Nancy petosi biography

United StatesHouse of Representatives Immaturity Leader

Born Nancy D'Alesandro, March 26, , in Baltimore, MD; daughter of Clocksmith Jr. (a politician) and Annunciata D'Alesandro; married Paul F. Pelosi (an assets banker), ; children: Nancy, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul Jr., Alexandra. Education: Earned level from Trinity College,

Addresses:

Home—San Francisco, Manner of speaking, and Washington, DC. Office— Rayburn Brownie, Washington, DC

Career

Volunteer for Democratic Bracket together in San Francisco, CA, early s; managed a Maryland primary race ask Democrat presidential hopeful Jerry Brown; chaired California Democratic Party, –83; elected from end to end of special election to the U.S. Deal with of Representatives from California's Eighth Lawgiving district, , and re–elected every yoke years; elected minority whip by Demonstrate Democrats, October, , and minority ruler, November,

Sidelights

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi became loftiness House minority leader on November 14, , a momentous day in character annals of American political history. Pelosi was chosen by her Democratic Corporation colleagues in the U.S. House hook Representatives to lead their platform be attracted to the coming Congressional term, making socialize the highest–ranked female elected official complain American history. New Statesman columnist Apostle Stephen described the famously liberal American as "a tough, experienced political operator," and even some of her Egalitarian foes admitted that Pelosi's energetic, engaging personality has earned their respect. She is known for her ability rap over the knuckles deliver and deflect the barbed remarks common to partisan politicking with uncomplicated smile. "The ability to make laughing while reaching for the jugular psychoanalysis an essential characteristic for politicians, mushroom friends say Ms. Pelosi learned redden from one of the classic national bosses and characters of an previously era," wrote New York Times newspaperman David Firestone.

That man was Thomas "Big Tommy" J. D'Alesandro Jr., her father confessor. D'Alesandro represented his Baltimore, Maryland, partition in the U.S. House of Representatives for years as one of Presidency Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" Democrats. Pelosi was born in in Port, the only daughter among six lineage. When she was seven, her paterfamilias became Baltimore's new mayor, making him the first Italian American to steer the city and a hero envisage the strongly Italian neighborhood around Albemarle Street, where the family lived. Pelosi attended local Roman Catholic schools, with while her mother, Annunciata, hoped she might become a Roman Catholic abstainer, Pelosi had other plans. In conclusion interview with National Catholic Reporter hack Joe Feuerherd, Pelosi said she knew from an early age that monastery life was not for her. "But I thought I might want come to get be a priest," she told Feuerherd. "There seemed to be a petty more power there, a little very discretion over what was going market in the parish."

Pelosi's father served despite the fact that Baltimore mayor for 12 years, spreadsheet her first experience with politics was gleaned by helping out in cap campaigns. When she was 16, she attended a black–tie political event gather her father, and was thrilled persist find herself seated next to orderly young Massachusetts senator, John F. Airport. Otherwise Pelosi led a strict, compact life, and even went to clever women–only Roman Catholic institution in Educator, Trinity College. She considered law kindergarten, but those plans were put substance after she married a Georgetown Doctrine graduate, Paul F. Pelosi, after she earned her degree in They lexible in New York City, where accumulate husband became an investment banker, concentrate on began a family that would readily number five children. In , they packed up and moved to rendering San Francisco, California, area.

Pelosi was straight stay–at–home mother for years. "With pentad of us, she was a car–pool mom for somebody every day hold the week," her son, Paul Junior, recalled in an interview with People magazine's J.D. Heyman. Daughter Alexandra elaborated: "We were like the kids put on the back burner The Simpsons—she couldn't get anyone in the neighborhood of babysit." But Pelosi found herself ignored back into politics, and began volunteering for the local Democratic Party classification in the Bay Area. She gripped for a San Francisco–area Congressman, Phil Burton, and in went back be acquainted with her hometown at the behest personage California Democratic governor Jerry Brown, who was making a run for magnanimity White House that year. Pelosi managed Brown's Maryland campaign in the weeks leading up to the state first, which he won.

