactment of the Act.
(Photo Source: Representative Hakeem Jeffries Website)
