“Pelosi Steps Aside, Signaling End to Historic Run as Top House Democrat”, The New York Times

“For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. She has led her party in the House for two decades.

Members of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff applauding her after she announced that she would step down from her leadership position on Capitol Hill.

Members of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff applauding her after she announced that she would step down from her leadership position on Capitol Hill.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Follow the latest news on Nancy Pelosi stepping down from leadership.

WASHINGTON — Nancy Pelosi, the dominant political operator, legislative tactician and face of House Democrats for two decades, and the first woman to serve as speaker, announced on Thursday that she would leave the leadership ranks in January following narrow election losses that cost Democrats their majority, but would remain in Congress.

Ms. Pelosi, the Californian who twice led Democrats to power in the House and has been a central figure in the major legislative accomplishments of the Obama and Biden administrations, disclosed her plans in a carefully choreographed midday speech on the House floor a day after Republicans clinched control of the chamber.

“For me, the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,” Ms. Pelosi said as some of her colleagues wiped tears from their eyes. “And I am grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility.”

Her decision represented a transformative moment for House Democrats, and it set off a rapid and long-anticipated shift in the top ranks of Democratic leadership — now dominated by a trio of octogenarians — toward a younger group that has been waiting in the wings.

Ms. Pelosi walking in the Capitol surrounded by reporters, staff and security.
Ms. Pelosi said she had considered leaving leadership in the past but was driven to help her party through this election following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times

Shortly after Ms. Pelosi, 82, concluded her remarks, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the 83-year-old majority leader, said in a letter to his colleagues that he too would refrain from seeking a leadership position in the next Congress. He endorsed Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, 52, to be the next Democratic leader, throwing his support to a lawmaker who is widely regarded as Ms. Pelosi’s likeliest successor.

The No. 3 Democrat, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, 82, was expected to cede the position of whip and seek to become the assistant leader, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke about them on the condition of anonymity because they had yet to be announced.

Mr. Jeffries and Representatives Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, 59, and Pete Aguilar of California, 43, were widely expected to seek the top three spots.

Ms. Pelosi, in an interview with reporters after her speech, said she did not intend to endorse any successor, saying it was “really important for people to have the legitimacy that they were chosen by the members and they make their own, shall we say, prioritizing issues.”

“They will have their vision,” she said. “They will have their plan.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wearing a white suit, standing at a podium with Representatives in the foreground.
Ms. Pelosi pledged in 2018 to limit herself to four more years as her party’s leader, but had recently equivocated about whether she would honor that.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Her carefully calculated departure reflected the tight grip she has maintained on House Democrats over decades, rarely ceding control to her colleagues, brooking little dissent and leaving few things to chance.

The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm Elections

A moment of reflection. In the aftermath of the midterms, Democrats and Republicans face key questions about the future of their parties. With the House and Senate now decided, here’s where things stand:

Biden’s tough choice. President Biden, who had the best midterms of any president in 20 years as Democrats maintained a narrow hold on the Senate, feels buoyant after the results. But as he nears his 80th birthday, he confronts a decision on whether to run again.

Is Trump’s grip loosening? Ignoring Republicans’ concerns that he was to blame for the party’s weak midterms showing, Donald J. Trump announced his third bid for the presidency. But some of his staunchest allies are already inching away from him.

G.O.P leaders face dissent. After a poor midterms performance, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell faced threats to their power from an emboldened right flank. Will the divisions in the party’s ranks make the G.O.P.-controlled House an unmanageable mess?

A new era for House Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve in the post and the face of House Democrats for two decades, will not pursue a leadership post in the next Congress. A trio of new leaders is poised to take over their caucus’s top ranks.

Divided government. What does a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-run Senate mean for the next two years? Most likely a return to the gridlock and brinkmanship that have defined a divided federal government in recent years.

Ms. Pelosi’s announcement heralded the end of a historic leadership run for a woman who had learned the nitty-gritty of politics from her family in Baltimore, where her father was a congressman and later mayor. She rose to prominence in California as the leader of the state party; at 47, after being a stay-at-home mother to five children, won election to the House from San Francisco; and finally became the determined force at the helm of House Democrats.

