Early in her political career, Pelosi established herself as a prominent fundraiser in the party.^[34] She was one of the party’s most prolific fundraisers, transferring significant funds to committees for other candidates.^[39][40] During the 2000 and 2002 election cycles, among members of Congress, she contributed the most money to other congressional campaigns.^[41] In 2006, Pelosi was the Democratic Party’s third-largest fundraiser, behind former first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.^[42] From 2003 to 2014, Pelosi raised more than $400 million in campaign funds.^[40]

In the 2006 elections, the Democrats took control of the House, picking up 30 seats,^[55] the party’s largest House seat gain since the 1974 elections held in the wake of the Watergate scandal.^[49] The party’s House majority meant that as the party’s incumbent House leader, Pelosi was widely expected to become speaker in the next Congress.^[56][57] On November 16, 2006, the Democratic caucus unanimously nominated her for speaker.^[58]

Pelosi supported her longtime friend John Murtha for House majority leader, the second-ranking post in the House. His competitor was House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, who had been Pelosi’s second-in-command since 2003.^[59] Hoyer was elected House majority leader over Murtha by a margin of 149–86.^[60]

On January 4, 2007, Pelosi defeated Republican John Boehner of Ohio, 233 votes to 202, in the election for speaker of the House.^[61][62][63]

Rahm Emanuel, the incoming chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, nominated Pelosi, and her longtime friend John Dingell swore her in, as the dean of the House of Representatives traditionally does.^[64][65]

Pelosi was the first woman, the first Californian, and the first Italian-American to hold the speakership. She was also the second speaker from a state west of the Rocky Mountains. The first was Washington‘s Tom Foley, the last Democrat to hold the post before Pelosi.

During her speech, she discussed the historical importance of being the first woman to hold the position of Speaker:

During and after her first tenure as speaker, Pelosi was widely characterized as a polarizing political figure. Republican candidates often associated their Democratic opponents with her.^[68][69] Pelosi became the focus of heavy disdain by “mainstream” Republicans and Tea Party Republicans alike,^[70] as well as from the left.^[71]

As they had in 2006, Republicans continued to run advertisements that demonized Pelosi.^[72] Before the 2010 House elections, the Republican National Committee prominently used a “Fire Pelosi” slogan in its efforts to recapture the House majority.^[73][74] This slogan was rolled out hours after the House passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.^[75] Republicans spent $65 million ahead of the 2010 elections on anti-Pelosi advertisements.^[54] Pelosi long remained a target of Republican attacks.^[76] Ads demonizing her have been credited with fostering intense right-wing ire toward her,^[77] and have been seen as one of the top factors in her unpopularity with the public.^[34]

Shortly after being reelected in 2004, President Bush claimed a mandate for an ambitious second-term agenda and proposed reforming Social Security by allowing workers to redirect a portion of their Social Security withholding into stock and bond investments.^[78] Pelosi strongly opposed the plan, saying there was no crisis, and as minority leader she imposed intense party discipline on her caucus, leading them to near-unanimous opposition to the proposal, which was defeated.^[79]

In the wake of Bush’s 2004 reelection, several leading House Democrats believed they should pursue impeachment proceedings against him, asserting that he had misled Congress about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and violated Americans’ civil liberties by authorizing warrantless wiretaps.

In May 2006, with an eye on the upcoming midterm elections—which offered the possibility of Democrats taking back control of the House for the first time since 1994—Pelosi told colleagues that, while the Democrats would conduct vigorous oversight of Bush administration policy, an impeachment investigation was “off the table”. A week earlier, she had told The Washington Post that although Democrats would not set out to impeach Bush, “you never know where” investigations might lead.^[80]

After becoming speaker in 2007, Pelosi held firm against impeachment, notwithstanding strong support for it among her constituents. In the 2008 election, she withstood a challenge for her seat by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, who ran as an independent primarily because of Pelosi’s refusal to pursue impeachment.^[81]

Before the midterm elections, Pelosi announced that if Democrats gained a House majority, they would push through most of their agenda during the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress.^[82][83]

The “first hundred hours” was a play on President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s promise for quick action to combat the Great Depression during his “first hundred days” in office. Newt Gingrich, who became speaker of the House in 1995, had a similar 100-day agenda to implement his Contract with America.

