Twenty Years in the House
Last week marked Speaker Pelosi's 20th Anniversary in the House of Representatives. She was sworn into office on June 9, 1987 by Speaker Jim Wright. Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article on this milestone: Stronger than ever after 20 years
Pelosi marks milestone, having risen from quiet obscurity to become House's leading voice
Edward Epstein - Sunday, June 10, 2007
Washington - It was something of a shock 20 years ago to the newly elected congresswoman from San Francisco who had campaigned as "a voice that will be heard" when she arrived in the Capitol for her swearing-in and was promptly told to sit down and shut up.It might have been the last time anyone ever said that to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the proudly liberal Democrat, prodigious fundraiser and organizer for her party, and legislative workhorse who last January made history by becoming the first woman, Californian and San Franciscan elected to the House's highest post as speaker.
"When I came here to be sworn in, I asked how much time will I get to speak and they said none,'' Pelosi recalled in an interview with The Chronicle in her Capitol offices, which feature one of the best views in Washington, straight down the National Mall toward the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
The upstart freshman told her party's leaders, including then-Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, that silence wouldn't do. They relented, a tad, probably because as the daughter of a former Democratic House member from Baltimore and as former chairwoman of the California Democratic Party, Pelosi was hardly a political naif.
"Keep it short. Keep it short,'' she recalled being told on June 9, 1987, as she was about to be sworn into office.
Pelosi spoke, thanking the late Phil and Sala Burton, the husband and wife who were her mentors and predecessors representing what was then California's Fifth Congressional District. And she quickly laid out a San Francisco political credo as relevant today as it was in 1987 in the waning days of the Reagan administration and the early years of the AIDS epidemic.
"We are very proud of the Fifth Congressional District and its leadership for peace, for environmental protection, for equal rights, for rights of individual freedom and now we must take the leadership of course in the crisis of AIDS,'' she told the House in her 10-sentence statement.
Since then, it has been a crowded two decades for Pelosi, her constituents and for San Francisco, the Baltimore native's adopted city. She has won and lost battles over HIV/AIDS funding, China's human rights record, creating a national park in the Presidio, cleaning up Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and securing federal money for Municipal Railway expansion.
She has risen through the ranks, climaxing last November when she led Democrats as they retook the House after 12 years as the minority party.
Pelosi, in an interview to mark her tenure in Congress, said she can't believe so much time has swept by.
"It's been an amazing 20 years,'' she said, surrounded by memorabilia that includes pictures of her husband, Paul Pelosi, and their five children and six grandchildren, a statue of Phil Burton and of the Goddess of Democracy, the symbol of the ill-fated 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement in China. Art on loan from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco graces the walls.
"I can't believe it's been 20 years. It's a generation,'' said the 67-year-old speaker, who estimated she has made about 800 round-trip flights between Washington and San Francisco since coming to Congress.
Like other California members of Congress, Pelosi has resigned herself to the grind of weekly transcontinental trips when the House is in session. "I learned to adjust to the fact that a certain portion of my life would be on airplanes,'' she said.