And that was before he got to Congress.<\/p>\n

As the 56-year-old legislator seeks to become the first Black speaker of the House, clues to how he engineered such a rapid rise \u2014 and how he\u2019ll govern if Democrats win the House \u2014 can be traced back to the rough-and-tumble world of statehouse politics in New York, where he served as an assemblymember representing parts of Brooklyn from 2007 through 2012.<\/p>\n

While in Albany, Jeffries hardly mastered the levers of power. He wasn\u2019t around long enough to earn a committee chair position. He wasn\u2019t senior enough to carry the conference\u2019s marquee legislation. And he passed only a fraction of the 242 bills he sponsored.<\/p>\n

Yet he carved out a legislative record establishing himself as a credible voice on criminal justice issues. And the lessons offered by Albany at the time \u2014 with half of its Legislature beset by factionalism and a hard-charging executive damaged by scandal \u2014 offered a valuable preview of what he could face in Washington.<\/p>\n

Jeffries could inherit an unwieldy House. He could face a Senate with razor-thin margins. And he already has plans to launch probes into President Donald Trump and many of his aides.<\/p>\n

But the leadership style he began developing in Albany is in many ways an odd fit with the current political moment.<\/p>\n

In an age where voters are gravitating toward partisan pugilists, Albany colleagues almost universally recall Jeffries as a cerebral and studious legislator willing to work with peers of all ideological persuasions. They remember his speeches in conference meetings and the Assembly chamber that, while demonstrating a deep grasp of logic and policy, were delivered only infrequently, as if to maximize their impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe thinks things out like a chess player, four or five moves in advance,\u201d said David Paterson, a Democrat who served as New York governor during some of Jeffries\u2019 tenure in Albany. \u201cTo me, he\u2019s like a modern-day Columbo. While you\u2019re putting him down, he\u2019s planning how to take you out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Jeffries now seeks one of the most difficult jobs in American politics, his origin story underscores a broader change in Democratic politics.<\/p>\n

Once an insurgent candidate who so thoroughly irked the New York establishment they drew his apartment out of the Assembly district he eventually won, Jeffries is now facing criticism from the party\u2019s left. From their perch, the Democratic leader is out of touch with the issues animating the party base and far too reliant on a bygone way of doing business.<\/p>\n

Whether he can prove them wrong will not only write the next chapter of his story. It will influence where the cartoon dust cloud of infighting that is today\u2019s Democratic Party drifts next.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes off as someone who fits more directly into the prior generation: Very buttoned-up, very message-tested talking points,\u201d said one New York Democratic consultant granted anonymity to candidly discuss Jeffries\u2019 political standing. \u201cThere\u2019s a handful of issues that are driving the extremes of the party, and he tends to fall squarely into the older thinking on them: Israel is one<\/u><\/a>. Medicare for All is another<\/u><\/a>. I\u2019m not saying the vanguard is right. But he\u2019s not on the vanguard.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least, not anymore.<\/p>\n

After stints at a white-shoe law firm and as a corporate lawyer for Viacom and CBS, Jeffries launched his first political campaign in 2000 at the age of 29, going hard at incumbent Roger Green over accusations he was failing an Assembly district that included the Brooklyn enclave where Jeffries was born, raised and had moved back to with his wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re out of touch,\u201d a mustachioed Jeffries said during a heated debate<\/u><\/a> in which Green later stormed off the set.<\/p>\n

Jeffries, a devout Baptist, had brought up Green\u2019s Muslim faith on air<\/u><\/a>, which the incumbent found divisive. It ultimately didn\u2019t matter. Jeffries lost by 18 points.<\/p>\n

When New York redrew its Legislative boundaries two years later, Jeffries was meticulously notched out of the seat, an act of institutional retribution for his perceived insolence, giving him an early taste for creative line-drawing that has parallels to today\u2019s redistricting wars between Democrats and Republicans<\/u><\/a>. He challenged the incumbent anyway, this time with even worse results.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Green gave up his seat to run for Congress that Jeffries won in 2006 after moving back into the redrawn 57th District.<\/p>\n

Scott Levenson, head of political consulting and lobbying firm the Advance Group, was hired by Jeffries on those early campaigns and said his client had a congenital predisposition for public service: His mother was a social worker and his father was a state substance abuse counselor. Politics, activism, Black history and the expectation of academic achievement were very much discussed at the dinner table<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes from an active political family,\u201d Levenson said in an interview. \u201cHe didn\u2019t grow up in the restaurant business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even back then, Levenson said, Jeffries was exhibiting qualities that would come to define him in Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy bangs the phone all the time; and he\u2019s got a nice way about him, so people want to talk to him,\u201d Levenson said of Jeffries\u2019 efforts to raise money and build coalitions. \u201cI talk to Republicans who don\u2019t hear bombastic, they hear thoughtful and balanced. And with the margin he\u2019s going to be served, that\u2019s probably a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January 2007, at long last, Jeffries arrived in Albany as a backbench legislator. What he found was the country\u2019s third-largest public institution \u2014 second only to the federal government and the State of California \u2014 in chaos.<\/p>\n

The state Capitol during that era was riven by Democratic infighting and scandal \u2014 giving Jeffries a front row seat for how dysfunction and small majorities can dash legislative dreams and how more disciplined institutions can fill the power vacuum.<\/p>\n