Tasia Jackson is aware of a factor or two concerning the political rise of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). That’s as a result of she’s had a front-row seat by means of all of it.
The Brooklyn native joined Jeffries’s workplace when he was only a first-term state Meeting member representing the borough in Albany within the late aughts, and has remained on the workforce as Jeffries jumped to Congress in 2013, ascended to chair of the Democratic Caucus in 2019 and rose once more final 12 months to turn into the Home Democratic chief.
She was drawn to politics by a driving curiosity in public service within the mildew of Shirley Chisholm, the primary Black lady elected to Congress. And he or she’s caught with Jeffries, she stated, due to his effectiveness as a legislator with the same concentrate on social justice. She singled out a invoice he was capable of move in his first time period in Albany that barred legislation enforcement from retaining a database of everybody officers stop-and-frisked.
“It was life-changing for a lot of innocent people who were being unfairly criminalized,” Jackson stated. “And I think it was after that that I decided to stay on and then relocate to Washington, D.C., to see how we can continue to make a difference and support people on the federal level legislatively.”
As Jeffries ascended, so did Jackson. The 38-year-old was named chief of employees in Jeffries’s private workplace in 2017, and was elevated once more final 12 months to take over that very same place in his management workplace, as nicely. In that capability, she oversees an workplace of greater than 50 staffers — a juggling act that makes for “no typical day.”
“It’s a bit of air traffic control sometimes,” she stated.
Nonetheless, Jackson says she relishes the accountability — and is impressed by colleagues prepared to work lengthy hours to undertake advanced laws, from responding to COVID-19 to stopping a authorities shutdown.
“There’s a lot of attention paid to, perhaps, some of the chaos,” she stated. “But it’s the work that’s happening behind the scenes among the public servants, I think has just been really interesting to watch unfold.”
