Hakeem Jeffries was raised in central Brooklyn and is a product of New York City’s public school system. He was sworn in as a member of the New York State Assembly in January 2007 and quickly emerged as a champion for working families and a strong advocate of education reform.

Hakeem has sponsored bills that include measures to strengthen tenant regulations, protect the civil liberties of law-abiding New Yorkers during police encounters, reform state government in Albany, and facilitate the successful re-entry of formerly incarcerated individuals.

In Albany, Hakeem successfully sponsored legislation that reforms the New York Police Department’s stop and frisk practices and protects the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding New York City residents. The law, which was signed on July 16, 2010, prohibits the NYPD from maintaining an electronic database with the personal information of individuals who are stopped, questioned and frisked during a police encounter, but not charged with a crime or violation.

Progressive and good government groups nationwide praise Hakeem’s work as the prime sponsor of legislation to create an independent redistricting commission for New York State. In addition to this, he also sponsored and championed legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering, which was signed into law on August 3, 2010. With its passage, New York became the second state in the country to count incarcerated individuals in their home communities rather than in the counties where they are incarcerated for purposes of legislative reapportionment.

In the legislature, Hakeem has been a consistent voice on the issue of education reform and charter schools as an alternative for some of the most disadvantaged black and Latino students in the public schools system. He co-sponsored legislation in 2010 that lifted the charter school cap in New York State as part of the successful Race to the Top application that secured approximately $700 million in education funding from the federal government to help poor, urban school districts.

In the beginning of his second term, Hakeem launched Project Reclaim, an initiative designed to transform vacant luxury apartments throughout central Brooklyn into affordable homes for working and middle-class families. On July 30, 2010, Governor Paterson signed into law legislation that Hakeem pushed forward that supports Project Reclaim. He also co-sponsored in 2007 the groundbreaking 421-a law that requires developers who receive tax breaks to build affordable housing in the Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods that he represents. At least fifty percent of the affordable housing must be reserved for people who live in the community.

Hakeem regularly conducts town hall meetings on issues such as mass transportation, public safety and education. Throughout the summer, he sets up his office outside subway stations in the district on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings to meet with his constituents as they return home from work. Hakeem also founded Operation Preserve, a free housing clinic that provides legal representation and advice for residents confronting displacement, eviction or harassment.

After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton, Hakeem graduated with honors for outstanding academic achievement. He then received his master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University. He attended New York University School of Law, where he graduated magna cum laude, served on the law review, finished in the top 10 percent of his class and delivered the commencement speech at graduation.

Following the completion of law school, Hakeem clerked for the Honorable Harold Baer Jr. of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Prior to his election to the assembly, he practiced law for several years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, an internationally renowned law firm, and then served as counsel in the litigation department of Viacom Inc. and CBS.