Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 1987, representing the California district including much of the city of San Francisco, and went on to become one of the most influential Democrats in Congress. In 2007 she was elected Speaker of the House, making history as the first woman to hold that position. She was heavily involved in passing major legislation under the administration of President Barack Obama before Democrats lost control of the House in 2011. Continuing to serve as the Democratic leader in the House, she regained the speakership in 2019. Pelosi actively opposed President Donald Trump, including overseeing two impeachments, and supported President Joe Biden, helping to pass several landmark bills. After Democrats lost the House in the 2022 midterm elections Pelosi stepped down as party leader but maintained her seat in Congress.

Early Life

Pelosi was born Nancy D'Alesandro in March 1940, the daughter of prominent Congressman Thomas D'Alesandro and his wife Annunciata. Nancy was the youngest of the family's seven children and the only girl. At the time of her birth, her father had already served as a member of the Maryland State Senate and was beginning his career in the US House of Representatives. He spent five terms in Congress before becoming Mayor of Baltimore in 1947.

Nancy attended Catholic high school in Baltimore, and graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame in 1958. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Trinity College in nearby Washington DC in 1962. The following year, she married Paul Pelosi, whom she met while taking courses at Georgetown University. The couple moved to New York, where Nancy volunteered with the local Democratic committee.

Political Participation

In 1969 the family moved to San Francisco, where Pelosi volunteered once again with the Democratic Party. In 1976, when former California governor Jerry Brown was running for president, Pelosi called upon her family and political connections back in Maryland, and many credited Brown's victory in the Maryland primary to her efforts from across the country. She was made chair of the northern district of the California Democratic Party in 1977.

In 1981 Pelosi became the state chair of the California Democratic Party. Her home city, San Francisco, hosted the 1984 Democratic National Convention. She gained national attention during this period, due to her role as chair of the Democratic National Convention Host Committee.

In 1985 Pelosi switched her political focus to fundraising when she served as finance chair for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In this position she was responsible for bringing in close to $13 million dollars for Democratic Senate candidates. It was partially due to her fundraising and organizing abilities that, in 1986, the Democrats regained a majority in the Senate.

In addition to politics, Pelosi spent time during the mid-1980s working as a public relations counselor, and it was in this capacity that she learned to gauge public opinion and market candidates to the voting public. In 1987 Pelosi's longtime friend Sala Burton, the Democratic representative for the California's 5th congressional district, which included San Francisco, died halfway through her term. Though there was much political scrambling and maneuvering to find a candidate to fill the vacant seat, Burton had endorsed Pelosi shortly before her death. For the first time, Pelosi was raising funds and campaigning for herself, rather than someone else. In a special election to fill Burton's term, Pelosi won her first campaign for public office. She would continue to hold a seat in the San Francisco area over the next several decades, with redistricting placing her in California's 8th district from 1993 to 2013 and subsequently in the 12th district.

Congressional Record

Pelosi's politics had always been in line with her constituents in the San Francisco area. Firmly entrenched in the left of the political spectrum, she campaigned for LGBTQ rights, abortion access, health care for the poor, and human rights around the world. Taking a seat in a Congress composed of more moderate Democrats from other less liberal parts of the country was a balancing act for Pelosi. While she easily won reelection term after term, making sure she was not shunned within the party for some of her more controversial causes took considerably more work. In 1991, when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein marched into neighboring Kuwait, Pelosi opposed military intervention, citing environmental concerns over the oil fires that would result from a prolonged bombing campaign.

At times, Pelosi's ideology put her at odds with members of her own party. Throughout her terms in Congress she was vehemently opposed to normal trade relations with China, citing that country's extensive human rights violations. In 1996, the chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army, who had ordered the massacre of democratic protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989, came to Washington DC on an official visit. Although most of her fellow Democrats in Congress attended the reception in his honor, Pelosi refused, as a statement of her opposition.

Pelosi had a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, but her big political break came in October 2001, when she was elected the Democratic Party whip. With this position, she became the party's second in command, and was distinguished as the highest-ranking woman in Congress. The whip is responsible for strategizing with party members to get legislation passed that furthers the party goals. One of the first tests of her ability in this role was the campaign finance reform bill that Congress passed in 2001. Pelosi worked with members of the House and the Senate through every new amendment and voting shift kept the bill from being torpedoed by Republicans

In the November 2002 congressional elections, Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, giving the Republicans a 24-seat majority. Former Democratic Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (MO) left his post to concentrate on his 2004 presidential bid, and Pelosi worked hard to gain support from her fellow Democrats for the party leadership job. Despite opposition from Representative Martin Frost of Tennessee, Pelosi was elected House Minority Leader on November 14, 2002. She was the first woman to hold such a rank in the history of the US Congress, and also the first woman to be elected to the top post in a major political party.

In November 2006 Pelosi was chosen as the first female Speaker of the House after the Democratic Party regained majority of control in Congress, continuing her rise in national prominence. She continued to oppose many policies under the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, including the Iraq war. After Democrat Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Pelosi became an important figure in supporting his efforts. Perhaps most notably, she was an ardent and vocal backer of Obama's health care reform initiative. Following the passage of the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010, Pelosi's work was praised by Obama, who called her one of the best speakers in the history of the US Congress.

Following the November 2010 midterm elections, the Republican Party regained control of Congress, forcing Pelosi to step down as Speaker of the House. She was succeeded as Speaker by Republican representative John Boehner. Nonetheless, Pelosi was reelected to her seat in the US House of Representatives in 2010, 2014, and 2018 and retained her party leadership role. As the House minority leader, Pelosi worked to marshal Democratic votes in that chamber and was instrumental in passing a temporary budget in late 2017 to avoid a government shutdown. She also became an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump after his election in 2016. In February 2018, Republican Senate leadership proposed a budget deal that did not include any provisions for undocumented immigrants who had gained temporary legal protections through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump had recently ended. Pelosi spoke for eight hours about the necessity of implementing more permanent protections for DACA recipients, setting a record for the longest speech given on the House floor.

