House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has finally made a long-anticipated decision on whether to retire from Congress in 2022.
Pelosi is not going anywhere.
Despite rumors that she was planning to retire to Florida, Pelosi will instead run for re-election and her 19th term in 2022, CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere first reported on Monday.
NEW from me – put the rumors to rest: Nancy Pelosi will be staying on as speaker at least through the midterms, will run for re-election to her House seat back in San Francisco https://t.co/h3i6iq0KBZ
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) December 12, 2021
Pelosi will be 82 when she runs for re-election in her solidly blue district in San Francisco. Pelosi was first elected to the House in 1987 and has been in Congress for 34 years.
When she was elected House speaker in 2018, Pelosi promised that she would step down as party leader.
According to sources, Pelosi may soon back out of that promise.
“She isn’t ruling out the possibility of trying to stay in leadership after 2022,” one unnamed source reportedly told CNN.
Concerning Democratic leaders is the lack of preparation Pelosi has done in preparing her caucus to move on without her. While Democratic infighting has significantly loosened Pelosi’s grip on the party in recent years, she still remains one of the most powerful — and feared — Democratic leaders in D.C.
Moderates have complained that Pelosi doesn’t do enough to quiet the far left. Far-left progressives complain that moderates don’t do enough to appease them. In the middle is Pelosi, trying to rally support for President Joe Biden’s tax-and-spend agenda.
“We can keep saying our diversity is our power — but guess what? I got more sh** from my fellow Democratic colleagues over the past months than I did from the Republicans,” Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., complained to CNN about her opposition to Biden’s spending plans.
“We’re eating our own at a time when we should be doing everything we can to hold onto our slim majority. Progressives need to remember that Republicans are the ones who want to destroy our democracy, not moderates in their own caucus.”
“I agree we have to stop eating our own,” far-left progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., said. “We just need to get to know each other and figure out how to work together, even though we represent different districts.”
“It’s not about Pelosi. We run our own offices,” Bowman said. “So it’s on us to pick up the phone, reach out and say, ‘Hey, let’s have a conversation.'”
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