On January 5, 2007, reacting to suggestions from Bush’s confidants that he would increase troop levels in Iraq (which he announced in a speech a few days later), Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid condemned the plan. They sent Bush a letter reading:

Pelosi was named Permanent Chair of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.^[85]

Pelosi has been credited for spearheading Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act,^[86] when it seemed doomed to defeat. After Republican Scott Brown won Democrat Ted Kennedy‘s former Senate seat in the January 2010 Massachusetts special election, costing Democrats their 60-seat filibuster-proof majority, Obama agreed with his then chief of staff Rahm Emanuel‘s idea to do smaller initiatives that could pass easily. But Pelosi dismissed Obama’s compunction, mocking his scaled-back ideas as “kiddie care”.^[87] After convincing him that this was their only shot at health care reform because of the large Democratic majorities in Congress, she rallied her caucus as she began an “unbelievable marathon” of a two-month session to craft the bill, which passed the House 219–212. In Obama’s remarks before signing the bill into law, he called Pelosi “one of the best speakers the House of Representatives has ever had.”^{[88][89][90][91]}

By early 2010, analysts were assessing Pelosi as possibly the most powerful woman in U.S. history and among the most powerful speakers of the previous 100 years.^[92] In March 2010, Mark Shields wrote:

Later in 2010, Gail Russell Chaddock of The Christian Science Monitor opined that Pelosi was the “most powerful House speaker since Sam Rayburn a half century ago”, adding that she had also been “one of the most partisan”.^[70] Scholars favorably assessed Pelosi’s first speakership. In late 2010, Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, opined that despite polarized public opinion of Pelosi, “she’s going to rank quite high in the pantheon of modern speakers”, declaring that the only speaker of the previous 100 years he would rank higher than Pelosi was Sam Rayburn. Catholic University of America political scientist Matthew Green opined that the 111th Congress had “been remarkable in its productivity—in both the number of bills enacted and their scope—and Pelosi shares much of the credit.”^[94] Green considered Pelosi’s tenure as speaker to be among the greatest in U.S. history, highlighting the passage of the Affordable Care Act (“a measure with far-reaching implications for our nation’s health care policy”). He also praised Pelosi for occasionally allowing House passage of measures that had majority overall House support but were opposed by the majority of the Democratic House Caucus. He noted that she had occasionally allowed bills to move forward in such fashion despite a high level of political polarization in the United States.^[95]

In November 2010, Brian Naylor of NPR opined that:

In November 2010, after Democrats lost their House majority, Politico writer John Bresnahan called Pelosi’s record as speaker “mixed”. He opined that Pelosi had been a powerful speaker, describing her as wielding “an iron fist in a Gucci glove” and having held “enormous power within the House Democratic Caucus”, but noting that she had a “horrible approval rating with the rest of America”. Bresnahan wrote that Pelosi’s leadership and the legislative agenda she advanced had significantly contributed to the party’s loss of its House majority, citing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as an example of legislation that hurt the Democrats electorally in 2010. Bresnahan also believed that, ahead of the 2010 elections, Pelosi had “disastrously” misread public opinion, and that Pelosi had been a poor orator.^[97]

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution opined in 2018 that Pelosi had been the “strongest and most effective speaker of modern times” during her first speakership.^[98]

In 2018, Robert Draper wrote for The New York Times Magazine:

Draper also wrote that “for all her mastery of Washington’s inside game, Pelosi has never been a deft public-facing politician,” and called her a poor orator.^[34]

Though Pelosi was reelected by a comfortable margin in the 2010 elections, the Democrats lost 63 seats and control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans. After this setback, Pelosi sought to continue leading the House Democratic Caucus as minority leader, the office she held before becoming speaker. Intraparty opposition failed to pass a motion to delay the leadership vote,^[99] though she faced a challenge from Representative Heath Shuler. Shuler lost to Pelosi, 150–43, in the caucus vote on November 17, 2010.^[100] On the opening day of the 112th Congress, Pelosi was elected minority leader.^[101]