With her in a leadership role, Democrats challenged President George W. Bush over the Iraq war and his plan to privatize Social Security, and won approval of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, her greatest legislative achievement, in 2010. She helped steer the nation through a grave economic crisis in 2008, and this year finished her leadership stint by passing legacy-building climate change legislation.

Her tenure was not without its difficulties. She lost her gavel the first time in the midterm elections of 2010, when severe losses cost her party the House majority, and some Democrats urged her to step aside; she ran for leader anyway, and won. When she returned to the speakership in 2018, she sometimes clashed with a newly elected group of progressive women of color who chafed under her leadership and suggested her time had come and gone.

Over her many years atop her party, Ms. Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American politics, became a favorite target for Republicans, who demonized and dehumanized her in increasingly ugly terms. During her remarks on Thursday in the House chamber, there was standing room only on the Democratic side, but only a few Republicans were on hand to listen to her.

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, attended along with some newly elected G.O.P. members. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who is seeking to succeed her as speaker, skipped it, while some other G.O.P. lawmakers took the opportunity to gloat publicly that their efforts to “Fire Pelosi” had succeeded.

In her speech, Ms. Pelosi recounted the arc of her career — “from homemaker to House speaker,” she said — as well as her major legislative accomplishments. She also addressed the fragility of the nation’s democracy as she recalled the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, carried out by an angry mob who rejected the results of the 2020 election and President Donald J. Trump’s loss. But, she added, voters “stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy” last week by rejecting candidates who continued to cast doubt on the 2020 election.

In a statement released after Ms. Pelosi’s speech, President Biden said history would remember her as “the most consequential speaker of the House of Representatives in our history.”

Ms. Pelosi pledged in 2018 to limit herself to four more years as her party’s leader, but had recently equivocated, and had been quietly gauging her support within Democratic ranks. Several of her colleagues had privately noted that Ms. Pelosi was unlikely to seek to stay in her position if she found she did not have the votes to do so, and equally unlikely to leave if she believed she had the backing to hold on.

But Ms. Pelosi insisted she would have had the support to remain if she had opted to; she said her phone had been “exploding” with calls from her colleagues urging her to stay as their leader, but that she had chosen otherwise. The decision came less than three weeks after her husband, Paul Pelosi, was brutally attacked in their San Francisco home by a hammer-wielding assailant who was said to have been planning to kidnap and assault the speaker herself.

Though she will remain in the House, the outgoing speaker also said she did not plan to peer over the shoulders of the new leaders and offer advice, as some people close to her had speculated.

“I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like this thing this way,’” said Ms. Pelosi, who said she would focus her energy instead on representing the city that had first sent her to the House in 1987.

“I want to afford myself the joy of being able to deal with the needs of the people of San Francisco,” she added during the interview.

Ms. Pelosi’s announcement heralded the end of a historic leadership run for a woman who had learned the nitty-gritty of politics from her family in Baltimore, where her father was a congressman and later mayor. She rose to prominence in California as the leader of the state party; at 47, after being a stay-at-home mother to five children, won election to the House from San Francisco; and finally became the determined force at the helm of House Democrats.

With her in a leadership role, Democrats challenged President George W. Bush over the Iraq war and his plan to privatize Social Security, and won approval of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, her greatest legislative achievement, in 2010. She helped steer the nation through a grave economic crisis in 2008, and this year finished her leadership stint by passing legacy-building climate change legislation.

Her tenure was not without its difficulties. She lost her gavel the first time in the midterm elections of 2010, when severe losses cost her party the House majority, and some Democrats urged her to step aside; she ran for leader anyway, and won. When she returned to the speakership in 2018, she sometimes clashed with a newly elected group of progressive women of color who chafed under her leadership and suggested her time had come and gone.

