Pelosi
By Molly Ball
Henry ****
Nancy Pelosi was upset. Her blitz of cable news appearances as a high-profile counterpart to Donald Trump had taken her to CNN in late April. And Jake Tapper had the temerity to question that which is not typically questioned: Pelosi’s legislative acumen.
Congress had just passed its fourth bill responding to the coronavirus crisis. Republicans wanted more money for forgivable loans for small businesses. Democrats had a host of liberal priorities left out of prior legislation that could have been paired with the extension. But Pelosi and her Senate colleague Chuck Schumer chose to go along with the Republican framework, leaving everything else for later.
Immediately afterward, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hit the pause button on future legislation. It felt like the Democrats were played. And governors were sounding alarms about the lack of federal aid to cover massive state and local government revenue shortfalls, which triggered a loss of 1.5 million jobs in April and May alone.
“Was this a tactical mistake by you and Senator Schumer?” Tapper asked Pelosi.
“Just calm down,” she replied sternly, pivoting to tout getting more small-business money than McConnell even wanted. (As of mid-June, about $130 billion in authorized funding had not been claimed, and a May survey found that half of all small businesses expected to fail, even with federal support.) Pelosi vowed to obtain state and local fiscal relief eventually. “There’s no use going into what might have been.”
It was an interesting exchange, because it highlighted a Pelosi critique that rarely makes it into conventional accounts. Molly Ball’s biography Pelosi emphasizes more-common narratives, which throughout her accomplished career the Speaker has been able to surmount: whether a woman can compete in the typically male terrain of high-stakes politics, or whether she can withstand the caricature of a “San Francisco liberal.”
During the pandemic, Pelosi’s caucus dominance and tactical savvy and leverage over Republican opponents failed her.
Ball, a national reporter for Time, also tries to make the case that Pelosi, underestimated by official Washington, constantly fleeces her foes at the negotiating table. Much of this is true. She stopped a newly re-elected George W. Bush from dismantling Social Security, a strategic masterstroke. Willing the Affordable Care Act forward when Democrats wanted to pull back was a signature achievement. During the interregnum between speakerships when John Boehner and Paul Ryan ran the House, she was consistently relied on for votes when they faltered, protecting liberal social programs and obtaining additional funding. And Pelosi always did it with remarkable caucus discipline, bringing together a disparate set of legislators to strengthen her hand.
But the past few months of hurried legislative output, long after Ball completed her draft, frustrate that analysis. In our endlessly gridlocked politics, real governing occurs mainly in the crucible of crisis, which forces urgent action beyond the usual game of inches. What you do in those moments matters infinitely more than how sassy you look clapping during the State of the Union address, or how you rip up that address after it’s read.
During the pandemic, Pelosi centralized control to an unprecedented degree, placing responsibility for crisis governance entirely in her own hands. Yet the result mainly protects corporate interests while throwing temporary life rafts to everyone else. The caucus dominance and tactical savvy and leverage over Republican opponents failed her in this case. It’s worth wondering why, which is inextricably tied to one question: What does Nancy Pelosi really believe?
OBSERVERS OFTEN ASSUME that, because Pelosi represents San Francisco, she must position herself on the party’s left wing. But that’s not where her politics comes from. Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a machine pol, a congressman and later mayor of Baltimore, whose wife maintained a “favor file” to organize which strings needed to be pulled at which city agencies to assist important constituents. She married Paul Pelosi, a college classmate who became a wealthy financier, and while raising five children, stayed connected to politics mostly because her house was big enough to host fundraisers. The early chapters of Ball’s book teem with stories of Pelosi fraternizing with politicians as a donor and converting this into power. Pelosi was Rep. Sala Burton’s chief fundraiser; while stricken with colon cancer, Burton handpicked Pelosi to replace her five days before she died.
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in Congress celebrate regaining the House and Senate in 2006.
In that first race, Pelosi spent $1 million in six weeks, more than all her challengers combined. Confronted by one about buying the election, Pelosi replied, “I don’t think you have to be sick to be a doctor, or poor to understand the problems of the poor.” She did understand the problems of some constituents; Pelosi sent mailers into conservative pockets of San Francisco vowing to “fight all efforts to raise the personal income tax.” She won by fewer than 4,000 votes.
After just two years, Pelosi became the House’s leading fundraiser. Though Ball insists that Pelosi’s money and connections were “camouflage for a revolutionary soul,” there’s little evidence of this. In the book, Pelosi names her top political motivation as “concern for the world’s children,” an almost perfectly nondescript concept.
Early in her House career, Pelosi took a vocal role in tackling the AIDS crisis and condemning China’s human rights record. She is to be commended for both stances, though they also can both be seen as nods to large constituencies back home. But issues don’t quite animate her; Pelosi’s eye was always on leadership. And she’s extremely good at mustering her caucus, often through a palpable rule-by-fear approach. Time and again in the book, House Democrats shrink from crossing her, mindful that Pelosi’s grudge will endure. This discipline provides the kind of leverage that defeats opponents, especially ones as inept as the Republicans she has faced.
But Pelosi getting famously fractious Democrats to consistently vote her way, while no mean feat, matters less than what she gets them to vote for.
fukkin schumer either. im tired of this shyt. these career politicians are what's wrong with this country
