From [HERE] The rolebotic Crown Heights native told The New Republic’s How to Save a Country podcast that he got interested in public service because of the 1992 L.A. riots. “I remember saying to myself, You know, we’ve come a long way as a country. We still have a long way to go,” he said. “But I do want to go off to law school, get involved in trying to use my law degree to fight for the principles of equal protection under the law — liberty and justice for all — in the purest possible way.” He acted on that desire by becoming a litigation associate for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, one of the most profitable law firms in the world, and then a “highly paid litigator” for CBS, fighting lawsuits against the media giant. He “was one of our best litigation associates,” said Ted Wells, co-chairman of the litigation department at Jeffries’s old firm, in 2007. “He was a star and continues to be a star.”

His corporate-centrist inclinations are consistent with the evolving role of the Congressional Black Caucus. Once viewed as a thorn in the side of party leaders because of its agitation on behalf of everyday Black people, the self-styled “conscience of Congress” has gotten much bigger and more influential in its 51 years. Now the CBC resembles more of a professional organization for protecting incumbents and advancing the careers of its members. Its strong ties with sketchy corporate partners — including Walmart and Altria (formerly Philip Morris) — illustrate how far it has traveled from the margins of influence to the center. The shift has also made the organization flexible with its stated principles. It purports to withhold endorsements in races for open seats in which two Black candidates are running, but it gladly threw its weight behind moderate Shontel Brown when she faced leftist Nina Turner in their Ohio primary this year. In 2020, after white incumbent Eliot Engel said he “wouldn’t care” about a Bronx anti-police-abuse event if he “didn’t have a primary,” Jeffries supported him against Black challenger Jamaal Bowman.

Jeffries is a closer contemporary to Bowman, Ocasio-Cortez, and Cori Bush than to Pelosi, James Clyburn, and other members of the party’s gerontocratic leadership. Yet perhaps his defining in-caucus alliance is with Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, one of the most conservative Democratic congressmen, who has threatened to blow up Biden’s agenda to defend tax breaks for the wealthy. Together with Alabama’s Terri Sewell, they formed the Team Blue PAC last year to protect incumbents against primaries from their left — which doubles as a warning shot to newly elected leftists such as Summer Lee and Maxwell Frost.

All of which calls into question what making the Democratic Party leadership class younger and Blacker actually means. If the biggest changes to Democratic policy and governance of the past several years have been the leftward shift driven by younger and less white officials, then the Brooklyn congressman has not been a meaningful part of it. On the contrary, he has often been an impediment. His reward has been a rapid ascent up the party’s ranks secured by endearing himself to its elders and siding with longtime incumbents and party leaders even as they’ve grown out of touch with their constituents. Much will be made of the historic nature of his promotion and the change it appears to signify. But for the party Establishment, the benefit of this generational change appears to be stasis.