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Don Leonard Challenges Hakeem Jeffries Over Israel Policy and Super PACs
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Incoming Ohio Democrat-elect presses Jeffries over Israel policy and super PACs. He claims senior Democrats threatened a 'living hell' for opposing Jeffries.
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Leonard challenges Jeffries
Rep.-elect Don Leonard, an Ohio Democrat-elect who has not been sworn in yet, pressed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries over Israel policy and super PACs while criticizing the House Democratic caucus’s committee seniority system.
“I don’t know what senior Democrats he's talking about.”
Leonard defeated Republican Rep. Mike Carey in last Tuesday’s midterm elections, and he told Axios in a Tuesday interview on Capitol Hill, “I’m really vibing with my class.”
Leonard said the day after the election that he would “be shopping for a new leader” unless Jeffries changed his pro-Israel positions, and he later posted that “senior members” warned him his life would be a “living hell” and that he would lose reelection if he opposed Jeffries for speaker.
House Democratic Caucus chair Pete Aguilar, asked about Leonard’s video at a Tuesday press conference, told reporters, “I don’t know what senior Democrats he's talking about.”
Threats, conditions, and replies
Leonard said senior members warned him his life would be a “living hell” and that he would lose his election in two years if he opposed Jeffries for House speaker, and he described the conversation as “a friendly” and “well-intentioned” talk with “folks who have been on the Hill for a really long time.” Leonard told Axios he asked Jeffries for six minutes to explain that he respected his leadership but needed something to take back to his district showing that his party understood the magnitude of the crisis.
Leonard said he supports cutting U.S. aid to Israel and wants Jeffries to commit to supporting a constitutional amendment banning super PACs, and he told Axios, “The time for half-measures is over.” Aguilar said members could have ideas, interests and requests, but “the outcome is not in question,” and he predicted Jeffries would be “overwhelmingly selected” as speaker.
What the fight could change
Leonard said he was frustrated by the House Democrats’ seniority system, which makes it difficult for freshmen to join some of the most coveted committees, and he added, “When we're less democratic than the Republican Party ... that raises questions for me.”
“When we're less democratic than the Republican Party ... that raises questions for me.”
Leonard also said he demanded an end to U.S. support for “Israel’s genocide in Gaza” and the “illegal war in Iran, which is draining American pocketbooks, the American treasury and putting American service members at risk.”
The House Democratic Caucus leadership election, reported for Nov. 18 and 19, would decide Jeffries’s speaker nominee by secret ballot where a simple majority wins the nomination, and the full House vote is set for Jan. 3, 2027, when 218 votes are needed.
Uprise RI reported that a Change.org petition titled “House Democrats: CHOOSE A NEW SPEAKER” created on Sept. 3 had reached 1,094,983 signatures as of Monday and displayed 1,120,114 verified signatures, urging members to choose someone else based on Jeffries’s “public record, policy positions, campaign donor record and leadership.”