Pelosi to step down as party leader after two decades at the top : NPR

Table Of Content

• Nancy Pelosi book, ‘The Art of Power,’ will reflect on her career in public life
• Key things to know about the upcoming House Democratic leadership elections and Pelosi's possible successor
• Opposition to Iraq War troop surge of 2007
• Nancy Pelosi is piling into the "infrastructure backbone" of the AI movement
• Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, says she’ll step down as Democratic leader

Democrats gave Pelosi a standing ovation as the final tally was announced, while the Republican side of the chamber was nearly empty. The vote took over two-and-a-half hours, an unusually long time as lawmakers were divided into groups to reduce health risks. Even those who previously clashed with Pelosi praise her record of steering her often divided caucus through difficult times, with little room for error. Her decision comes as no surprise on Capitol Hill, and is consistent with a promise she made four years ago to self term limit after Democrats won the majority in 2018 and she became the first speaker since the legendary Sam Rayburn to claim the speakership twice. There has been a quiet desire among rank and file Democrats to elect a younger slate of leaders to replace Pelosi, who is 82, and the two other top House Democratic leaders, Rep Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., who are also in their 80s. Other than sending a team of House impeachment managers to argue the Democrats' case, Pelosi could do little as Senate Republicans voted against allowing additional witnesses and expressed the belief that the president's conduct did not warrant removal from office.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will seek reelection in 2024 - USA TODAY

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will seek reelection in 2024.

Posted: Fri, 08 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Nancy Pelosi book, ‘The Art of Power,’ will reflect on her career in public life

Pelosi's decision is expected to kick off a wave of generational change in Democratic leadership. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, 83, also announced Thursday that he will not seek another term in leadership. And Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, 82, will not seek any of the top three spots in leadership, but has indicated that he plans to stay on in an “advisory” role. She led the two House impeachments of Trump, the first with some hesitation about how it would divide the nation for Trump's role in pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Biden family, and the second with great enthusiasm for Trump's role in inciting a Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol during the counting of electoral votes to secure Biden's 2020 presidential victory. Democrats swept control of the House by making big promises to change the way Washington worked.

Key things to know about the upcoming House Democratic leadership elections and Pelosi's possible successor

It is unclear which position Jayapal would run for, but Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar are all considered the favorites for the party’s top three jobs. "Let's spend the day at this moment continuing to process the historic nature of Speaker Pelosi and the opportunity that we've all had to serve with her. And it's been an amazing experience," Jeffries said. Asked by CNN when he'll formally announce he's running for Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said now is the moment to celebrate Nancy Pelosi's legacy as speaker. House Democrats appear likely to choose New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, 52, to succeed Pelosi as leader, though Democrats won’t vote until Nov. 30. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as speaker while surrounded by her own grandchildren and the children of members of Congress during the first session of the 111th Congress on Jan. 6, 2009.

Interim House speaker's first order is to boot Nancy Pelosi out of Capitol office - Los Angeles Times

Interim House speaker's first order is to boot Nancy Pelosi out of Capitol office.

Posted: Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Opposition to Iraq War troop surge of 2007

From the day she first took the gavel on the House floor, she knew she had earned her place in history as a female political icon. When Democrats lost the House in the 2022 midterms, Pelosi finally did what most Democrats expected her to do a decade earlier and step down from party leadership, and has vowed to serve in the House. She was one of Bush's most prominent critics in Congress during a scandal-laden era on Capitol Hill coupled with a worsening Iraq War, the fallout of the administration's mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and a near economic collapse during the 2008 financial crisis. "God bless him. Bless his heart. The president of the United States, a total failure. Losing all credibility with the American people, on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject," she said of Bush in 2008. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was re-elected speaker of the House on Sunday despite a shrinking Democratic majority in the House.

Nancy Pelosi is piling into the "infrastructure backbone" of the AI movement

Her colleagues rewarded her by making her speaker, a position she used to highlight America’s struggles in the Iraq War and the Bush administration’s role in the 2008 housing and finance industry crisis. One of the pinnacles of Pelosi's career would come in 2006, when she led House Democrats to reclaim a majority from Republicans who had controlled the chamber since the 1994 GOP wave election. The nation had soured on the war in Iraq and a series of lobbying and ethical scandals gave Democrats a platform to campaign against a "culture of corruption" in Washington, D.C., with popular promises to "drain the swamp." "To take action otherwise — that is, to unconstitutionally insert Congress into the center of the presidential election process — would amount to stealing power from the people and the states," said seven House Republicans, including some of the House's most conservative members. "It would, in effect, replace the electoral college with Congress, and in so doing strengthen the efforts of those on the left who are determined to eliminate it or render it irrelevant."

