Speaker battle sets off national campaign
Music legend Barbra Streisand retweeted a list of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s biggest legislative achievements. Film director Rob Reiner called her “the smartest, toughest strategic thinker in our party.” And tennis champ Martina Navratilova wondered aloud why Pelosi’s job was at risk but her Senate counterpart’s position was in no such trouble.
“Go figure,” Navratilova tweeted. “A man loses and keeps his place, a woman wins and gets booted?!?”
While congressional leadership fights have historically revolved around insular matters such as committee assignments and rules changes, the battle over who will lead the newly empowered House Democrats has exploded into a national political campaign.
At stake is not merely the House speakership, a job second in line to the presidency, but who will emerge as the country’s most high-profile counterpoint to President Donald Trump - who will set the strategy for investigating him, who will lead the opposition to his agenda, and who will be the face of the Democratic Party ahead of the 2020 campaign.
The country’s biggest unions, arguing that Pelosi is the best equipped to take on Trump, have lobbied Democrats to back her. Top donors have placed calls to lean on undecided members. Celebrities have weighed in as well, and prominent liberal activists have openly discussed fomenting primary challenges in the next campaign against the leaders of the anti-Pelosi opposition.
The battle lines have been drawn around identity, race and gender - issues that dominated this year’s midterm elections.
Some in the pro-Pelosi camp have presented her speakership bid as the next logical step in the #MeToo movement, particularly after an election in which a record number of women ran for and won seats in Congress, and with many activists still angry over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who denied allegations of sexual misconduct.
“There is some residual anger being worked out in the speakership race as a result,” said Shannon Coulter, who co-founded a large boycott of Trump-related businesses known as the Grab Your Wallet campaign, and has been advocating for Pelosi.
A potential challenge to Pelosi from an African-American lawmaker, Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, threatens to further divide Democrats along racial lines as Pelosi has moved quickly to solidify her support among prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Already the first woman to serve as speaker, Pelosi has said emphatically she will make history again and become the first lawmaker to reclaim the gavel since 1955 when the full House votes Jan. 3.
“I have overwhelming support in my caucus to be speaker of the House,” she asserted this past week as Democrats rolled up more wins to add to their majority.