When Nancy Pelosi first ran for Congress, she was one of 14 candidates, the front-runner and a target.
At the time, Pelosi was little known to San Francisco voters. But she was already a fixture in national politics. She was a major Democratic fundraiser who helped lure the party’s 1984 national convention to her adopted home town. She served as head of California’s Democratic Party and hosted a salon that was a must-stop for any politician passing through.
She was the chosen successor of Rep. Sala Burton, a short-timer who took over the House seat held for decades by her late husband, Philip, and who delivered a personal benediction from her deathbed.
But at age 47, Pelosi had never held public office — she was too busy raising five kids, on top of all that political moving and shaking — and opponents made light of her role as hostess. “The party girl for the party,” they dubbed her, a taunt that blared from billboards around town.
She obviously showed them.
Pelosi not only made history, becoming the first female speaker of the House. She became the party’s spine and its sinew, holding together the Democrats’ many warring factions and standing firm at times the more timorous were prepared to back down.
The Affordable Care Act — President Barack Obama’s signature achievement — would never have passed if Pelosi had not insisted on pressing on when many, including some in the White House, wished to surrender.
She played a significant role in twice helping rescue the country from economic collapse — the first time in 2009 amid the Great Recession, then in 2020 during the shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — mustering recalcitrant Democrats to ensure House passage.
“She will go down in history as one of the most important speakers,” James Thurber, a congressional expert at Washington’s American University, said. “She knew the rules, she knew the process, she knew the personalities of the key players, and she knew how to work the system.”
Pelosi’s announcement Thursday that she will not seek reelection — at age 85, after 38 years in Congress — came as no surprise. She saw firsthand the ravages that consumed her friend and former neighbor, Dianne Feinstein.
She was not about to repeat that final, sad act.
Pelosi, who was first elected in 1987, once said she never expected to serve in Congress more than 10 years. She recalled seeing a geriatric House member hobbling on a cane and telling a colleague, “It’s never going to be me. I’m not staying around that long.”
(She never used a cane, but did give up her trademark stiletto heels for a time after suffering a fall last December and undergoing hip replacement surgery.)
Pelosi had intended to retire sooner, anticipating Hillary Clinton would be elected president in 2016 and seeing that as a logical, and fitting, end point to her trailblazing political career. “I have things to do. Books to write; places to go; grandchildren, first and foremost, to love,” she said in a 2018 interview.
However, she was determined to stymie President Trump in his first term and stuck around, emerging as one of his chief nemeses. After Joe Biden was elected, Pelosi finally yielded the speaker’s gavel in November 2022.
But she remained a substantive figure, still wielding enormous power behind the scenes. Among other quiet maneuvers, she was instrumental in helping ease aside Biden after his disastrous debate performance sent Democrats into a panic. He was a personal friend, and long-ago guest at her political salon, but Pelosi anticipated a down-ticket disaster if Biden remained the party’s nominee. So, in her estimation, he had to go.
