Jerrold Nadler

It is abhorrent and devastating that a girl born today will have fewer rights over her own body than a woman born forty years ago. The recent overturn of Roe is a galling affront to the rights of women and a shockingly stark reflection of a radical, extremist Supreme Court that refuses to represent anything other than far-right, monied interests. On this issue, Jerry could not be more clear: just as he has his entire career, he will fight with every ounce of his being to defend abortion rights.

Women across the country are rightfully terrified about the grim realities that will define a post-Roe America. We know full well that a world where abortion is illegal is not a world where abortions do not exist–simply one where they are done clandestinely, often dangerously, and result in needless deaths. Of course, the women most at risk are the women already teetering at the margins–low-income women who cannot afford to travel, women of color who face insidious discrimination, and rural women who cannot access quality care. 

In Congress, Jerry has emerged as one of the leading voices in the efforts to protect abortion rights. He is such a highly valued and respected leader on this issue that when he ran for Judiciary Committee ranking member, NARAL endorsed him in its first-ever endorsement in a race of that kind–against a pro-choice Congresswoman, no less. And as Judiciary Committee Chair, Jerry was entrusted by House leadership in May of this year–immediately after the leak of the draft Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion–to hold the House’s only hearing on the implications of the case. As Jerry said during that hearing, “the right of women to make reproductive decisions…is a pillar of women’s equality.” He will do everything in his power to restore that right.

A relentless believer that “all people are created equal,” Jerry has spent his entire career fighting for civil rights and a more fair America. He has overseen efforts to protect voting rights from racist efforts to disenfranchise communities of color, and helped manage the House passage of the historic John Lewis Voting Rights Act. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry worked to sign into law the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which finally makes lynching an enhanced-penalty federal hate crime.

Jerry is a national leader in the effort to reform often violent and racially discriminatory policing practices. He co-sponsored the End Racial Profiling Act and after the brutal murder of George Floyd, Jerry was one of the key voices behind the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would have banned police chokeholds, ended qualified immunity, and established a national police misconduct registry to prevent brutal police officers escaping accountability.

Jerry knows that to truly achieve racial justice, we must focus on restorative justice to correct a long legacy of discrimination. That’s why, when he introduced the MORE Act to federally decriminalize marijuana, he ensured that it included key provisions to deliver opportunities to the communities of color that disproportionately suffered due to the War on Drugs. As we do the hard work of building a brighter future, we cannot ignore the sins of the past–or we are certain to repeat them again.

As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerry has served as a bulwark against wannabe tyrants like Donald Trump and Republicans who seek to suppress the right to vote. Jerry stood up to Trump’s self-dealing and self-serving bullying and impeached him twice–once for his abuses of power and obstruction of Congress, and then again after the lawless former President incited the January 6th insurrection.

Jerry’s oversight of government officials and agencies has hardly been limited to Trump–he has led efforts to hold agencies like ICE, CBP, DOJ, and others accountable for abuses ranging from the family separation policy to DHS’ violent policing tactics against peaceful protestors. The reputation that Jerry has developed–as a tough, unflinching protector of American democracy–is based on his unwavering commitment to protecting our fragile democratic experiment from those who seek to corrupt and undermine it.

With Republicans working overtime to disenfranchise voters–disproportionately impacting communities of color–Jerry has fought to resist cynical, anti-democratic efforts and protect access to the ballot. He led the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act through the House, held hearings to ensure our elections are safe from external and foreign interference, and ensured that COVID relief packages included funds to facilitate safe elections in the midst of a pandemic.

There is no challenge facing our city, our country, and our world as urgent or as grave as that of climate change. New Yorkers have already weathered some of the consequences of our warming planet, with increasing average temperatures, heavy rainfall events that paralyze our city’s public transit systems, and storm surges–like that of Hurricane Sandy–that caused billions of dollars worth of damage and cost 44 New Yorkers their lives.

When it comes to climate change, our response must meet the moment. Jerry believes that the only way to confront a problem this immense is with a solution equally big and bold. That’s why he was an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, invest in renewable and zero-emissions power sources, and create future-facing, high-paying jobs. We can’t pass this crisis onto the next generation–Jerry knows that we need to act now, and we need to act with conviction.

On top of being one of Congress’ fiercest advocates for equal rights for all, Jerry has been a proud feminist his entire life and has used his power to advance countless causes important to women. On this crucial issue, Jerry’s record is long and robust: he fought to combat the pay gap and coauthored the seminal Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, has worked relentlessly to protect reproductive rights, authored the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to require workplaces to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant women and protect women from retaliation, and much more. 

Women’s equality is anything but a new priority for Jerry–when he served in the New York Assembly, before entering Congress, he was the first-ever man to receive the New York State Chapter of the National Organization for Women’s “Legislator of the Year” Award.

As Judiciary Committee Chair, Jerry has made the most of this unique opportunity to advance the causes important to women. He led vital efforts to pass the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment and was a key figure in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Last year, Jerry led the Judiciary Committee in taking historic action by outlawing the forced arbitration clauses that have scared so many women victims of sexual assault into silence. President Biden signed that legislation into law in March of 2022, delivering justice to countless women and making American workplaces safer.

