LASTING IMPRINT
Nancy Pelosi, most powerful woman in U.S. politics, exits House leadership role
WASHINGTON — There are two searing scenes of Nancy Pelosi confronting the violent extremism that spilled into the open late in her storied political career. In one, she’s uncharacteristically shaken in a TV interview as she recounts the brutal attack on her husband.
In the other, the House speaker rips open a package of beef jerky with her teeth during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, while on the phone with Mike Pence, firmly instructing the Republican vice president how to stay safe from
the mob that came for them both. “Don’t let anybody know where you are,” she said.
That Pelosi, composed and in command at a time of chaos, tart but parochial-school proper at every turn, is the one whom lawmakers have obeyed, tangled with, respected and feared for two decades.
She is the most powerful woman in American politics and one of the nation’s most consequential legislative leaders — through times of war, financial turmoil, a pandemic and an assault on democracy.
Now, at 82, in the face of political loss, she decided her era was ending.
Pelosi stood in the well of a rapt House on Thursday and announced she would not seek a Democratic leadership position in the Congress that convenes in January, when Republicans take control of the chamber. Pelosi, who will remain a member of the House, took her time revealing the news, recalling her first visit to the Capitol at age 6 with her congressman father.
“Never would I have thought that I would go from homemaker to House speaker,” she allowed. On
her future, she told reporters: “I like to dance, I like to sing. There’s a life out there, right?”
Polarizing and combative, Pelosi still forged compromises with Republicans on historic legislation.
Even former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, a self-described “partisan conservative who thinks that most of her positions are insane,” said Pelosi had a “remarkable” run. This, from a fellow “troublemaker with a gavel,” as she called herself. He flamed out; she didn’t.
“Totally dominant,” Gingrich said of her in an interview. “She’s clearly one of the strongest speakers in history. She has shown enormous perseverance and discipline.”
Women took over more panels
When Pelosi entered Congress in 1987, men chaired all the House committees and no women had led one since the 1970s, by the reckoning of House historians. In the 1970s, the most popular committee
chair appointment for women in the House was to lead the Select Committee on the House Beauty Shop before that panel vanished at the end of that decade.
Under Pelosi, women took over more panels and gained weightier assignments while the speaker worked to advance authority for minorities in her ranks as well as their numbers.
“She led in a way that did set the stage for other women and open the doors for their potential,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Woman and Politics, at Rutgers University. “Things have moved. And she is a big part of that.”
Force in foreign policy
Pelosi went beyond domestic politics to stake a claim to congressional influence in foreign policy on behalf of the House.
Well beyond her annual Mother’s Day visits to women in combat overseas, Pelosi traveled to foreign leaders with a mission to project
U.S. stability.
She traveled secretly to Kyiv early in the Russia-Ukraine war and caused some grief in the Biden administration with her diplomatically dicey visit to Taiwan this year.
Regular GOP target
In 2007, Republican President George W. Bush opened his speech as the “first president to begin his State of the Union with these words: Madam Speaker.” He grinned, she beamed, an ovation followed.
Although she maintained a genial relationship with the Bush family — especially the elder George Bush — Republican campaigns seized on her as the perfect foil early on and never let go. She was pilloried as “Darth Nancy” in the 2006 campaign and the villainization got much uglier as the years passed.
The Trump speech
Pelosi was a stickler for institutional decorum. But not always.
She ripped up her copy of President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union speech, on the dais behind him, on camera. The theatrical protest raised questions about whether Pelosi, in that moment, had become what she despised in Trump.
Afterward, she said she had extended her “hand of friendship” to him when he arrived but he did not take it. “He looked a little sedated,” she added. As she read quickly through her copy of the speech while Trump delivered it, she stewed over the lines and decided to take action.
“He has shredded the truth in his speech, shredded the Constitution in his conduct — I shredded the address,” she said crisply. “Thank you all very much.”
The do-lots Congress
Pelosi honed the art of aiming high, then disappointing one faction of her party or another without losing her core of support. But many are the major achievements. She settled for an “Obamacare” bill that did not give everyone the option of government health insurance, but did, over time, fundamentally expand access to health care.
During the Great Recession, with the 2008 election looming, she settled for a Bush-era stimulus package that essentially bailed out Wall Street.
And Bono, who worked with Pelosi over the years on combating AIDS, said in a statement to the AP after a performance Thursday night in Scotland: “When the story of the end of AIDS is written, Nancy Pelosi’s name will stand out in boldface.”
Vigorous at 80
Because of the speaker’s longevity, many up-and-comers in the party have discovered they could only rise so far before hitting the Pelosi ceiling. The top job simply hadn’t been available.
Pelosi faced none of the questions about sharpness or stamina that dog Biden, 80 on Sunday. She still races around Congress, in high heels, at a pace that people half her age can find hard to match.