Who is Nancy Pelosi, the 82-year-old House Speaker facing off against China over Taiwan trip?
The House Speaker went from organiser and fundraiser to the first woman leader of a Congressional party
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Your support makes all the difference.Nancy Pelosi is the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, having held the position since 2019 and previously between 2007 and 2011.
She has represented her San Francisco, California, district since 1987. She’s also served as House Minority Leader from 2003 until 2007 and from 2011 until 2019.
Political family
She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 26 March 1940 as Nancy D’Alesandro. Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr, represented Maryland in the House and was the Mayor of Baltimore between 1947 and 1959, according to her House biography.
Ms Pelosi’s brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III, also served as the Mayor of Baltimore, from 1967 until 1971.
Family life and entrance into politics
After graduating from Trinity College in Washington, DC in 1962, she married Paul Pelosi and they moved to New York. The couple had five children and moved to San Francisco after six years in the Empire State.
In San Fransisco, Ms Pelosi volunteered as an organizer for the Democratic Party. She grew effective at raising money, joined the Democratic National Committee, and served as the chair of the California Democratic Party from 1981 until 1983. She also chaired the host committee of the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco in 1984, according to CNN.
Winning election to the House
She became friends with Representative Paul Burton, who passed away in 1983, The Guardian reported in 2010. He was replaced by his wife, Sala, who encouraged Ms Pelosi to campaign for the seat before her death in 1987, The Nation reported in 2009.
She won the seat in a special election that year and again the following year when she was elected to her first full term.
Joining the Democratic leadership
After 15 years in the House, she became Minority Whip in 2002. She was chosen to be the Minority Leader later that same year and entered the office in 2003, becoming the first woman to serve as a congressional party leader.
While she tried to protect moderates and conservatives within the party, she voted for liberal issues such as gun control measures, against welfare cuts, and against the war in Iraq.
First woman Speaker
After the Democrats won the House in the 2006 midterms, Ms Pelosi was elected as the Speaker of the House on 4 January 2007.
Following President Barack Obama entering the White House, she successfully guided his $787bn stimulus package through the House in February of that year. She also played a significant part in the effort to pass the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in March 2010, Time Magazine reported at the time.
In November of that year, the Republicans decisively won back the House after using Ms Pelosi as a cudgel to bash the Democrats. The recently formed Tea Party movement especially attacked Ms Pelosi in their criticism of her party’s agenda.
Back in the minority
Despite the Dems losing the House, Ms Pelosi was elected to serve as Minority Leader. After losing in 2012, 2014, and 2016, which also saw the election of Donald Trump as president, she was forced to see off a challenge to her leadership by Ohio Representative Tim Ryan.
Growing net worth
According to Open Secrets, Ms Pelosi had the sixth highest net worth in the House in 2018 – $114,662,521. In 2008, that figure was just over $31m.
The Democrats won back the House in 2018 and Ms Pelosi returned to the speakership in January 2019, becoming the first person in over six decades to serve terms as speaker nonconsecutively. In order to retain the post, she had to accept several conditions, including term limits, amid calls for change from members of her own party, Fortune reported.
Going up against Trump
She was praised for outmanoeuvring Mr Trump during a government shutdown in December of 2018 when she refused to give in to his demand for more border wall funding. She kept Mr Trump from holding his State of the Union in the House chamber, citing concerns about security as the government wasn’t fully operational. Mr Trump ended the shutdown in late January 2019 without his wall funding.
First Trump impeachment
Ms Pelosi eventually launched impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump after a whistleblower revealed in September 2019 that he had withheld military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get the country to investigate the then-former Vice President, and future political rival, Joe Biden.
She did so after initially holding back against impeachment calls for Mr Trump in the wake of the report into Russian interference in the 2016 election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
After the House investigation finished in December 2019, the House voted to impeach Mr Trump, who was acquitted by the Republican Senate in early 2020. Ms Pelosi waited to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate – an attempt to establish some conditions for how the trial in the Senate would be conducted.
Passing Covid relief
In March 2020, Ms Pelosi was one of the key figures in the passage of the Trump administration’s $2tn relief bill as the Coronavirus pandemic was taking hold of the US and the world. It was the largest stimulus bill in the history of the US.
She blasted Mr Trump for mishandling the virus, at times calling it the “Trump virus”.
After the Democrats managed to retain the House in the 2020 election, Ms Pelosi was elected to another term as speaker.
Capitol riot and second Trump impeachment
Following Mr Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen and the subsequent Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, Ms Pelosi launched another impeachment process against him. He was yet again acquitted by the Republican Senators.
Ms Pelosi then led the process to form an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection. When she rejected two of those nominated to serve on the committee by GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy because she said they, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, were too close to Mr Trump, the Republican leader responded by taking back all five of his nominees.
Ms Pelosi appointed Republicans Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney to serve in their stead. They joined seven Democrats on the panel.
During this time, she also steered a large infrastructure bill through the House. She earlier said that the bill wouldn’t be passed unless the Senate also passed the larger Build Back Better Act, which it failed to do.
On Tuesday 2 August, she landed in Taiwan as part of a diplomatic trip to Asia alongside fellow Democratic lawmakers. The trip has been described as a possible capstone to her career.
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