No country in the world faces the unending nightmare of gun violence that America does. While Republicans act in bad faith and try to deflect needed action with phony arguments that mental health is the cause of this neverending pattern of violence, Jerry knows that Americans aren’t exponentially more susceptible to mental illness than others around the rest of the world. The root of the problem, of course, is the widespread availability of firearms and the outsized, constrictive influence that the NRA and the gun lobby hold. With children being slain in schools and the proliferation of guns allowing for racist hate to travel seamlessly from the darkest corners of the Internet to our country’s streets–like the recent, tragic massacre in Buffalo–calls to delay action are not just desperately misguided, they stink of complicity.

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry has turned anguish into action. In his first term as Chair, Jerry passed through the House H.R. 8, a historic bill that would close loopholes and expand the background check process. This year, Jerry introduced the Protecting Our Kids Act, one of the most all-encompassing, sweeping gun reform packages ever passed by the House. As one of the House’s most prominent leaders in the fight to reform our nation’s gun laws, Jerry was trusted to lead the Congressional debate on the Safer Communities Act, which would restrict violent abusers from accessing guns, deliver grants to states so that they could establish crucial red flag laws, and stem the flow of trafficked guns to New York. When President Biden signed that bill into law, it marked the most significant action in decades to address gun violence.

Ending the endless wave of gun violence is one of Jerry’s very top priorities. He knows the more guns you get out of dangerous hands, the safer our schools, streets, and subways become. The proud recipient of an F rating from the NRA, Jerry won’t stop fighting until Americans can feel safe from the threat of gun violence.

Jerry believes that in the wealthiest nation in our world’s history, the government can and should provide affordable, accessible, reliable healthcare to every one of its citizens. That’s why he was an original cosponsor of the Medicare-for-All Act and has fought for years to enshrine it into law. There’s no better or quicker way to guarantee the human right that is healthcare.

Jerry has led efforts to protect the health of mothers in the workplace through his landmark bill, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, introduced sweeping legislation to lower exorbitant prescription drug costs, battled extremist efforts to weaken birth control protections, and, of course, has worked tirelessly throughout the entirety of his career to protect women’s reproductive rights, including abortion.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Jerry fought hard to fund measures to protect New Yorkers’ health. He helped secure billions to repair HVAC systems so that the air in our schools was clean and safe for kids and teachers alike, worked to deliver more vaccine resources from the federal government to New Yorkers, and shepherded legislation into law to compensate public safety officers who became disabled or died after contracting COVID in the line of duty.

Finally, unlike some others, Jerry has always believed in science and trusted vaccines–and has always stood by the public health experts vouching for their safety, even when fringe voices baselessly argued otherwise. During COVID, when so many Americans needlessly and preventably died due to their distrust of vaccinations, the danger of anti-vaccine rhetoric was made horribly clear.

Throughout his career, Jerry has been a steadfast champion for the rights of the immigrants who make up the civic fabric of our nation. As Judiciary Chair, he worked to create a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers, led the charge and introduced the legislation to overturn Trump’s hateful, racist Muslim Ban, and secured key funding in President Biden’s Build Back Better framework for priorities crucial to immigrants, including resources that would unclog the green card backlog.

Like most Americans, Jerry is a descendant of immigrants: this issue is personal to him. When the news broke about Trump’s abhorrent family separation policy, Jerry put his body in harm’s way while visiting an ICE facility–he literally placed his foot in a door so that ICE officers could not hide their actions from the world–in an effort to reunite separated families.

Jerry is committed to fighting for comprehensive immigration reform and equally committed to protecting immigrants from Republicans and their hateful, divisive rhetoric. He’ll keep leading the Judiciary Committee–which has jurisdiction over immigration-related issues–with the same compassion and dedication to advocating for the most vulnerable among us.

Fighting to expand civil rights protections has always been a fundamental element of Jerry’s identity, as New York’s vibrant LGBTQIA+ community can attest. The Advocate–a leading LGBTQIA+ publication–wrote that Jerry “is one of the nation’s fiercest protectors of LGBT rights and a powerful ally for trans equality” and for good reason: Jerry has been an original co-sponsor of countless major pieces of LGBT civil rights legislation for decades. Not only did he himself write the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA), the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), the Father Mychal Judge Act, and the Equal Access to Social Security Act, Jerry led the charge to pass the anti-discriminatory Equality Act through the House as Judiciary Chair, a historic feat he accomplished in 2019.

Jerry also led the Congressional amicus briefs in both Windsor and Obergefell, the two seismic Supreme Court cases that ultimately precipitated marriage equality. For New Yorkers, that should come as little surprise: Jerry was the very first New York Congressmember to publicly support marriage equality. And visitors to Manhattan’s Stonewall National Monument now have a place to celebrate the bravery of those who threw those bricks against anti-LBGTQIA+ discrimination thanks to Jerry’s powerful advocacy. The LGBTQIA+ community could not ask for a stronger ally than Jerry Nadler.

The War on Drugs has devastated our country and disproportionately harmed communities of color. Jerry has led sweeping Congressional efforts to correct those systemic injustices by introducing the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which would federally decriminalize marijuana and ensure that no one can be discriminated against for a past marijuana conviction.

 The lingering, residual consequences of decades of racist drug policies cannot be understated, which is why Jerry has consistently centered restorative justice within marijuana reform. The MORE Act seeks to not only expunge prior marijuana convictions–it would create a fairer future by taxing legalized cannabis sales and using the proceeds to invest in the very communities most impacted by the War on Drugs. It is only by acknowledging the wrongs of the past–and taking action to correct that history of harm–that we can begin to repair decades of economic and racial inequality.