Pelosi’s offer wins over potential speaker rival
An Ohio Democrat who had been considering a run for speaker against Rep. Nancy Pelosi decided against it Tuesday after the San Francisco congresswoman said she would name her to run a revived House panel on protecting voting rights.
Rep. Marcia Fudge’s name was floated last week by Democrats hoping to block Pelosi from being elected speaker when the party takes control of the House in January. Fudge said she was thinking about it.
Instead, on Tuesday, she endorsed Pelosi — leaving the anti-Pelosi Democrats with no announced contender for party leader with barely a week before the Democratic caucus selects a speaker nominee Nov. 28.
Fudge and Pelosi met in private last week, and on Tuesday, Pelosi said she intended to name Fudge to chair a revived House Administration subcommittee on elections. Republicans abolished the panel in 2013.
“The appalling conduct we have witnessed in Florida, Georgia and too many other places during this election have once again underscored the absolute necessity of this subcommittee’s establishment in the first place: to combat brazenly partisan efforts to turn back the clock and erect barriers to voting for historically disenfranchised communities,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, “will play a critical role in our Democratic majority’s efforts to ensure access to the ballot box for all Americans,” Pelosi said.
Fudge said in a statement that in addition to reviving the elections subcommittee, Pelosi “has also assured me that the most loyal voting bloc in the Democratic Party, black women, will have a seat at the decision-making table.”