In November 2011, 60 Minutes alleged that Pelosi and several other members of Congress had used information they gleaned from closed sessions to make money on the stock market. The program cited her purchases of Visa Inc. stock while a bill that would limit credit card fees was in the House. Pelosi denied the allegations and called the report “a right-wing smear”.^{[102][103][104]} When the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (or STOCK Act) was introduced the next year, she voted for it and lauded its passing. Of representatives Louise Slaughter and Tim Walz, who drafted the bill, Pelosi said they “shined a light on a gaping hole in our ethics laws and helped close it once and for all”.^[105][106]

On November 14, 2012, Pelosi announced that she intended to remain Democratic leader.^[107]

Pelosi was one of many lawmakers who called for the Washington Redskins to change their name.^[108] She said it was time for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to step in and tell the National Football League that it could not keep its registered trademark for the “Redskins”, a racial slur for Native Americans.^[109]

In August 2016, Pelosi said that her personal contact information had been posted online following a cyberattack against top Democratic campaign committees and she had received “obscene and sick calls, voice mails and text messages”. She warned members of Congress to avoid letting children or family members answer phone calls or read text messages.^[110]

At times, centrists, progressive candidates and incumbent Democrats all expressed opposition to Pelosi’s continued tenure as the party’s House leader.^[111]

Prompted by colleagues after the 2016 presidential election, Tim Ryan of Ohio initiated a bid to replace Pelosi as House minority leader on November 17, 2016.^[112] After Pelosi agreed to give more leadership opportunities to junior members,^[113] she defeated Ryan by a vote of 134–63 on November 30.^[114]

In 2017, after Democrats lost four consecutive special elections in the House of Representatives, Pelosi’s leadership was again called into question. In June 2017, Representative Kathleen Rice of New York and a small group of other House Democrats, including Congressional Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond, held a closed-door meeting to discuss potential new Democratic leadership.^[115] Other House Democrats, including Ryan, Seth Moulton, and Filemon Vela, publicly called for new House leadership.^[116] In an interview, Rice said, “If you were talking about a company that was posting losing numbers, if you were talking about any sports team that was losing time and time again, changes would be made, right? The CEO out. The coach would be out and there would be a new strategy put in place.”^[116] In a press conference, Pelosi defended her leadership, saying, “I respect any opinion that my members have but my decision about how long I stay is not up to them.”^[116] When asked specifically why she should stay on as House minority leader after numerous Democratic seats were lost, she responded, “Well, I’m a master legislator. I am a strategic, politically astute leader. My leadership is recognized by many around the country, and that is why I’m able to attract the support that I do.”^[117]

In November 2017, after Pelosi called for John Conyers‘s resignation over allegations of harassment, she convened the first in a series of planned meetings on strategies to address reforming workplace policies in the wake of national attention to sexual harassment. She said Congress had “a moral duty to the brave women and men coming forward to seize this moment and demonstrate real, effective leadership to foster a climate of respect and dignity in the workplace”.^[118]

In February 2018, Pelosi sent a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan about the proposed public release of a memo prepared by Republican staff at the direction of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. The memo attacked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Pelosi said the FBI and the Department of Justice had warned Nunes and Ryan that the memo was inaccurate and that its release could threaten national security by disclosing federal surveillance methods. She added that Republicans were engaged in a “cover-up campaign” to protect Trump: “House Republicans’ pattern of obstruction and cover-up to hide the truth about the Trump-Russia scandal represents a threat to our intelligence and our national security. The GOP has led a partisan effort to distort intelligence and discredit the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities.”^[119] She charged Nunes with “deliberately dishonest actions” and called for his immediate removal from his position.^[120]

In February 2018, Pelosi broke the record for longest House speech using the “magic minute” custom when she spent more than eight hours recounting stories from DREAMers—people brought to the United States as minors by undocumented immigrants—to object to a budget deal that would raise spending caps without addressing the future of DACA recipients, who were at risk of deportation by the Trump administration.^{[121][122][123]}

In May 2018, after the White House invited two Republicans and no Democrats to a Department of Justice briefing on an FBI informant who had made contact with the Trump campaign,^[124] Pelosi and Schumer sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Wray calling for “a bipartisan Gang of Eight briefing that involves congressional leadership from both chambers”.^[125]

