House minority leader Nancy Pelosi will remain as minority leader.
“We have work to do,” Pelosi said. “I have made a decision to submit my name to my colleagues to once again serve as the House Democratic leader.”
Standing in a blue suit flanked by female House members, newly elected and veterans, whom she called her “sisters,” Pelosi stressed the diversity of the Democratic caucus. “You are looking at the future,” Pelosi said, a “future of empowerment of women in America.”
Asked whether at 72 she should have stepped aside for a newer generation, Pelosi answered, “Next,” supported by boos from her colleagues at the question.
“You always ask that question except to Mitch McConnell,” Pelosi said, referring to the Senate Republican leader who is 70. “So you’re suggesting everybody (over 70) step aside?
“For a moment, let’s honor it as a legitimate question, although it’s quite offensive, you don’t realize it perhaps,” Pelosi said. She said she has striven for a decade to elect “newer and younger people,” especially women. She recounted how she waited first to finish raising her children before running for Congress in 1987, spending 14 years “getting the best experience” in diplomacy. But she said men who arrived in Congress at age 30 “had a jump on me” in the seniority ladder. She said she wanted to make sure younger women had a chance.
She said she made her decision just the day before on Tuesday, after consulting with her family and hearing a unified call from colleagues who told her “don’t even think about” stepping down. She also strongly suggested that President Obama asked her to stay. Asked the question directly, she said, “My conversations with the president are not ones that I share, OK?”
Pelosi said the job’s time commitments are enormous, that she can’t find a way to squeeze any more hours from the day. “You can only sleep so much less,” she said. Her children were supportive, but she said her brother Tommy had qualms.
“My brother Tommy was not as keen on it as my children were,” she said. “He wanted more time,” with her, she said, adding with a laugh, “My kids were busy.”
Pelosi said that while she didn’t retake the majority, 16 House Republicans were defeated, and 49 new Democrats elected. “After our victory at the polls, I wouldn’t think of walking away.”
In what might have been a Freudian slip, Pelosi declared, “We have the gavel,” immediately correcting herself with a laugh, “Excuse me we don’t…we have our own gavel,” because Democrats remain in the minority. Pelosi served as House Speaker for four years until losing the majority in a GOP landslide in 2010. On Nov. 6, Democrats netted at least seven seats, but failed to gain the net 25 Pelosi needed to become Speaker again.
Today is the 10th anniversary of Pelosi’s election as the first woman to lead a political party in Congress. Sources said she wants to continue to “play a crucial role in developing a responsible deficit reduction package – working with President Obama and our colleagues in the Senate – that protects Social Security and Medicare, the middle class and children, while asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”
The San Francisco Democrat played a key role in the debt-ceiling negotiations two summers ago, forcing the military spending cuts that are now part of the “fiscal cliff,” a combination of expiring tax cuts, including the Bush-era cuts, and big spending cuts including both defense and domestic, known as sequestration. Negotiations over the fiscal cliff started the day after the election that kept Washington in a status quo political division. That stasis paradoxically opened room for compromise on both sides. Pelosi wants to stick around for these huge negotiations that will set tax and entitlement (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) policy for years.
Pelosi has scheduled leadership elections for the week after Thanksgiving. She will have to be elected by House Democrats but that is merely a formality. No one has challenged her. She is beloved by liberals, now known as progressives, who make up the bulk of the caucus and consider her their champion. Liberal allies were pressing her to stay.
Pelosi’s decision is huge for San Francisco and California. Although in the minority, she sits atop the House leadership structure, has a direct line to the White House and plots Democratic strategy.
Pelosi’s decade in the House leadership is the longest tenure since Rep. Sam Rayburn, D-Tex., died in office in 1961. He has a House office building named after him.
Former rival Steny Hoyer, D-Md., now Pelosi’s loyal lieutenant, announced that he would make his own bid to remain at number two in the caucus leadership. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, is running against two opponents for the lowest step in the leadership ladder, vice chair.