Former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones is seeking to return to Congress.

The Democrat announced Wednesday morning he will run for New York's 17th Congressional District seat in 2024, currently held by Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

“I’ve never been Washington’s choice. It’s because I stand up to corruption,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “I battle with Republicans trying to overthrow our democracy & ban abortion, even as I push my party to fight harder for working people. I’m running to finish the work I began.”

Jones was elected to the former 17th District in 2020, which is now made up of Putnam and Rockland counties, as well as a sliver of Dutchess County and a much larger chunk of Westchester County. After New York’s messy redistricting process last year, Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, then the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, opted to run in the new 17th District rather than seek re-election in the 18th District that he had represented for 10 years.

Rather than challenge Maloney, Jones decided to run in New York's 10th District and ultimately lost that Democratic primary to Dan Goldman. Maloney ultimately lost the general election in November to Lawler. 

Since leaving Congress, Jones was appointed to a six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Jones will face Liz Whitmer Gereghty, a small businesswoman and former school board member who is also the sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for the Democratic nomination.

The 17th District is part of a trifecta of House races in the Hudson Valley that were close in the 2022 midterm elections. Since Republicans flipped two of those seats, and with the GOP having a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, the region will likely see major support and attention from both parties next year as control of the chamber could be in play once again.

"No matter how hard Mondaire Jones tries to run away from his previous record in Congress - just like he ran away from his constituents in 2022 - nothing will change the fact that Mondaire Jones is a radical progressive who is endorsed by AOC and 'the Squad,' supports the defund the police movement and New York's disastrous cashless bail law, and voted for the reckless spending that saddled us with record high inflation," said Chris Russell, a spokesman for Rep. Lawler. "Congressman Lawler, on the other hand, will earn re-election by continuing to deliver on his promise to be the bipartisan problem solver who Hudson Valley residents want representing them in Washington."