Step aside. Pass the torch. Make way for the young folks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has heard some version of that decision for a few years, at the same time as the California Democrat used her legendary leadership skills to pass historic laws, negotiate with presidents of each parties and certify the 2020 presidential election even after having her very life threatened during an rebellion on the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Thursday, Pelosi announced her decision to step aside as Democratic leader – after an almost 20-year profession leading her party on the Hill, and after a better-than-expected showing for Democrats in last week’s midterms. And he or she did it on her terms.
For years, Pelosi, now 82, handled suggestions that she was getting too old for the job, or – in a more backhanded way of discussing her age – nudges to let a recent generation take the reins.
And Pelosi was characteristically direct in noting that older men in congressional leadership tended to not be asked the identical query.
“What was the day that any of you said to Mitch McConnell, … ‘Aren’t you getting somewhat old Mitch? Shouldn’t you step aside?’ Have you ever ever asked him that query?” Pelosi said in 2014, responding to a matter of whether she should resign as leader, given the Democrats’ modest-for-a-midterm lack of 13 seats that yr. Pelosi noted that under McConnell’s leadership, Republicans didn’t capture the Senate majority in 2008, 2010 and 2012.
McConnell’s party failed again last week to reclaim the bulk, despite needing to choose up only a single seat to perform that goal. The 80-year-old McConnell was easily reelected GOP leader this week anyway and may have in his caucus 89-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley, elected last week to an eighth term representing Iowa.
Pelosi is staying on as a rank-and-file House member, representing her San Francisco district and helping the incoming Democratic leadership team take charge of the caucus and plan for the following election.
And while Pelosi will still wield influence – “she’ll never be just one other member,” notes Elaine Kamarck, a Brookings Institution scholar who was a senior adviser to former Vice President Al Gore – it’s an unusual setting aside of political ego to conform to serve under the leadership of individuals she once led.
Former Speaker John Boehner of Ohio retired from Congress midway through his term, after he announced in September 2015 he was quitting as speaker. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Georgia Republican, also quit Congress when he stepped down as speaker in November 1998, after the GOP lost seats within the House.
“This strikes me as excellent, conscientious succession planning,” Kamarck says. “It is a commitment to the institution, too, and it is a commitment to the House of Representatives, wanting it to work in addition to she will possibly make it work. You’ve to wonder, how could she do that? Well, she’s a lady,” Karmarck adds.
Pelosi is widely considered probably the most effective House speakers in history, even by those that disagree together with her politics.
She wrangled the votes to pass such controversial measures because the Reasonably priced Care Act and a sweeping financial services regulation package. Pelosi also managed to secure passage of a broad energy and climate change package in the course of the Barack Obama administration – a very tough task, since energy policy tends to divide more along regional lines than party lines. The measure failed within the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Cartoons on Ukraine and Russia
With a razor-thin majority, Pelosi navigated divisions inside her caucus to win approval of major pieces of President Joe Biden’s agenda, including a COVID-19 relief package, a broad domestic spending and climate change bill, the primary gun preventive measure in nearly 30 years, and bipartisan infrastructure bill that was held up by progressives who wanted an even bigger pricetag on the climate bill in exchange.
While the general public (and a few newer members of Congress) may even see the speaker because the TV face of the party, the job itself is arduous and exhausting. Speakers must appease different factions of their party, whip votes and lift money for congressional candidates.
It requires being part prison warden and part kindergarten teacher, and Pelosi – who often noted her experience as a mother of 5 – did each. She famously faced down former President Donald Trump on matters starting from domestic spending to Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, notoriously tearing up her copy of the previous president’s 2020 State of the Union speech in a spontaneous public protest on the dais after he delivered the address.
When Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, yelled, “You lie!” during an Obama speech to Congress on health care in 2009, the president kept talking while Pelosi turned an icy, you-are-so-grounded-mister stare on the lawmaker.
Pelosi has a nurturing quality as well, even on the Hill. When she first took the post as speaker, she brought children up to take a seat together with her at her House lectern, so that they could witness the historic installation of the primary female speaker.
When reporters camped out outside her office while lawmakers were negotiating responses to the financial meltdown in 2008, a Pelosi aide emerged with chocolates to feed and calm the press.
Staying within the House for the following two years will give the brand new leadership a probability to learn from her – but some skills aren’t transferable, notes public relations skilled Kevin Madden, a veteran of Republican politics who was an adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
As basketball coaches know, “you possibly can’t coach height,” Madden says.
“Pelosi had an inherent understanding of learn how to wield the constitutional power concentrated within the speakership. It would be very hard to copy that with whoever replaces her. That void will likely be felt, needless to say,” he says.
Pelosi will still be within the House, undoubtedly still as an influential voice of experience within the Capitol. But as she did Thursday when she announced she wouldn’t proceed as Democratic leader, her voice will likely be heard from the lectern reserved for rank-and-file Democrats.