SPEAKER Emerita Democrat Nancy Pelosi– She Decides to Retire After A Long and Great Career November 7, 2025
Yes, I still remain ecstatic over Democrats “running the table” in Tuesday’s November 4, 2025 off-year elections. However, on Thursday, November 6, 2025, Democrats found that super-sized triumph upended on a bittersweet note. On that date, Democrat Nancy Pelosi announced that she will retire from the House of Representatives in January, 2027.https://first.last@nytimes.com
Pelosi (85) is not your usual politician. With her retirement, as the NY Times aptly noted, she will be ending a remarkable career in which she rose to become one of “the most powerful women in American history.” https://first.last@nytimes.com When she leaves, she will have represented San Francisco, California in the House for 39 years. In her nearly six-minute video announcement posted on X, Pelosi noted, “We have made history. We have made progress. We have always led the way. And now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.” https://ap.com And IMHO, in the Trump era, we sure must do that throughout the nation.
Baltimore, Maryland native Nancy D’Alesandro, the daughter and sister of two hard-charging Baltimore mayors,certainly had politics embedded in her DNA. As a youngster, she helped send out letters to constituents and keep track of favors owed to them.
After marrying Paul Pelosi, she moved to San Francisco where she raised her five children before getting into politics. Her husband became a successful venture capitalist there.https://first.last@nytimes.com During that period, Nancy Pelosi used her large home to host Democratic fund-raisers. As a result, she became friendly with heavyweight SF Democratic politicians in the 1970’s-1980’s.These included CA Assembly Leader Willie Brown, Gov. Jerry Brown, and Phil and John Burton, brothers who served in the U.S. House.https://first.last@nytimes.com
When Phil Burton died in office, his widow Sala replaced him. Sala, however, was soon diagnosed with colon cancer. As she was dying, Sala told Pelosi that she wanted her to run for her congressional seat.Pelosi agreed. In a special election held in June, 1987, then 47-year old Pelosi edged out Harvey Britt, a gay socialist who had worked as an aide to Harvey Milk, a gay supervisor, who had been assassinated at City Hall in 1978. Although many in SF’s gay community initially did not think that Pelosi would champion their issues, she used her first floor speech in the House to attack the Reagan administration for largely ignoring the AIDS crisis. Pelosi fought for the passage of the Ryan White Act, named after a teenager who contracted HIV from a tainted blood transfusion and was banned from school. This law paid for health care for HIV/AIDS patients who lacked medical coverage. In her House district that contained Chinatown with its large Chinese-American population, Rep. Pelosi repeatedly condemned the People’s Republic of China for its crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents as well as its Tiananmen Square Massacre. She pushed for an amendment to allow Chinese students to stay in the U.S., but H.W. Bush vetoed it.https://thealmanacofamericanpolitics.com, 2026 & 2024. National Journal, 2025, 2023, pp. 180-184, 207-209
During her long House career, Pelosi was a prodigious fundraiser for Democratic causes, which certainly helped her rise in the ranks of Democratic leadership. She raised more than $1.3 billion for Democratic campaigns. https://first.last@nytimes.com Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who often flew home to CA with her, noted Pelosi’s unique combination of social justice that she derived from her devout Catholic faith. Sen. Boxer also praised Pelosi’s tactical ability to know every facet of every bill and exactly where each member stood on it, something absolutely essential to becoming Speaker, and,certainly, for the only female to hold this vital post, third in line to the Presidency under our Constitution.https://first.last@nytimes.com
Pelosi initially broke the “glass/marble” ceiling in 2003 when Democrats elected her to replace Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO). In 2007, Pelosi again shattered the “glass/marble ceiling” at an even higher level when she became the first female Speaker in U.S. History. She first served as Speaker from January 4, 2007 to January 3, 2011, when the GOP took over the House. When Democrats took back the House in 2018, Pelosi regained the Speaker’s gavel from the GOP and served from January 3, 2019 to January 3, 2023, in effect, serving as Democratic Speaker for a total of eight years. https://en.wikipedia.org/ During the time she was first Speaker, Pelosi had her fingerprints and, really, both hands on getting often divided Democrats to pass much major legislation. She was also a major opponent of W Bush’s Iraq War. She successfully fought against W Bush’s and his GOP allies’ attempts to privatize/gut Social Security. She helped the Obama administration pass major landmark legislation, including the Affordable Care Act/aka Obamacare. She pushed Democrats to pass the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Reform Act, probably the most important securities regulatory bill since FDR’s time. She was involved in getting the repeal of the anti-gay/lesbian “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act,” as well as the American Recovery and Reinvestent Act of 2009, Obama’s key stimulus bill. She also helped enact the 2010 Tax Relief Act.https://en.wikipedia.org/
When the GOP recaptured the House in the Tea Party-dominated 2010 midterm elections, Pelosi became the Democrats’ Minority Leader. In 2018, Democrats retook the House and Pelosi took back the Speaker’s gavel in 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/ During her second Speakership, the House impeached Dictator Donald twice, first in December, 2019 for trying to shake down Ukraine to get information on Biden, and in January, 2021 for inciting the January 6, 2021 attempted Capitol coup in which people were killed. The loyalist GOP Senate, of course, acquitted Trump. https://en.wikipedia.org/
Under the Biden administration, Pelosi’s influence contributed to getting Democrats to pass his American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. When the GOP narrowly took back the House in the 2022 midterms, Pelosi lost the Speakership and also resigned as House Democratic Leader. She was succeeded by Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) now the Democratic Minority Leader https://en.wikipedia.org/
Pelosi also quietly helped get Biden to withdraw from running for a second term.https://ap.com True, VP Harris narrowly lost to Trump. However, IMHO, had Biden remained in the race after his poor debate showing due to his aging and a later discovered cancer, he would have been clobbered by Trump and many more Democratic House and Senate seats would have been lost. Pelosi herself suffered a hip fracture last year. And three years ago, Pelosi’s husband sustained a serious skull fracture inflicted by a fanatic MAGA intruder who wanted to attack Nancy who was then in D.C. Paul Pelosi is still recovering from his injuries. Pelosi rightfully decided to retire and “pass the torch on” to a younger generation. https://ap.com I am sure that Pelosi is giving, hopefully, Speaker-to-Be Jeffries and anyone else any advice and tips on politics and governing that they might ask for or need.
Tributes are pouring in from many Democrats and members of the media wishing Pelosi well. However, few GOPers are in this group.Dictator Donald has called her “Evil Nancy” and, of course, shows no decency toward her and her family.
Pelosi has been one of the most powerful and productive Speakers in American history. It will be very hard for anyone to emulate her.To me, the most important of her many achievements was passing health care reform, something that had been attempted many times, but had failed since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th Century. When it looked like the Affordable Care Act had been defeated because GOPer Scott Brown of MA won the Senate seat in January, 2010 to replace the late chief health care advocate Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, Pelosi told Democrats not to declare Obamacare “dead in the water.” She told them not to give up. In her stirring words, she declared, “You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll polevault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American people.” https://thehill.com/
In the end, Democrats, with Pelosi’s encouragement, used a procedural tool allowing them to pass the bill with a simple Senate majority.https://thehill.com/ Pelosi herself called getting health care reform her “single greatest accomplishment in Congress.” https://thehill.com/
In 2022, Pelosi declared, “Nothing, in any of the years that I was there, compares to the Affordable Care Act–expanding health care to tens of millions more Americans. That, for me, was the highlight.”https://thehill.com/ It sure was.
Again, congratulations on a great legislative career, Speaker Emerita Pelosi! Congress will miss you as well as millions of your fellow Americans whose lives you have greatly improved.
