Nancy Pelosi wins House speaker in historic Congress vote as Democrats inherit government shutdown
In response to the incoming Congress, the president called a surprise meeting to promote border security that was quickly labelled a 'stunt'
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Congress has reconvened for its 116th session, with the Democrats taking majority control of the House of Representatives after their success in last November’s midterm elections.
Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi has made history by becoming speaker of the House for a second time, the first person to do so in 50 years. She is the first woman in US history to hold the office — which is third in line from the presidency — and on Thursday took the speaker's gavel for the second time in her life.
Ms Pelosi, during her first speech behind the speaker's lectern in the 116th Congress, laid out a vision to push for progressive policies to tackle climate change issues, while protecting America's social safety net. She expressed an optimism in American democracy, while reaffirming the legislature's obligation to serve as oversight of the executive branch of government — a clear threat to President Donald Trump, who has so far enjoyed Republican control of the entire government since taking office.
"They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the president and judiciary," Ms Pelosi said.
She continued, describing the expectations of America for it's elected representatives: "They want a Congress that delivers results for the people, opening up opportunity and lifting up their lives".
The San Francisco liberal has promised her first act will be to quickly pass legislation to bring the recent government shutdown to an end without releasing funds for President Donald Trump‘s proposed Mexico border wall. The Republican-held Senate could block such a bill but doing so would see the GOP left accountable for the continued federal hiatus. The Senate had previously passed legislation to keep the government open without the level of border wall funding requested by Mr Trump, but that measure was not passed by the then-Republican controlled House.
In response to the events on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump declared a last-minute event in the White House press briefing room that included senior members of the National Border Patrol Council, a labour union representing Border Patrol agents. That labour union lobbies heavily in Washington in favour of border security measures and immigration legislation.
That even was seen as an attempt to divert attention from Ms Pelosi, and was labelled by pundits and critics as a "stunt". That group included CNN anchor Brianna Keilar.
Ms Pelosi could prove to be an effective opponent for Mr Trump as talks surrounding the government shutdown — which are expected to restart on Friday — continue onward. During a meeting before the shutdown itself, Ms Pelosi and her Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, managed to get the president to take responsibility for the shutdown during a televised meeting in the Oval Office. Their next meeting after that, on Wednesday, occurred behind closed doors.
But, Ms Pelosi also faces a difficult task ahead as she looks to maintain a cohesive Democratic party and avoid the fracturing that was seen after the conservative Tea Party wave washed through Washington in 2010 and let establishment and centrist Republican leaders with little room to manoeuvre in the face of hard line members of their caucus.
To maintain that cohesion, Ms Pelosi has promised to limit her speakership to four years in order to help usher in a younger generation of leadership in the party.
Ms Pelosi has also faced pressure from the party's ascendant progressive wing, with popular candidates like New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among those leading the push for causes like a transformative and ambitious Green New Deal programme that would eliminate the United States' reliance on fossil fuels — but would require massive investment and political will to be made into law.
Please read along for our coverage of the day's events, as they happened
Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California intends to introduce articles of impeachment against Donald Trump on Thursday as the new session of Congress begins.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Sherman's measure will accuse Trump of obstruction of justice in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, among other things.
"There is no reason it shouldn’t be before the Congress,” Mr Sherman told the newspaper. “Every day, Donald Trump shows that leaving the White House would be good for our country.”
Mr Sherman previously filed articles of impeachment on similar grounds in July 2017 as part of the last Republican-led session of Congress. He was among the nearly 60 Democrats who voted in favour of launching impeachment proceedings in December 2017. The measure overwhelmingly failed.
Of course, any legislation will have to be tabled after a speaker is chosen.
New senators mingled with their colleagues and a few predecessors as they walked up to the dais in groups of four to be sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday. New senators found their desks, some looking inside to see which senators had left their signatures.
The only new senator not to be sworn in was Republican Rick Scott, who received permission to complete his term as Florida's governor. He will be sworn in on 8 January when his term ends.
Twenty-nine new and re-elected senators were sworn in. They included Senators Martha McSally and Kirsten Sinema, who ran against each other in the midterms.
Ms McSally lost to Sinema but was appointed to replace the late Sen. John McCain.
So far, our count has 14 Democratic defects. Ms Pelosi is up to 208 votes, though, and just needs about 10 more votes to become the next speaker.
That's it. Nancy Pelosi has officially reached the 218 votes needed to become the next speaker of the House.
That makes her the second woman to take that role (and the first, after her four years in the post previously).
She is now padding the votes with some extra.
We are now waiting for Ms Pelosi to be sworn in as speaker of the House.
Plenty of cheers from the House chamber as Nancy Pelosi makes her way to the speaker lectern.
She is about to be sworn in.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings has told CNN that his first priority to investigate as chairman will be over the citizenship question in the census.
He said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will be called to the committee.
“He has to answer for something that he said that I don’t think was accurate,” Cummings said, referring to Ross’ previous testimony before Congress about administration discussions about the citizenship question. “We are going to be in search for the truth.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is speaking before Ms Pelosi's swearing in.
He noted that fewer than 11,000 Americans have had the opportunity to serve in the House since the United States was founded over 200 years ago. He noted, somewhat jokingly, that representative democracy is an at times "frustrating" experiment.
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