When Democrats gained regained control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, Pelosi was renominated as Speaker. In the Democratic caucus's vote on her nomination, thirty-two representatives voted against her, leading to concerns that the Republicans might manage to elect a Republican Speaker if the dissenting Democrats could not be convinced to vote for Pelosi. To win over Democratic representatives who wanted a change in leadership, Pelosi pledged to limit her time as Speaker to four years. On January 3, 2019, Pelosi earned the needed votes, with 220, and was elected Speaker for the 116th Congress. At the time of her election, the federal government was in the middle of what became known as the federal government shutdown of 2018–19. Pelosi opposed the Trump administration's use of the shutdown to pressure House Democrats to fund construction of the US-Mexico border wall, his pet project. Pelosi rejected Trump's offer to extend temporary protections for undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in wall construction funds. She also did not invite Trump to give the State of the Union Address from the House during the shutdown, which ended on January 25, 2019, after Trump relented and signed a bill to reopen the government for three weeks.

In the spring and summer of 2019, after Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III issued his report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and refused to exonerate Trump of criminal conduct, Pelosi resisted calls from Democratic presidential candidates and representatives to impeach Trump on charges of obstruction of justice. She argued against filing articles of impeachment out of concern that an unsuccessful impeachment could place Democratic control of the House at risk and be a liability for Democratic presidential candidates in 2020.

The situation changed, however, after a House inquiry found that during a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump had pressured Zelensky to investigate Trump's Democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential race, former vice president Joe Biden, and then obstructed the House inquiry into the matter. In December 2019, Pelosi and other Democratic House leaders decided to charge Trump with two articles of impeachment—abuse of power and obstruction of Congress—and the House approved of both charges in a near party-line vote. In January 2020 the House submitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate, which ultimately voted to acquit Trump on both articles the following month in another mostly party-line decision.

Democrats maintained their House majority the 2020 general election and elected Pelosi to be Speaker of the 117th Congress in January 2021. Although Biden defeated Trump in the presidential election, Trump refused to concede. On January 6, 2021, a group of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol building in an unsuccessful attempt to keep Trump in power by preventing Congress from certifying President-elect Biden's win. On January 10, Pelosi gave an ultimatum to Vice President Mike Pence: if Pence did not invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to remove Trump from office, she would call a House vote to impeach the president. Pence declined to do so, and the House voted to impeach Trump again on January 13, on a single article charging incitement of insurrection. Biden's inauguration went forward, though with heightened security measures. The Senate acquitted Trump that February.

Pelosi helped pass substantial legislation in line with the policies of President Biden, such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and the Respect for Marriage Act of 2022. She also made headlines in 2022 when she announced that she planned on embarking on a diplomatic visit to Taiwan sometime that year. Highly controversial due to rising international tensions with China (who has long claimed ownership of Taiwan), the trip prompted China to impose sanctions against Taiwan and conduct military drills in the immediate area surrounding the island nation. Pelosi arrived on August 2, 2022, where she reaffirmed the United States' support for democracy in Taiwan. Pelosi then left the country the following day, and China's military operations in the area concluded one week later. Following the visit, China expanded its military presence in the Taiwan Strait.

Pelosi's second stint as Speaker of the House ended after Democrats narrowly lost control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. Later in November 2022 she announced that she would step down as party leader, though she planned to continue serving in Congress. Soon after, Hakeem Jeffries was elected to succeed her as leader of the House Democratic Caucus.

Personal Life

Pelosi and her husband, Paul, had five children together. They established their primary residence in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, and also maintained an apartment in Georgetown when Congress is in session. In October 2022 the couple's San Francisco home was invaded by a suspect allegedly seeking to kidnap Pelosi, who was not home at the time, and subsequently attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.

Throughout her career Pelosi often earned scrutiny as one of the wealthiest members of Congress. Much of her wealth was related to her husband's business career, which included significant stock investments and property holdings.

Bibliography

"Biography." Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, pelosi.house.gov/biography/biography. Accessed 29 Dec. 2022.

Davis, Julie Hirschfeld. "Nancy Pelosi Elected Speaker as Democrats Take Control of House." The New York Times, 3 Jan. 2019. Accessed 7 Feb. 2019.

Johnson, Ted. "Democrats Nominate Nancy Pelosi as Next Speaker, but 32 Members Vote No." Variety, 28 Nov. 2018, variety.com/2018/politics/news/democrats-nominate-nancy-pelosi-speaker-1203038974/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

Kroll, Andy. "The Staying Power of Nancy Pelosi." The Atlantic, 11 Sept. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-staying-power-of-nancy-pelosi/440022/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2018.

Lee, Yimou, and Sarah Wu. "Pelosi Arrives in Taiwan Vowing U.S. Commitment; China Enraged." Reuters, 2 Aug. 2022, www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pelosi-expected-arrive-taiwan-tuesday-sources-say-2022-08-02/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.

Mascaro, Lisa. "Pelosi to Step Down From House Leadership, Stay in Congress." AP, 17 Nov. 2022, apnews.com/article/nancy-pelosi-house-future-plans-updates-3839ff31c605efa0ec1ee4ff004b72d2. Accessed 29 Dec. 2022.

"Nancy Pelosi Fast Facts." CNN, 17 Nov. 2022, www.cnn.com/2013/03/01/us/nancy-pelosi-fast-facts/index.html. Accessed 29 Dec. 2022.