Over her many years atop her party, Ms. Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American politics, became a favorite target for Republicans, who demonized and dehumanized her in increasingly ugly terms. During her remarks on Thursday in the House chamber, there was standing room only on the Democratic side, but only a few Republicans were on hand to listen to her.

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, attended along with some newly elected G.O.P. members. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who is seeking to succeed her as speaker, skipped it, while some other G.O.P. lawmakers took the opportunity to gloat publicly that their efforts to “Fire Pelosi” had succeeded.

In her speech, Ms. Pelosi recounted the arc of her career — “from homemaker to House speaker,” she said — as well as her major legislative accomplishments. She also addressed the fragility of the nation’s democracy as she recalled the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, carried out by an angry mob who rejected the results of the 2020 election and President Donald J. Trump’s loss. But, she added, voters “stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy” last week by rejecting candidates who continued to cast doubt on the 2020 election.

In a statement released after Ms. Pelosi’s speech, President Biden said history would remember her as “the most consequential speaker of the House of Representatives in our history.”

“There are countless examples of how she embodies the obligation of elected officials to uphold their oath to God and country to ensure our democracy delivers and remains a beacon to the world,” he said. “In everything she does, she reflects a dignity in her actions and a dignity she sees in the lives of the people of this nation.”

In the interview, Ms. Pelosi said she had considered leaving the leadership ranks in the past but had been driven to help her party in this election following the assault on the Capitol and the spread of election denialism.

“What was important to me was how we did in the election, because we were really on a bad path,” she said.

Ms. Pelosi touching the cheek of Representative Jerry Nadler, while surrounded by representatives.
Ms. Pelosi with Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York and other Democratic lawmakers after her speech. Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Ms. Pelosi was for years the focus of bitter attacks from Republicans who used her as a symbol of liberal Democratic ideology. But she was revered within her own party — and earned the respect of many Republicans — for her leadership skills, steadiness in times of crisis, political acumen and, not least, a formidable ability to tap donors for hundreds of millions of dollars. Aides calculated that she had raised $310 million this election cycle for her party and a total of nearly $1.3 billion during her 20 years in leadership.

On Thursday, Mr. McCarthy offered no comment on Ms. Pelosi’s announcement, though his staff noted that they expected that her final act as speaker would be to hand him the gavel in January, as is tradition in a handover of power in the House.

But Ms. Pelosi, who has made little secret of her disdain for Mr. McCarthy, said she would leave that task to the Democrat chosen to replace her as party leader.

Some Republicans offered statements of respect for Ms. Pelosi, but minutes after she concluded her remarks, Derrick Van Orden, an incoming Republican congressman from Wisconsin who rallied at the Capitol on Jan. 6, tweeted a photo of himself on the campaign trail holding a sign that said “FIRE PELOSI.” “Promises Made. Promises Kept,” Mr. Van Orden wrote.

As Ms. Pelosi closed her remarks, House members rose to give her a standing ovation. She was swarmed by colleagues kissing her on the cheek and giving her hugs, and embraced a young girl who was in the chamber for her speech — a moment reminiscent of her swearing-in as speaker, when she called all the children present in the chamber to the dais.

She made it clear that she and her family have struggled to deal with the effects of the attack on Mr. Pelosi, which she noted had turned her residence into a crime scene. She said she believed that public disgust at the attack swung voters to Democratic candidates on Nov. 8.

“The traumatic effect of that being in our home has had such an impact on my husband and me, but also on our children and grandchildren,” she said, expressing fury at Republicans and others for making light of the incident.

Ms. Pelosi’s staff applauding her.
Ms. Pelosi was first woman to hold the speakership and the face of the chamber’s Democrats for two decades.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

“Just think if your spouse were in a situation where other people would make a joke of it, think it was funny,” she said. “It’s so horrible to think the Republican Party has come down to this, and no real rejection of it by anybody in the party. It’s so sad for our country.”

Rather than leading her to consider leaving Congress entirely, Ms. Pelosi said the attack had fortified her decision to stay.

“I couldn’t give them that satisfaction,” she said.