In their places Pelosi appointed Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who joined the seven Democrats on the committee, which began its investigation in July 2021. In the meantime, Pelosi shepherded House passage of a massive bill aimed at restoring and improving U.S. infrastructure despite the Senate’s failure to approve the Build Back Better Act. Pelosi had originally refused to allow the House vote on the infrastructure bill until after Senate passage of Biden’s ambitious plan for expanding the country’s social safety net and combating climate change. Pelosi led Democrats to their first majority in a dozen years when they caught a blue wave in the 2006 midterm elections.

With newfound power and a Democratic Senate, they delivered an economic stimulus package, the so-called Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulations and the centerpiece of Obama’s agenda, the Affordable Care Act. Pelosi was particularly instrumental in squeezing the latter program into law, negotiating among centrist Blue Dog Democrats, her party’s dominant progressive wing and the bishops of her own Roman Catholic religion. The race to succeed Pelosi, as Democrats settle back into the minority after modest losses in this month’s midterm elections, is expected to feature a series of next-generation candidates.

In an interview on February 15, 2007, Pelosi said that Bush consistently said he supports a diplomatic resolution to differences with Iran "and I take him at his word". As speaker, Pelosi remained the leader of the House Democrats, as the speaker is considered the leader of the majority caucus. But by tradition, she did not normally participate in debate and almost never voted on the floor, though she had the right to do so as a member of the House. She was also not a member of any House committees, also in keeping with tradition. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to local health officials. The Israeli government has said that about 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, with about 250 hostages taken, though it's unclear how many are still alive.

As she and other congressional leaders took refuge from rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Pelosi coordinated with Vice President Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., then the Senate majority leader, and law enforcement to ensure the building would be cleared and Biden’s election would be certified that day. A small, but vocal, faction of Democrats initially worked to derail Pelosi’s bid to become the next speaker following the 2018 midterm elections, but she ultimately secured the votes needed to reclaim the title.

As The New York Times once pointed out, Pelosi publicly called him a moron while McCarthy got in trouble for joking about hitting her with the speaker's gavel. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she respects Speaker Mike Johnson even if she strongly disagrees with his politics, a sign that the top Republican holds some sway with congressional Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was last to speak for the proposition and – following a long day of engagements – she began her speech by accusing modern populism of upholding “Ethno-nationalism”. The blow-by-blow reconstruction of the assault on democracy is contained in Pelosi in the House, produced and directed by the speaker’s daughter, film-maker Alexandra Pelosi, broadcast on HBO on Tuesday. Some of the behind-the-scenes footage was seen in edited form during the House January 6 committee hearings. With little margin for error, Pelosi suffered only a handful of Democratic defections in her latest display of her ability to line up support, and no opponent challenged her for the job.

She participated in the passage of the Biden administration's landmark bills, including the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and the Respect for Marriage Act. In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans narrowly regained control of the House for the new Congress, ending her tenure as speaker. On November 29, 2022, the Steering and Policy Committee of the House Democratic Caucus named Pelosi "Speaker Emerita". Expert assessments of Pelosi's two tenures as speaker have generally considered her to have had a very strong grasp on power in the Democratic majorities and to have been highly effective at the job. Pelosi noted she did not object against student demonstrations on campuses but did object to the antisemitism she alleged was present in some of them.

“When children are being murdered, and hospitals are being bombed, we will not sit down and be quiet whilst these people are given platforms. The protesters wore T-shirts with the logo from Youth Demand, the Just Stop Oil-linked activist group that spray-painted the Labour Party’s head office in central London with red paint earlier this month in protest against the war in Gaza. Greene recently added two more Republican supporters, Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. She added, "If you're just sitting in the back bench, and then they tap you to become the speaker, they shouldn't complain when you don't know how to be speaker from day one." Pence informs Pelosi and Schumer by phone that Congress will be able to reconvene.

Colleagues have long pointed to her upbringing in old-school city machine politics — she kept a “favor file” for her father — to explain what often seemed like an innate sense of how to reward, punish and cajole them to win support in leadership elections and on the legislative battlefield. She announced her decision just a day after NBC News and other news outlets projected that Republicans had flipped control of the House in last week’s midterm election, sending Pelosi and the Democrats back to the minority. As speaker, Pelosi served as a critical ally to the nation's first Black president, Obama, and together enacted into law one of their signature legislative achievements, the landmark 2010 Affordable Care Act that inched the nation closer to health care coverage for all Americans. Hers has been a career of firsts — the first woman to be elected speaker of the House — and she occupied a particularly high-profile position during some of the most pivotal and, often volatile, moments in recent American political history. Pelosi is seen watching on TV Donald Trump’s incendiary speech to his supporters, getting rushed out of the US Capitol building and making calls to Vice-President Mike Pence and other officials from the Fort McNair military base, where congressional leaders took refuge from the mob.