Republicans may be adding control of the Senate to their existing control of the House, but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi isn't ready to roll over and play dead. In recent weeks, Pelosi worked to kill the tax extenders bill that would have been a massive giveaway to the rich at the expense of working families, and has fought to get her caucus to
make John Boehner do his job rather than giving him easy votes on any spending deal he wants to shove through. Because if Republicans don't give Boehner the votes—and
they may not—he'll need Democrats to push his bill over the top. Again. That gives Pelosi some leverage,
even if:
“I would rather they did the responsible thing so we wouldn’t have to bail them out every time,” the California Democrat quipped of her GOP counterparts. [...]
But how much leverage she retains in the 114th could come down to how she fits into the Republican-controlled Congress over the next two years.
“I don’t think anyone is irrelevant. We have leverage if they don’t have the votes,” she said. “They have leverage because they know we will be responsible. And that allows them to be irresponsible to a certain extent.”
That pretty much sums it up. The problem is that the "to a certain extent" of Republican irresponsibility is only likely to intensify over the next two years, while the pressure on Democrats to "be responsible" by going along with bad policy just because it could get even worse will build. In short, Pelosi is likely to have her hands full finding and using her leverage, often in direct relation to Boehner having his hands full of the extremism in his caucus.