Jerry Nadler

Jerrold Lewis Nadler (born June 13, 1947) is an American lawyer and politician who since 2023 has served as the U.S. representative for NY's 12th congressional district, which includes central Manhattan.

He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1965 (where his debate team partner was the future philosopher of science Alexander Rosenberg, and Dick Morris managed his successful campaign for student government president).

Nadler received his B.A. in 1969 from Columbia University, where he became a brother of Alpha Epsilon Pi.

After graduating from Columbia, Nadler worked as a legal assistant and clerk, first with Corporation Trust Company in 1970, then the Morris, Levin and Shein law firm in 1971.

In 1972, Nadler was a legislative assistant in the New York State Assembly before becoming shift manager at the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation, a position he held until becoming a law clerk with Morgan, Finnegan, Pine, Foley and Lee in 1976.

While attending evening courses at the Fordham University School of Law, Nadler was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1976.

Nadler was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1977 to 1992, sitting in the 182nd, 183rd, 184th, 185th, 186th, 187th, 188th and 189th New York State Legislatures.

He completed his J.D. at Fordham in 1978.

In 1985, Nadler ran for Manhattan Borough President.

He lost the Democratic primary to David Dinkins.

In the general election, he ran as the New York Liberal Party nominee, and again lost to Dinkins.

In 1989, he ran for New York City Comptroller, but lost to Kings County D.A. and former U.S. representative Elizabeth Holtzman in the Democratic primary.

Nadler founded and chaired the Assembly Subcommittee on Mass Transit and Rail Freight.

A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to Congress in 1992 to represent the state's NY's 17th congressional district, which was renumbered as the NY's 8th congressional district from 1993 to 2013 and as the NY's 10th congressional district from 2013 to 2023.

In 1992, Democratic representative Ted Weiss was expected to run for reelection in the 8th district, which had been renumbered from the 17th after the 1990 U.S. Census.

However, Weiss died a day before the primary election, and Nadler was nominated to replace Weiss.

Despite earlier efforts to impeach George W. Bush and more recent requests from fellow representatives, he did not schedule hearings on impeachments for Bush or Dick Cheney, saying in 2007 that doing so would be pointless and would distract from the presidential election.

In an interview in Washington Journal on July 15, 2008, Nadler reiterated the timing argument and endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, saying that electing an honest candidate would create a greater chance of prosecuting those in the Bush administration who had committed war crimes.

Ten days later, after Representative Dennis Kucinich submitted articles of impeachment, the full House Judiciary Committee held hearings regarding the process covered solely by C-SPAN.

A top Ronald Reagan Justice Department official, Bruce Fein, was among those testifying for impeachment.

On a similar note, referring to hypothetical impeachment proceedings against President Trump that would begin in the newly elected Democrat-controlled House, he suggested a "three-pronged test" that "would make for a legitimate impeachment proceeding".

Such a test would include "the offenses in question must be so grave", and "the evidence so clear", that "even some supporters of the president concede that impeachment is necessary".

If it was determined that the president committed an impeachable offense, lawmakers must consider if such an offense would "rise to the gravity where it's worth putting the country through the trauma of an impeachment proceeding," Nadler said.

The district was renumbered the 10th district after the 2010 Census.

A Republican has not represented this district or its predecessors in over a century.

From 2013 to 2023, Nadler's 10th district included Manhattan's west side from the Upper West Side down to Battery Park, including the World Trade Center; the Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen and Greenwich Village; and parts of Brooklyn, such as Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Borough Park, and Bay Ridge.

It includes many of New York City's most popular tourist attractions, including the Statue of Liberty, New York Stock Exchange, Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.

In 2022, Nadler defeated his longtime House colleague Carolyn Maloney in a three-way Democratic primary with 56% of the vote after he and Maloney were both drawn into the NY's 12th congressional district during redistricting.

Nadler is the ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary and is a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure committees.

In his 17th term in Congress, Nadler is the dean of New York's U.S. House delegation.

Before his election to Congress, he served eight terms as a New York State Assemblyman.

Nadler was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, the son of Miriam and Emanuel "Max" Nadler.

Nadler described his father as a "dyed-in-the-wool Democrat" who lost his poultry farm in New Jersey when the younger Nadler was seven.

In his youth, he attended Crown Heights Yeshiva; he is the only member of Congress with a yeshiva education.

He ran in two elections on Election Day– a special election to serve the rest of Weiss's eighth term in the old 17th district, and a regular election for a full two-year term in the new 8th district.

He won both handily, and has been reelected 15 times with very little opposition.

Nadler chaired the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2023.

On September 24, 2019, Representative Lance Gooden proposed a resolution to remove Nadler from his position as chair of the House Judiciary committee, accusing him of unlawfully beginning impeachment proceedings before the House had given the committee authorization.

Nadler served as an impeachment manager (prosecutor) during the first impeachment trial of President Trump.

In 2020, Nadler faced a primary challenge from activist Lindsey Boylan; the election was the first time in his tenure that Nadler received less than 75% of the vote.