Editorial: Nancy Pelosi has been a trailblazer. The U.S. is better for her leadership in the House and Senate.
President Donald Trump is not the first president. He is not even the first president who has to deal with Democrats who refuse to give him a fair chance at re-election. Donald Trump is only the third incumbent president to face a Congress that elected to stay in power for the first time since 1968. Most presidents are not running against their own party, and in most cases they are running against a Congress that has been in power for a quarter of a century and is not expected to leave the White House until 2025. Trump is a different matter. He is a self-described nationalist, a populist-far-right candidate who is running against a Democrat House and Senate. Pelosi is the first ever Senate Speaker who was already in Congress. The first Speaker of the House was Speaker of the Senate (also the first person to ever become first ever Speaker of both House and Senate). Before she was Speaker, Pelosi had served as California’s House Speaker from 1995-1996 and as House Democratic leader from 1987-1989. Pelosi’s accomplishments include passing welfare reform, Medicare for All, and paid family leave for women, among others.
Pelosi has set an example for millions of Americans in how to win, and she has won the hearts and minds of millions of Americans by fighting for their ideas. Pelosi was a progressive, but it was to the right of mainstream Democrats. She was a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee between 1974-75 and 1976-77. She was a liberal on Medicare and Social Security, but she was more conservative on abortion. While she was Speaker, her voting record was mostly in line with the Democratic leadership. It was because of Pelosi’s leadership that the Democrats won back the House and Senate. She is the first person to be speaker of both the House and the Senate. She has the last two years as Speaker, because she ran for the office.
In 2010, Pelosi worked to get the Green New Deal enacted into law. She was instrumental in passing healthcare for pre-school children in the mid-1990s, and she worked for the passage of the Clean Air Act
