Mondaire Jones serves as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He is also a former CNN political contributor and Congressman for New York’s 17th District.
Prior to elected office, Mr. Jones clerked for Judge Andrew Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, where he practiced commercial law and white-collar criminal defense. At Davis Polk, Mr. Jones was awarded by The Legal Aid Society of New York for his pro bono service investigating claims of employment discrimination and helping families defrauded during the Great Recession recover funds. Subsequently, he served as a litigator in the Westchester County Attorney’s Office.
Mr. Jones is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School. After graduating Stanford, he worked in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy. There, he vetted candidates for federal judgeships and worked to reform our criminal legal system to make it more fair and equitable. At Harvard Law School, he was a senior editor on the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and served as the head research assistant to Professor Charles Ogletree.
In Congress, as a high-profile member of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jones championed civil rights and civil liberties, as well as defended our democracy. In addition to being an intellectual and legislative leader on voting rights, democracy, and Supreme Court reform, Mr. Jones successfully passed legislation that rescued the American economy at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, made historic investments in infrastructure, capped the price of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients, and took historic climate action. His bill with Rep. Jerry Nadler called the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects the rights of same-sex and interracial couples to get married, is now law. And he secured $37 million for 24 different community projects throughout New York’s 17th Congressional District, from improving public housing units in Peekskill to creating the first-ever LGBTQ+ community health center in the Hudson Valley in Nyack.
In the 117th Congress, Mr. Jones served as the youngest member of House leadership and was named by Axios as the most legislatively active freshman member of Congress. He made history when elected as the nation’s first openly gay, Black member of Congress.
Education
Stanford University, BA, 2009
Harvard University, JD, 2013
Admissions
New York
Education
Stanford University, BA, 2009
Harvard University, JD, 2013
Admissions
New York