In August 2018, Pelosi called for Duncan D. Hunter‘s resignation after his indictment on charges of misusing at least $250,000 in campaign funds, saying the charges were “evidence of the rampant culture of corruption among Republicans in Washington today”.^[126]

In April 2018, Peter Beinart wrote in The Atlantic that Pelosi had been “the most effective congressional leader of modern times—and, not coincidentally, the most vilified.”^[98]

At the start of the 116th Congress, Pelosi opposed Trump’s attempts to use the 2018–2019 federal government shutdown (which she called a “hostage-taking” of civil servants) as leverage to build a substantial wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.^[140] She declined to allow Trump to give the State of the Union Address in the House chamber while the shutdown was ongoing.^[141][142] After several polls showed Trump’s popularity sharply falling due to the shutdown, on January 25, 2019, Trump signed a stopgap bill to reopen the government without any concessions regarding a border wall for three weeks to allow negotiations on an appropriations bill. But he reiterated his demand for border wall funding and said he would shut the government down again or declare a national emergency and use military funding to build the wall if Congress did not appropriate the funds by February 15.^[143]

On February 15, Trump declared a national emergency in order to bypass Congress, after being unsatisfied with a bipartisan bill that had passed the House and Senate the day before.^[144]

On September 29, 2019, Pelosi announced the launch of an impeachment inquiry against Trump.^[145] On December 5, 2019, after the inquiry had taken place, Pelosi authorized the Judiciary Committee to begin drafting articles of impeachment.^[146] After hearings were held,^[147] two articles of impeachment were announced on December 10.^[148] The House of Representatives approved both articles on December 18, thereby formally impeaching Trump.^[149]

During the January 6 United States Capitol attack, Pelosi’s laptop and gavel were stolen from her office. They have not been recovered.^[150] The day after the attack, Pelosi demanded that Trump either resign or be removed from office through the clauses of section four the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, threatening impeachment if this did not happen.^[151] On January 10, she told Vice President Mike Pence that if he did not invoke the 25th amendment within 24 hours, she would proceed with legislation to impeach Trump.^[152] On January 13, the House voted to impeach Trump a second time.^[153]

Pelosi facilitated passage of the CARES Act.^[154] She attracted controversy when footage emerged in early September 2020 of her visiting a hair salon in San Francisco. This was contrary to regulations enforced at that time preventing service indoors.^[155] Criticized for hypocrisy by Trump and the owners of the salon, Pelosi described the situation as “clearly a setup”. Her stylist and other Democrats defended her.^[156]

Pelosi played a key role in the 2021 passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The New York Times credited the legislation’s passage to Pelosi’s decision to adopt a Congressional Black Caucus proposal to pair together the final vote on the bill with a good-faith vote on the rules governing debate on a subsequent social safety net bill. The Times noted that Pelosi did not make herself the public face of this, instead having Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Joyce Beatty persuade House Democratic Caucus members to accept the proposal. The New York Times wrote, “in effect, the speaker had harnessed one faction of her unruly Democrats to win over two others.”^[157] Chris Cillizza of CNN wrote:

During the 117th Congress, the CHIPS and Science Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and Honoring our PACT Act of 2022 (PACT Act) were passed.^[158]

As with her first tenure, experts gave Pelosi’s second tenure as speaker high marks, with many opining that during her two tenures as speaker she had been among the most effective individuals to hold the position.

In June 2019, Brent Budowsky opined in The Hill that Pelosi had been “the most important, consequential and effective Speaker since Tip O’Neill” as well as “one of the greatest Speakers who ever served.”^[159] In January 2020, on the eve of Trump’s first impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate, Washington Post political writer Paul Kane called Pelosi the most powerful House speaker in at least 25 years, noting that some historians were comparing her influence to that of former speaker Sam Rayburn.^[160] In 2021, former Republican speaker John Boehner opined that Pelosi had been the most powerful House speaker in U.S. history.^[161]

