Pelosi Says She'll Stay on as House Democrat Leader
Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, said Wednesday she would seek to stay on as the chamber's Democratic minority leader, proclaiming there is "so much more I want to do."
"I have made the decision to submit my name to my colleagues to once again serve as the House Democratic leader," Pelosi told reporters as she stood shoulder to shoulder with more than 50 women Democratic representatives.
Her likely approval by fellow Democrats would ensure that Pelosi, 72, would stay on as leader into a second decade, having first earned the minority leader position in 2003.
"There is so much more I want to do," she said.
Congress is in the grips of negotiations about the "fiscal cliff," a set of daunting challenges including expiring tax breaks and looming across-the-board spending cuts that economists warn will tilt the U.S. economy back toward recession.
Pelosi acknowledged that the Democrats' bid to take back the gavel in the House came up short in the November 6 elections, although her party did gain several seats on their Republican rivals.
Republicans currently hold 240 seats to the Democrats' 190, but the minority party will increase its ranks to at least 203 seats when the next session sits in January.
"From the standpoint of the victory that we had at the polls, I wouldn't think of walking away," Pelosi said.
Pelosi hailed the extraordinary gains of women lawmakers, who now hold a record 61 seats in the House of Representatives.
"Understand that you are looking into the future," a beaming Pelosi said, as she surveyed the dozens of women lawmakers standing with her.
Among them was Tammy Duckworth, who defeated a Republican incumbent in Illinois in one of the most expensive races in the country, with much of the money coming from outside the state.
Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost her legs during combat, stood on the stage with Pelosi, one of her prosthetics in camouflage colors, and the other wrapped tightly with an American flag.
Pelosi, a staunch liberal who has represented San Francisco, California in Congress for a quarter century, made history in 2006 when she became the first female speaker in U.S. history during the presidency of George W. Bush.
In 2009 she led the congressional battle on behalf of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan, the bailout of the U.S. auto industry and his landmark health care reform law.
When Republicans stormed back in 2010 to take the House, she lost her speakership, but remained head of the Democratic caucus.
Source: Agence France Presse
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