Pelosi faces test from within her own ranks
Minority leader wants Democrats to take back the House; but some in caucus wonder whether she should lead them
WASHINGTON — As Congress barreled toward a government shutdown six days ago, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Californian who has led House Democrats for 15 years, gathered her troops to urge them to vote no on a spending bill that would keep the government open.
“We’re better when we stick together,” one lawmaker recalled her saying, as she implored unity around demands that Republican leaders commit to a vote on a measure to protect young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
But Democrats did not stick together; 73 of them voted for the spending bill, ensuring its passage, despite large-scale Republican defections that would have killed it. Pelosi now says she wanted it to pass all along.
“We had a great bill; we got everything,” she said the day after the vote, adding, “Republicans gave away the store.”
The mixed messages from the Democratic leader marked another turn in a political highwire act that has become one of the longest running in Washington. At 77, Pelosi remains a dominant figure in the Democratic Party, its highest-ranking woman in the capital and the only woman ever to rise to House speaker. She is also a polarizing figure — increasingly even with Democrats — and as the budget vote indicated, she may be losing what was once an iron grip.
As Congress turns to the difficult topic of immigration — the Senate began debate on the issue this week — some are wondering whether Pelosi is the person to lead her party on an issue that goes to the heart of Democratic divisions in the era of President Donald Trump.
Pelosi “didn’t have any cohesive message,” Rep. Patrick T. Mchenry, R-N.C. and the chief deputy whip, told reporters. “She negotiated the deal. Her team was in on it. She acknowledges it.
“And at the end, her team broke. So I see a fractured caucus on the other side.”
To liberals and minorities in the broad Democratic coalition, immigration and the defense of