In November 2022, Chris Cillizza wrote that Pelosi was “the most effective speaker ever.”^[157] Johnathan Bernstein opined for The Washington Post and Bloomberg News that Pelosi was “the greatest speaker in history.”^[162] Jackie Calmes of the Los Angeles Times shared the same opinion.^[163] Sarah Ferris of Politico called Pelosi “a legislative giant regarded as one of the most powerful speakers in modern U.S. history.”^[164] Historian Lindsay M. Chervinsky wrote for NBC News that Pelosi was “one of the most effective speakers in history” and had been so while facing “the double standards that apply to powerful women.”^[158]

John Haduk wrote for the Brookings Institution:

A number of progressive and liberal-leaning outlets published strong assessments of Pelosi’s tenure. Harold Meyerson opined that Pelosi had been the greatest speaker in U.S. history in an article in The American Prospect.^[166] Amanda Marcotte of Salon.com opined that Pelosi was the greatest speaker of all time, calling her “both the most effective and most progressive House speaker of all time.” Marcotte added that Pelosi had been effective “both in terms of managing an unruly caucus and being able to push her party in more progressive directions.”^[167]

Pelosi’s husband, Paul, is a wealthy investor and the primary source of the couple’s wealth.^[208] In 2009, OpenSecrets estimated Pelosi’s net worth at $58 million, making her the 13th-wealthiest member of Congress.^[209][210] Business Insider reported that Pelosi’s net worth was $26.4 million in 2012 and made her the 13th-richest member of Congress.^[211] In 2014, OpenSecrets reported Pelosi’s net worth had almost doubled, to about $101 million, making her the eighth-richest. In 2018, Roll Call estimated Pelosi’s net worth at $16.0 million, making her the 30th-richest member.^[212] As of 2021, Pelosi’s net worth was valued at $120 million, making her the sixth-richest person in Congress.

Pelosi is a board member of the National Organization of Italian American Women.^[223] She served for 13 years as a board member of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). In 2007, she received the NIAF Special Achievement Award for Public Advocacy and remains involved in the foundation.^[224][225]

Pelosi considers herself a “devout Catholic”, but has had numerous disagreements with members of the church hierarchy over gay rights, abortion, contraception, and in vitro fertilization. She has said that her biggest disappointment was the church’s lobbying against the Affordable Care Act because of contraception coverage.^[22]

Pelosi and Catholic bishops have also disagreed about abortion rights. Although she thought it was “lovely” that she had five children in a little over six years, she argued, “It’s a woman’s right to make her own choices with her family, her God, her doctor.”^[22]

On May 20, 2022, Salvatore Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco, announced that Pelosi would be barred from receiving Holy Communion because of her support of pro-choice abortion policies.^[226] Cordileone had communicated his concerns on April 7, 2022, writing, “should you not publicly repudiate your advocacy for abortion ‘rights’ or else refrain from referring to your Catholic faith in public and receiving Holy Communion, I would have no choice but to make a declaration, in keeping with Canon 915, that you are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”^[227]

On June 29, 2022, Pelosi received Communion at a Papal Mass presided over by Pope Francis in Rome at St. Peter’s Basilica.^[228][229]

In October 2022, while Pelosi was in Washington, D.C., an intruder entered her San Francisco home demanding to know her whereabouts, and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer.^[230] The assailant, David DePape, was convicted on federal and state charges and sentenced to life without parole.^[231]

In December 2024, Pelosi was hospitalized after fracturing her hip while falling down stairs in high heels during an official trip to Luxembourg.^{[232][233][234]} She was there as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation to observe the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.^[235] On December 14, she underwent hip replacement surgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military hospital in Germany.^[236]

• “Trinity Graduates Win Re-election: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi ’62 Poised to Become Speaker, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius ’70 Wins Second Term”, Trinity Washington University, November 8, 2006
• “Rolling With Pelosi”, Newsweek, October 23, 2006
• “Pelosi mines ‘California gold’ for Dems nationwide: Personal skills, wide network of wealthy donors help party’s House leader gather millions” Archived December 31, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 2006
• “Pelosi rides high”, The Economist, February 22, 2007
• “This Is What a Speaker Looks Like”, Winter 2007 cover story, Ms.
• “Opinion | How Nancy Pelosi’s unlikely rise turned her into the most powerful woman in U.S. history: A troublemaker with a gavel”, by Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post, March 25, 2020