Who is Hakeem Jeffrey? House Minority Leader gets a majority of votes in the first round of Speaker elections.

Hakeem Jeffreys got the most votes, why didn't he become Speaker?

Under House rules, the Speaker must receive a majority vote, something Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, failed to accomplish despite receiving the most votes.

House Democrats endorsed Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York as their candidate for House speaker Tuesday, rallying - once again - around the gerrymandered liberal and disciplined political tactician as the face of their opposition to the Republican majority.

The vote raised a question for many observers: could Hakeem Jeffries, now the House minority leader, become speaker? After all, he received 212 votes, more than the 200 votes the Republican candidate, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, received.

But House rules require the Speaker to get a majority vote, which neither Mr. Jeffries nor Mr. Jordan got on the first ballot because 20 Republicans voted for other candidates. A simple majority is not enough.

It is virtually impossible for Republicans to switch sides to Mr. Jeffries and vote for him for Speaker, handing the handoff to his opposing party. That would be seen as political treason by Republican lawmakers and voters alike.

Republicans have had trouble picking a speaker, and Mr. Jeffries has proposed a coalition government, which he describes as an "enlightened agreement." The idea, however, is a failure.

Earlier this week, he said that "informal conversations" had taken place, but he did not elaborate on the details.

Mr. Jeffries said Democrats would join Republicans to choose a speaker only if they agreed to change House rules so that "rule by consent" would allow legislation with broad support on both sides.

Currently, the Rules Committee, which determines what legislation is voted on, is structured so that Republicans control what legislation the House considers. This blocks Democrats' priorities.

Mr. Jeffries is the first black politician to lead either party in Congress. He also, at age 53, represents a generational change for House Democrats after two decades under Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

The son of civil servants who began his career as a lawyer at a prestigious law firm and at CBS, Mr. Jeffries rose quickly through the ranks of Democratic politics in New York and then Washington. Since 2013, he has represented some iconic black neighborhoods in Brooklyn. During the Trump presidency, he built a national image as a sharp-tongued critic and impeachment prosecutor while working with Republicans to pass criminal justice reform legislation.

When he became the minority leader in January, he faced a challenging task: to tame the ideologically diverse Democratic caucus while trying to soften Republican attacks on the Biden administration and regain the majority in 2024. However, he largely achieved the first goal by maintaining unity among the Democrats during key votes when the Republicans fell apart.

The information for this article was provided by Nicholas Fandos, a metro journalist covering New York state politics with a focus on money, lobbying, and political influence.

He was previously a correspondent for Congress in Washington.