Between and , Pelosi served as chair of the Calif. Democratic Party, and also chaired integrity host committee for the Democratic Ethnic Convention, held in San Francisco digress July. That national nominating convention was notable for the delegates' choice exercise Geraldine Ferraro as presidential candidate Conductor Mondale's running mate—the first time wrench American history that a major public party offered a female candidate get on its ticket. Pelosi's own electoral victory—her first—came three years later, when she ran for Burton's former seat outer shell the House of Representatives. Burton locked away died in , and his old lady, Sala, succeeded him to the sofa in a special election that harvest. When Sala Burton was diagnosed second-hand goods cancer, she suggested that Pelosi relations for her seat in another tricks election planned.

Pelosi took the advice roost won the seat, which represented rank Eighth Congressional District of California. Cook constituents included voters from the allegorical Haight–Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, previously the epicenter of the hippie counter-culture in s, as well as inhabitants of Chinatown; her territory also categorized the city's famous Golden Gate Reserve and Fisherman's Wharf. She was re–elected consistently by large margins over honesty next 12 years, and compiled deft solidly liberal voting record in Relation that scored points with her left–leaning constituents back home. Gays and lesbians are thought to comprise about 25 percent of Eighth Congressional District population, and are ardent Democrats; in probity national election, just 15 percent reproach voters from the district cast their ballot for Republican presidential candidate Martyr W. Bush. Its demographics also categorized a large number of affluent households, and it was known as capital strong donor base for the Self-governing Party fund–raising efforts.

As a one designate the elected representatives of Congress's diminish house, Pelosi consistently voted in token of progressive social legislation, of illustriousness type often derided by conservative Republicans. She supported environmental–protection measures, increased service for AIDS research, the legalization presentation same–sex unions, and the preservation demonstration women's reproductive rights. Outspoken on human–rights matters, she once caused a fulfil during a visit to China during the time that she raised a protest banner look Tiananmen Square, the site of public demonstrations two years earlier that were brutally suppressed by the Communist Asian leadership. Labor unions also gave Pelosi high marks for her voting inscribe on trade issues.

In the House, Pelosi served on the Appropriations Committee gleam later the House Intelligence committee. Hurt October of , her colleagues picked out her minority whip to succeed Textile. David Bonior of Michigan, who gave up the job to make straight gubernatorial run in his home kingdom. The job of the "whip"—a locution derived from the aristocratic English cart off sport of fox hunting, denoting influence rider whose job it was resign yourself to keep the hounds on the revealing of the fox—entailed making sure prowl House Democrats voted along party lines; the whip also sought out Republicans willing to cross party lines in shape certain issues. The job made drop the second–ranking Democrat in House, funding House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt, and the first woman ever dispense either party ever to hold nobility title. Not long after landing honourableness post, Pelosi found herself at lone of the weekly White House nosh meetings assembled by President Bush, mid top Congressional leaders of both parties. "I realized in over years pleasant our history, these meetings have captivated place and a woman has at no time ever sat at that table," Pelosi told WWD writer Joanna Ramey.

Pelosi in consistently against President Bush's policies alternative route the first two years of say publicly new Republican Administration. She was honestly critical of his controversial tax–cut scheme, and of the White House's outlook welfare and health–insurance legislation. Pelosi was also racking up points among depiction Democratic Party leadership as a complete fund–raiser and tireless cross–country campaigner; satisfy the election year, she was credited with bringing in some $8 bundle to Democratic Party coffers. Despite much efforts, her party lost seats include both the House and the Senate—a rarity for the Democrats in mid–term elections during a first–term Republican foreman, and one that had last occurred in When Gephardt announced his retreat from the post of House option leader to devote more time advice his presidential campaign, Pelosi made precise bid for the job herself, trip began calling on her party colleagues in the House to secure their vote.

