Mondaire Jones

Mondaire Lamar Jones (born May 18, 1987) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a Representative from New York in the United States Congress from 2021 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York’s 17th congressional district for one term, during a significant period in American history marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, heightened debates over voting rights, and renewed national focus on racial justice. When first elected, he became, along with Ritchie Torres of New York’s 15th congressional district, one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress.

Jones was born on May 18, 1987, and raised in the suburban communities of Rockland County, New York, within the area he would later represent in Congress. He was brought up in modest circumstances by a single mother and his grandparents, experiences that later informed his emphasis on economic opportunity, civil rights, and social welfare policy. Growing up Black and gay in a working-class household in the Hudson Valley, he has often cited his early life as shaping his commitment to fighting systemic racism and discrimination and to expanding access to education and public services.

Jones pursued higher education and legal training before entering public life, becoming an attorney prior to his congressional career. He built his professional foundation as a lawyer, gaining experience that would later influence his approach to legislation and oversight. His legal background, combined with his personal experiences, positioned him to engage with complex policy issues, including voting rights, criminal justice reform, and federal administrative law, once he entered national politics.

Jones’s rise to national prominence began with his 2020 campaign for Congress in New York’s 17th congressional district, which at the time included most of central and northwestern Westchester County and all of Rockland County. He announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination against 16-term incumbent Nita Lowey. Three months after he entered the race, Lowey announced that she would not seek reelection, transforming the contest into an open-seat primary in a heavily Democratic district. Running on a platform that included support for Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, Jones also expressed support in June 2020 for calls to defund the police and stated that his goal in running for Congress was to “fight systemic racism.” In a crowded eight-way Democratic primary, he defeated attorney Adam Schleifer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas, State Senator David Carlucci, State Assemblyman David Buchwald, and others, winning 42 percent of the vote. The Associated Press called the race for Jones on July 14, 2020, three weeks after the June 23 primary, following delays in tabulating a large number of absentee ballots cast during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the 2020 general election, Jones faced Republican nominee Maureen McArdle Schulman, a former New York City Fire Department firefighter, along with several third-party candidates. The Associated Press called the race for Jones the day after the November election, confirming his election to the U.S. House of Representatives. His victory made him one of the two first openly gay Black members of Congress, and he was widely described as a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. As a member of the House of Representatives from 2021 to 2023, Jones participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his constituents in the 17th district. He advocated for progressive policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal and was an outspoken critic of systemic racism and police misconduct. In August 2020, before taking office, he filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to reverse changes to the United States Postal Service that he argued undermined the agency’s ability to deliver mail, including absentee ballots. He sued Trump and DeJoy “for violating the Constitution in their attempts to undermine the United States Postal Service and thwart free and fair elections this November.” In September 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero granted an injunction against the USPS requiring it to restore overtime and treat all mail-in ballots as first-class mail, a decision that Jones and his allies hailed as a protection of voting rights.

Jones’s service in Congress coincided with intense partisan conflict and major legislative efforts related to pandemic relief, infrastructure, and voting rights. As a freshman Democrat, he contributed to the legislative process during his single term in office, aligning himself with the progressive caucus and supporting measures aimed at expanding health care access, addressing climate change, and strengthening civil rights protections. Before his 2022 defeat, he was frequently characterized in national media as a prominent young progressive voice within the Democratic Party.

Following the 2020 redistricting cycle, New York’s congressional map was redrawn, significantly altering the boundaries of the 17th district. The new 17th district came to include the residence of Sean Patrick Maloney, the Democratic incumbent from the neighboring 18th district and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, while Jones’s own residence was no longer within the court-drawn 17th district. According to contemporary reporting, Maloney chose to run in the redrawn 17th district rather than in his longtime, more urban 18th district, a decision that was widely interpreted as displacing Jones. The move angered Jones and some of his allies, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who accused Maloney of prioritizing his own political survival over party unity. Subsequent reporting indicated that Maloney had privately offered to withdraw from the primary, but Jones declined that offer and chose to seek election elsewhere.

On May 20, 2022, Jones announced that he would not seek reelection in the redrawn 17th district and instead would run for Congress in New York’s 10th congressional district, located entirely in New York City—an area he had not previously represented and in which he had not lived. He moved to the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn before the primary, prompting accusations of “carpetbagging” from some critics. In the crowded Democratic primary for the 10th district, Jones finished third, behind winning candidate attorney Dan Goldman and runner-up State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, receiving 18.2 percent of the vote. His loss in the 2022 primary ended his initial tenure in Congress after one term.

In July 2023, Jones announced that he would seek to return to Congress by running again in New York’s 17th congressional district in the 2024 election, after relocating to Sleepy Hollow, a village within the district’s boundaries. In this campaign, he distanced himself from some of his earlier associations with progressivism, recalibrating his public image and policy emphasis while still running as a Democrat. His entry into the race effectively cleared the Democratic primary field and solidified his position as the party’s frontrunner, and by April 2024 he had raised over $3 million for his campaign. During this period, he became embroiled in controversy when, after the removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, he tweeted a photograph of McCarthy and Republican Representative Mike Lawler meeting with Jewish leaders in Rockland County with the caption, “Well that was a waste of time.” The post was condemned as antisemitic by Democratic Representatives Jared Moskowitz and Josh Gottheimer. Jones deleted the tweet and apologized for any misunderstanding; Moskowitz and Gottheimer subsequently removed their responses, and Moskowitz accepted Jones’s apology while emphasizing Jones’s record of opposing antisemitism. On Election Day in 2024, despite his fundraising advantage and national profile, Jones was defeated by Republican incumbent Mike Lawler in the general election for the 17th district.

Throughout his career, Mondaire Jones has remained a notable figure in contemporary American politics as an openly gay Black lawyer and former congressman who rose quickly within the Democratic Party, advocated for ambitious progressive reforms during his early tenure, and later navigated the shifting political and geographic landscape of New York’s congressional districts.