A child under the age of six entered the US Congress building, and she never imagined that she would be president of one of its two houses. After two decades of influential parliamentary and political work, Nancy Pelosi decided, Thursday, to end her career as the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives.
“I will never forget the first time I saw the Capitol. It was on a cold January day when I was 6 years old,” Pelosi said in her stepping down speech.
She, her siblings, and her father, Thomas D’Alessandro Jr., were on their way to the Capitol, for her father to be sworn into his fifth term in Congress from Maryland.
When I first entered Congress in 1987 there were 12 women in the Democratic caucus and now there are 90. “And I want to see more,” said Pelosi, who has often been described as the most powerful woman in American politics.
“I will not run for the Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” said Pelosi, who led the Democrats’ battles against former Republican President Donald Trump, after the Republicans won the majority in the House of Representatives.
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political family
Pelosi was born on March 26, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland, and comes from a political family that worked in public affairs, as her father, the late Thomas D’Alessandro Jr., was Mayor of Baltimore for twelve years, after representing the city for five terms in Congress. Her brother, Thomas D’Alessandro III, also served as Mayor of Baltimore.
Graduated from Trinity College in Washington, DC. She and her husband, Paul Pelosi, a native of San Francisco, have five adult children and nine grandchildren.
For 35 years, House Speaker Pelosi has represented San Francisco, California’s 12th District, in Congress.
Pelosi is the 52nd Speaker of the House, having made history in 2007 when she was elected the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House.
And in 2019, she had another date with history when she regained her second position in the presidency of the Council – as the first person to do so in more than six decades.
Lead the battles of the Democrats
Pelosi has been the chief architect of legislation under two Democratic administrations, including the Affordable Care Act and the American Rescue Plan, according to the US House of Representatives website.
Pelosi has led House Democrats since 2003, marking the longest bipartisan term since the legendary tenure of Sam Rayburn, a Texas Democrat.
Over those 20 years, she has overseen the passage of some of the most important legislative achievements of the past half-century. It raised more than $1.2 billion for the party, according to The Hill.
Trump challenge
A month after her 2018 re-election to office, her most notable moment was the way she applauded Trump’s speech, according to a BBC report.
Most controversial was her tearing up of a copy of Trump’s “State of the Union” address to Congress. After being accused of disrespect, she later defended the move, describing his speech as “a statement of false facts”.
Months later, she quickly returned to challenging Trump, accusing him of “an abuse of power” in response to his dealings with Ukraine in 2019.
Trump was accused at the time of pressuring Ukraine to dig up harmful information about Joe Biden and using military aid as leverage, but he was acquitted in the Republican-controlled Senate.
After spearheading the Democrats’ campaign to impeach Trump, Pelosi launched a private investigation into the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the legal and political consequences of which could reverberate around the world for many years to come.
Pelosi will be part of the legacy of the results of the recent midterm elections, as despite expectations of a landslide victory for the Republicans, the Democrats were able to cling to dozens of seats in the districts that were considered the battlefield in the elections, which limited the Republicans’ gains.
US President Joe Biden praised Pelosi, who “protected our democracy from the violent and bloody insurrection of January 6th,” as “the most important Speaker of the House in our history,” Biden wrote.
This news comes a day after former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the presidential elections scheduled for 2024, despite the fall of many Republican candidates he supported.