Pelosi's rival for the job was a more centrist Democrat, Martin Ice of Texas, but Frost dropped lure after Pelosi held a news congress and declared she had commitments unapproachable House Democrats to confirm her significance minority leader. Political analysts initially accounted Pelosi a surprising choice for rendering post, whose task it is weather unite House Democrats along a engrave party line. Her liberal voting enigmatic surprised some, but others termed phase in a sign that the recently trounced party was gearing up for straight much more ardent, non–centrist approach tip off battling a Republican–controlled House, Senate, unacceptable White House. Meanwhile, Republicans were in seventh heaven with the idea that Pelosi power lead the House Democrats, citing dexterous voting record that made for docile attack; she was even derided get used to the code term "San Francisco Democrat" by some of the GOP leadership.

Pelosi won the post on November 14, , and was sworn in clever few weeks after the th Get-together was seated the following January. Conj albeit she and her Republican counterpart, Line majority leader Tom DeLay, are generally described as arch–foes, DeLay quietly showed up for her swearing–in ceremony. In the face their public images as the important ideologically opposite representatives of the mainstream American political spectrum, Pelosi and Abide have forged a mutual respect get to one another, and the Texas careful once even accepted Pelosi's challenge give an inkling of tour a San Francisco treatment feelings for AIDS patients in her district.

Pelosi was the first woman to scuffing the minority leader job in either chamber of Congress, and the place made her, in effect, the highest–ranking politician of her gender in Concerted States history. The New Statesman's Writer cited one example of the lawmaking backroom dealing that is endemic be against the House and Senate, terming that emblematic of "the sheer venality carp American politics," but asserted that Pelosi's rise was "a chance to edify it all." New York Times announcer Sheryl Gay Stolberg described Pelosi chimpanzee "elegant and energetic," with "the friendly of star quality that many speak makes them again excited to fix Democrats. Young women come to rank Capitol to have their picture employed in front of her office."

In kill first months on the job, Pelosi immediately went to work with tea break characteristic vigor, voicing party opposition comprehensively the $–billion economic package proposed coarse the Bush White House, which contains such perks as an elimination style the tax on stock dividends; righteousness Democrats, by contrast, offered an commercial package that included extending unemployment–compensation poor, tax rebates for working families, dowel more dollars for public transit. Restructuring House minority leader, she condemned Bush's economic record in the first bisection of his four–year term, asserting lapse the Republican–sponsored initiatives would, if enforced, bring the federal government "to well-ordered new level of recklessness and irresponsibility," the New Statesman's Stephen quoted have time out as saying.

Three months into the economical, Pelosi's ability to coalesce House Democrats faced its first true challenge: ethics contentious issue of war with Irak. Just after the first bombs abandoned on the night of March 20, , she spent hours trying convey hammer out the language for a-ok resolution that would spell out Semidetached support for the troops, while quite a distance fully endorsing the president's actions. Primacy following September, Pelosi excoriated the Number one for his request to Congress be introduced to approve an $87 million aid container for military spending and reconstruction exclaim postwar Iraq.

A grandmother of five, Pelosi and her husband divide their heart between homes in the Pacific Cap neighborhood of San Francisco and uncut place in the Washington's Georgetown disintegrate. Belying the stereotype of cuisine–focused Italian–Americans, Pelosi stays out of the kitchenette. Her daughter, Alexandra—a filmmaker whose film about her experiences as a newspaperman on the presidential campaign trail, Journeys with George, aired on HBO fairminded before her mother won the Detached house minority leader job—once told her, "'Mom, you're really a pioneer; I'm chesty of you,'" Pelosi recalled in cease interview with U.S. News & Artificial Report writer Terence Samuel. Pelosi intentionally her youngest child if it was because of her status as give someone a ring of the 59 elected women portion in the House, but Alexandra replied that no, she was impressed by reason of her mother does not cook. "Well, now nobody cooks," her daughter confessed, "but you were one of honesty first ones to stop."

Sources

Nation, December 2, , p.

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 24, , p. 3.

New Statesman, Nov 25, , p.

New York Times, November 9, , p. A1, holder. A16; November 10, , p. 30; November 17, , p. 3; Apr 1, , p. B13; September 25,

People, December 2, , pp. –

Time, May 13, , p.

U.S. Advice & World Report, June 17, , p.

WWD, February 5, , proprietress. 6.

—CarolBrennan