Nancy Pelosi is the current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Leader of the House Democratic Caucus. The first and only woman to be nominated Speaker, she is the highest-ranking elected woman in U.S. history and one of the most powerful leaders in American politics.
Born and raised in Baltimore to a political family, Pelosi was involved in Democrats politics from an early age. Her father served as a Democratic Congressman from Maryland for nearly a decade and became Mayor of Baltimore when Nancy was seven years old. Growing up, she helped her father at his campaign events and supported her mother’s efforts to organize Democratic women.
Upon moving to San Francisco after she graduated college, Pelosi started working her way up in the Democratic Party. She was elected as a Democratic National Committee member from California in 1976 and was selected to head the California Democratic Party only five years later in 1981.
Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1987 in a special election, narrowly defeating San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt. She won reelection in the regular election in 1988 and has since been reelected 16 times with no substantive opposition, winning an average of 80 percent of the vote each election.
In 2003, after Democratic House Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri’s resignation, Pelosi took over as Minority Leader and became the first woman to lead a major party in the House. Following the 2006 midterm election, in which Democrats took control of the House, she became the first woman, the first Californian, and the first Italian American to hold the speakership.
In President Bush’s second term, Pelosi distinguished herself as a major opponent of the Iraq War as well as the President’s attempt to reform Social Security. She strongly opposed the 2007 troop surge, joining with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to write a letter to Bush in which they claimed, “there is no purely military solution in Iraq. There is only a political solution. Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain.” Pelosi also helped successfully defeat Bush’s Social Security plan, imposing intense party discipline to coordinate near-unanimous Democratic votes of opposition to the proposal.
When President Obama took office in 2008, Pelosi played an instrumental role in passing many landmark bills. She spearheaded the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 despite widespread concern from other Democratic leaders that the bill could not pass, leading President Obama to call her “one of the best speakers the House of Representatives has ever had.” Additionally, she provided key leadership in passing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and 2010 Tax Relief Act.
In the Trump era, Pelosi has led Congressional opposition to the President’s agenda. She thwarted his attempt to build a wall on the U.S./Mexico border during the 2018-2018 shutdown and has aggressively sought to expand federal gun control laws. Additionally, she has led efforts to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s role in the scandal.
While controversial among Republicans and Democrats alike—Republicans for having passed key progressive legislation and Democrats for having worked to rein in the progressive wing of her party—Pelosi is widely recognized as one of the most important and effective Congressional leaders in modern American history. As written in a well-known 2010 Christian Science Monitor article, “make no mistake: Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful woman in American politics and the most powerful House Speaker since Sam Rayburn a half-century ago.”
