Nancy Pelosi
Democrat Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of the House of Representatives on 4 January 2007.
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Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives for the 110th Congress.
She worked her way up through the state Democratic party before entering Congress after a special election in California’s 8th District in 1987.
As Speaker of the House, Pelosi ranks second in the line of presidential succession, following Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 8th District, which includes much of San Francisco, is considered one of the more liberal districts in the United States, and thus Pelosi has often been accused of extreme liberalism by her political opponents.
After Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in the national elections of November 2006, she was elected Speaker of the House for the session beginning in 2007.
A Democrat, she is the first woman to hold the post of Speaker, or even lead a major political party in either house of Congress.
She was elected as party chairwoman for Northern California on January 30, 1977.
She was a member of the Progressive Caucus until she became the party leader, when she adopted a policy of not belonging to any caucuses.
Since 1987, she has represented the 8th Congressional District of California, which consists of four-fifths of the City and County of San Francisco.
She has represented the 8th District of California in the United States House of Representatives since 1987.
Pelosi graduated from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. in 1962, then married businessman Paul Pelosi and moved to his native San Francisco.
Pelosi, known as an outspoken liberal, became a strong critic of the administration of President George W. Bush, but also strove to reunify dispirited Democrats while Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House.
On January 7, 2006, less than one week after she officially became House Speaker, Pelosi stated, “We will not abandon them…But if the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it.
Like most House Democrats, Pelosi opposed the resolution authorizing Bush to use military force against Iraq.
She is the second Speaker from a state west of the Rocky Mountains, with the first being Washington ’s Tom Foley, who was the last Democrat to hold the post before Pelosi.
The bill would require that the U.S. begin redeploying troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill’s passage.
The first woman to serve in a top leadership role in a major U.S. political party, California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi became the Democratic Party’s minority leader of the House of Representatives.
In 2001, Pelosi was elected the House Minority Whip, second-in-command to Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri.
They asserted that Bush had misled Congress about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and had violated the civil liberties of Americans by authorizing wiretaps without a warrant.
Before being elected Speaker in the 110th Congress, she was the House Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007, holding the post during the 108th, and 109th Congresses.
Pelosi supported her longtime friend, John Murtha of Pennsylvania for the position of House Majority Leader, the second-ranking post in the House Democratic caucus.
Despite her liberalism, Pelosi appealed to all wings of the party, working closely with moderate party whip Steny Hoyer and filling a new position of assistant to the leader with another centrist, John Spratt.
The bill later passed on February 16 by a vote of 246-182.
On January 10, 2007, Pelosi banned smoking from the Speaker’s Lobby, saying, “The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over…Medical science has unquestionably established the dangerous effects of secondhand smoke, including an increased risk of cancer and respiratory diseases.
On February 12, 2007, hostilities between Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer heightened again after an aide in Pelosi’s office said Hoyer had been “getting out in front” of a widespread consensus against allowing Republicans to introduce an alternative resolution on the Iraq war.
Pelosi was born to Italian-American parents in Baltimore, Maryland.
A 2005 Washington Times report alleges that Pelosi helped a campaign donor secure funds from a federal agency days after one of her staff members returned from a fact-finding trip to Spain that was funded by the donor.
Pelosi admitted to using a C-32 to fly coast to coast without refueling, but claims that she did not request the military version of a Boeing-757 specifically.
