Nancy Pelosi won't seek reelection, ending her storied career in the US House

WASHINGTON -- Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi volition not question reelection to the U.S. House, bringing to a adjacent her storied vocation arsenic not lone the archetypal woman successful the speaker's bureau but arguably the astir almighty successful American politics.

Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco for astir 40 years, announced her determination Thursday.

“I volition not beryllium seeking reelection to Congress,” Pelosi said successful a video code to voters.

Pelosi, appearing upbeat and forward-looking arsenic images of her decades of accomplishments filled the frames, said she would decorativeness retired her last twelvemonth successful office. And she near those who sent her to Congress with a telephone to enactment to transportation connected the bequest of agenda-setting some successful the U.S. and astir the world.

“My connection to the metropolis I emotion is this: San Francisco, cognize your power,” she said. “We person made history. We person made progress. We person ever led the way.”

Pelosi said, “And present we indispensable proceed to bash truthful by remaining afloat participants successful our ideology and warring for the American ideals we clasp dear.”

The decision, portion not afloat unexpected, ricocheted crossed Washington, and California, arsenic a seasoned procreation of governmental leaders is stepping speech up of adjacent year's midterm elections. Some are leaving reluctantly, others with resolve, but galore are facing challenges from newcomers anxious to pb the Democratic Party and face President Donald Trump.

Pelosi remains a governmental powerhouse and played a pivotal relation with California's redistricting effort, Prop 50, and the party's comeback successful this month's election. She maintains a robust docket of nationalist events and enactment fundraising, and her announced departure touches disconnected a succession conflict backmost location and leaves unfastened questions astir who volition capable her behind-the-scenes enactment relation astatine the Capitol.

An designer of the Affordable Care Act and a person connected the planetary stage, Pelosi, who's 85, came to authorities aboriginal successful life, a parent of 5 mostly grown children. She has agelong fended disconnected calls for her to measurement speech by turning questions astir her intentions into spirited rebuttals, asking if the aforesaid was being posed of her antheral colleagues connected Capitol Hill.

In her video address, she noted that her archetypal run slogan was “a dependable that volition beryllium heard.”

And with that backing, she became a talker “whose dependable would surely beryllium heard,” she said.

But aft Pelosi softly helped orchestrate Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 statesmanlike race, she has decided to walk the torch, too.

Last year, she experienced a autumn resulting successful a hep fracture during a whirlwind legislature sojourn to allies successful Europe, but adjacent inactive it showcased her grit: It was revealed she was rushed to a subject infirmary for country — aft the radical photo, successful which she's seen smiling, poised connected her trademark stiletto heels.

Pelosi's determination besides comes arsenic her hubby of much than six decades, Paul Pelosi, was gravely injured 3 years agone erstwhile an intruder demanding to cognize “Where is Nancy?” broke into the couple’s location and bushed him implicit the caput with a hammer. His betterment from the attack, days earlier the 2022 midterm elections, is ongoing.

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Pelosi faced a imaginable superior situation successful California. Left-wing newcomer Saikat Chakrabarti, who helped devise progressive superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s governmental emergence successful New York, has mounted a campaign, and authorities Sen. Scott Wiener is besides reported to beryllium considering a run.

While Pelosi remains an unmatched unit for the Democratic Party, having fundraised much than $1 cardinal implicit her career, her adjacent steps are uncertain. First elected successful 1987 aft having worked successful California authorities enactment politics, she has spent immoderate 4 decades successful nationalist office.

Pelosi’s legacy arsenic House speaker comes not lone due to the fact that she was the archetypal pistillate to person the occupation but besides due to the fact that of what she did with the gavel, seizing the tremendous powers that travel with the suite of offices overlooking the National Mall.

During her archetypal tenure, from 2007 to 2011, she steered the House successful passing landmark authorities into instrumentality — the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank fiscal reforms successful the aftermath of the Great Recession and a repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell argumentation against LGBTQ work members.

With President Barack Obama successful the White House and Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada starring the Senate, the 2009-10 league of Congress ended among the astir productive since the Johnson era.

But a blimpish Republican “tea party” revolt bounced Democrats from power, ushering successful a caller benignant of Republicans, who would pave the mode for Trump to seize the White House successful 2016.

Determined to triumph backmost control, Pelosi helped enlistee and propel dozens of women to bureau successful the 2018 midterm elections arsenic Democrats moving arsenic the absorption to Trump’s archetypal term.

On the run way that year, Pelosi told The Associated Press that if House Democrats won, she would amusement the “power of the gavel.”

Pelosi became the archetypal talker to regain the bureau successful immoderate 50 years, and her 2nd term, from 2019 to 2023, became perchance much consequential than the first, peculiarly arsenic the Democratic Party's antidote to Trump.

Trump was impeached by the House — doubly — archetypal successful 2019 for withholding U.S. assistance to Ukraine arsenic it faced a hostile Russia astatine its borderline and past successful 2021 days aft the Jan. 6 attack connected the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted him successful some cases.

Pelosi stood up the Jan. 6 peculiar committee to probe Trump's relation successful sending his mob of supporters to the Capitol, erstwhile astir Republicans refused to investigate, producing the 1,000-page report that became the archetypal afloat accounting of what happened arsenic the defeated president tried to enactment successful office.

After Democrats mislaid power of the House successful the 2022 midterm elections, Pelosi announced she would not question different word arsenic enactment leader.

Rather than retire, she charted a caller people for leaders, taking connected the emerita rubric that would go utilized by others, including Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California during his little tenure aft helium was ousted by his colleagues from the speaker's bureau successful 2023.

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Follow the AP's sum of Nancy Pelosi astatine https://apnews.com/hub/nancy-pelosi.