Call for Pelosi to step down — from female Dem in House
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, is again being called on to step down, but this time the request came from a fellow female Californian in a top congressional leadership position.
Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Whittier (Los Angeles County), the fifth-most-senior House Democrat, told C-SPAN Thursday: “I do think it’s time to pass a torch to a new generation of leaders, and I want to be a part of that transition. I think we have too many great members here that don’t always get the opportunities that they should.”
Sánchez, 49, was elected last year to be vice chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus, edging out Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, by two votes. She is the first woman of color to serve in a senior position.
While she singled out Pelosi, Sánchez’s comments were directed at the party’s entire House leadership team, which has been together for a decade. Other members are Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn, D-S.C. Pelosi, 77, has been in Congress for 30 years and in the House Democratic leadership for 14 years, including as the first female speaker of the House (2007-11).
The remarks reflect a growing frustration
among Democrats, who have been hemorrhaging seats at all levels of government nearly everywhere except California for nearly a decade, that the party doesn’t have a coherent, appealing message. Pelosi is stuck in the middle, seen as too progressive by heartland Democrats in swing districts and too much of a corporatist by progressive Democrats, where much of the party’s current energy lies.
Thus the calls for new leadership.
“They are all of the same generation, and again, their contributions to the Congress and the caucus are substantial,” Sánchez said. “But I think there comes a time when you need to pass that torch. And I think it’s time.”
Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, responded Thursday that she “enjoys wide support in the caucus and has always said she is not in Congress on a shift but on a mission. Leader Pelosi is focused on winning back the House, and anything else is a distraction from our path to the majority.”
Sánchez’s statement is the latest public grumbling about Pelosi’s leadership. Last year, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, challenged Pelosi for the top job, losing 134-63. In June, Ryan told MSNBC that “it’ll be very hard” for Democrats to win back the House with Pelosi in charge because she remains polarizing in swing districts.
But Sánchez’s remarks are “significant, as this is coming from a Democratic woman in the California delegation,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analyst publication about Congress. “Usually they have each other’s backs.”
However, Duffy said, “it begs the question: Who? Who would replace her?” While Duffy found it unlikely that Pelosi would be replaced before next year’s midterms, “Who knows what will happen in 2018?”
Sánchez’s comments were ”a pretty bold step, and it reflects pressure within the party that they can’t continue to do things the same way,” said Lisa García Bedolla, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.
However, Pelosi remains one of the party’s most powerful fundraisers, raising $567.9 million through the end of last year since entering House leadership. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Democratic Party-controlled committees raised millions more than Republicans in the past election cycle. It didn’t help: Democrats are still in the minority.
While Pelosi has a reputation as a San Francisco liberal, progressives feel she isn’t liberal enough. Even though she said she is a longtime supporter of single-payer health care, they want her to back Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal and embrace the party’s progressive wing more boldly.
“The significance (of Sánchez’s comments) is that there is a hunger from the rank-and-file for fresh leadership, for someone who is truly going to represent the zeitgeist of where the party is,” said Murshed Zaheed, political director at Credo Action, the progressive organization based in San Francisco. “That’s where the energy of the party is now.”