Nancy Pelosi.Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Rep. Nancy Pelosi plans to run for reelection in 2022.
The House Speaker, who will turn 82 in March, is very likely to keep the seat representing her San Francisco district and may also stay in a leadership role when the next Congress convenes after the midterm elections,CNN reports.
An election win in 2022 will precede an 18th full term for Pelosi, who was first elected House Speaker more than a decade ago. She held the position until Republicans claimed a majority in the House in 2012 and returned to the leadership role after the 2018 midterm elections. She’s the only woman to hold the Speaker’s gavel.
Pelosi wasreelected Speaker this yeardespite five Democratic colleagues not voting for her.
But since PresidentJoe Biden’s election, enacting his agenda has proved difficult for House Democrats who’ve faced fierce opposition from Republicans as well as challenges from within their own caucus from progressives, whose influence — and their demands of the Democrat in the White House — has grown.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty
“We can keep saying our diversity is our power — but guess what? I got more s— from my fellow Democratic colleagues over the past months than I did from the Republicans,” Rep. Kathleen Rice told CNN, referring the votes for Biden’s infrastructure and social spending bills. “We’re eating our own at a time when we should be doing everything we can to hold onto our slim majority. Progressives need to remember that Republicans are the ones who want to destroy our democracy, not moderates in their own caucus.”
After a vote in favor of Biden’s COVID stimulus package in March, thepresident called Pelosi"the finest and most capable speaker in the history of our nation."
“She has a trust among Democrats,” Rep. Ro Khanna, a fellow California Democrat, tells CNN. “They trust her judgment, and they trust her skill. Anyone who comes after her is going to have to earn that trust.”
Another member of Congress who is not named in the report put it another way: “Where do we go from here?” the member said. “I don’t know.”
source: people.com
