Albany, NY – Why Hakeem Jeffries May Be Cuomo’s Guy In The House

Albany, NY – Andrew Cuomo may soon have a new ally in the New York congressional delegation.

Last month, when the governor was aggressively pushing for expansion of the state’s DNA database to include information even on low-level offenders like turnstile-jumpers, he acceded to exactly one exception: first-time misdemeanor marijuana offenders.

It was a small but signficant nod to opponents of the city’s stop-and-frisk policy, and the legislator poised to claim the most credit for Cuomo’s concession was Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn.

Jeffries, who is running for Congress, and Cuomo have developed a mutually beneficial working relationship in their relatively short time together in the Capitol, with Cuomo often considering Jeffries’ legislative prerogatives, and Jeffries, in turn, providing Cuomo vocal support from within the legislature’s black and Latino caucus.

With longtime congressman Ed Towns dropping his bid for re-election, Jeffries has become the prohibitive front-runner to replace him.