After 39 years in Congress
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, 85, announces her long-expected retirement with a six-minute video celebrating her work representing San Francisco with decades of accomplishments and challenges overcome. Not insignificant among them: being a woman in politics.
The New York Times (gift link):
“With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative,” she told her constituents in a nearly six-minute video posted on X early Thursday morning, with clips of San Francisco’s iconic cable cars and colorful Victorian homes flashing in the background.
“My message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she continued. “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.”
Ms. Pelosi, who likes to use the phrase “resting is rusting,” led the House Democrats for 20 years, eight of which she spent as speaker. She has also been a prodigious fund-raiser and raised more than $1.3 billion for Democratic campaigns, according to her aides.
“You could argue she’s been the strongest speaker in history,” Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker from Georgia said in 2021.
“Speaker Pelosi is a hero, there is simply no leader like her…she was a state party chair knowing first hand the year-round organizing work we need to win elections. She reminds us all to ‘know your power’ — let’s win elections for her…and for the children,” tweeted Jane Kleeb, state chair in Nebraska, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC) and a vice chair of the DNC.
Next come the paens to her career in politics. And already the scramble to replace Pelosi (I’m adding their ages in brackets):
The race to succeed Ms. Pelosi was already shaping up to be a fierce one before she announced her retirement. Scott Wiener [55], a Democratic state senator from San Francisco who is a champion of housing construction, and Saikat Chakrabarti [39], who worked as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, have already announced they were running for the seat — with or without Ms. Pelosi on the ballot.
Other possible contenders named by Politico last month “include Christine Pelosi [59], her daughter and a longtime party organizer; city Supervisor Connie Chan [47], a leader of the city’s progressive wing; and Jane Kim [48], a former supervisor and director of the left-leaning California Working Families Party.”
Pelosi is a towering figure if not a tall one (5′-5″). She’s due all the respect she’s earned and then some. But I added those ages to possible contenders to remind readers that Democrats have a gerontocracy problem that jaded younger voters recognize. Despite her accomplishments and skills, that is one challenge Pelosi has not addressed. She first ran for Congress at age 47 in 1987.
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