Chicago Tribune
February 20th, 2002
By Chris Black
Last week, less than a month on the job, Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic
whip and the highest-ranking woman in Congress, had to deliver. It was
one thing to persuade a majority of Democratic House members to elect her
to the leadership position, the No. 2 spot in the Democratic lineup. It
was quite another to deliver Democratic votes to pass the Shays-Meehan
campaign finance bill.
There were a dozen attempts to kill or damage the bill to outlaw soft
money, the largely unregulated contributions to political parties. But
when the 16-hour marathon debate ended at 2:45 a.m. on Valentine's Day,
Pelosi's whip team delivered all but 12 Democrats in support of Shays-Meehan,
while her Republican counterpart, GOP Whip Tom DeLay, lost 41 Republicans.
"There is no way we could have done this without Nancy and her whip team,"
said Rep. Martin Meehan, the Massachusetts Democrat and co-sponsor of the
bill.
Later that day, DeLay approached Pelosi on the House floor. "That was
quite impressive, especially on a maiden voyage," he said.
Rep. Barney Frank, the fast-talking Democrat from Massachusetts, wisecracked:
"It's been a long time since Nancy was a maiden."
Certainly no maiden in politics. But the California congresswoman in
the Armani suits is breaking ground for women in politics.
That reality hit her when House and Senate leaders from both parties
paid a courtesy visit to President George W. Bush on Jan. 23, the day Congress
returned to work.
Pelosi had attended many White House meetings but says this felt different,
as though she were the first person to peek over a wall into forbidden
territory. "There was no one else to check with," she recalls. When the
door closed, all the relevant decision makers were in the room--and a woman
was among them for the first time.
More visible, more vulnerable
Heady stuff for a lifelong feminist, but dangerous too. Pelosi assumes
her leadership position at a challenging time for Democrats, who desperately
want to take back control of the House but must step delicately to make
sure no light shines between them and the Republican president on the war
against terrorism. Pelosi is a raging liberal, a longtime champion of human
rights and an outspoken defender of causes like AIDS and abortion rights.
And as the lone female in the classic male political tableau of dark blue
suits and rep ties, she is more visible, and therefore more vulnerable
to attack.
Moreover, "She is taking this on at a time of both war and economic
crisis," says Marie Wilson, president of the White House project, a program
aimed at getting a woman elected president. "This is where women are least
trusted in executive positions in this country."
Pelosi is acutely aware that plenty of people would love to see her
fall flat on her chiseled face.
"We're in politics. There are traps all over the Capitol for everybody,"
she says. "I had expected to have a tough race when I ran for this. I wanted
a tough race and a hard-fought victory so nobody could ever say that I
got it because people thought we should have a woman."
Indeed, it did not hurt that she was a woman. Many Democratic members
openly said it was past time that a woman held a top leadership position
while she was campaigning against Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland for the
whip's job. Her gender, California base and three years of non-stop campaigning
for the job and for Democratic candidates contributed to a decisive secret
ballot victory, 118 to 95.
Money helped too. She raised more than $4 million for Democratic House
candidates in the last election, about three times more than Hoyer did.
While she clearly is enjoying what she also disparages as "all this
whoop-dee-do about me being the first woman," the real work has just begun.
The whip is the quintessential insider's job, the leader assigned to line
up votes on legislation, a particularly tough job for the minority party.
The name whip comes from the whippet, a sleek English dog bred to round
up the hounds during the hunt, though Pelosi admits that lining up Democratic
House votes is more like herding cats.
During the Shays-Meehan debate, she headed up an elaborate communications
network. Rep. Meehan says she knew at any moment on every vote who was
sure and who was shaky. She designated as many as three handlers to baby-sit
the particularly woozy Democrats to keep them from losing nerve. One controversial
amendment would have exempted the National Rifle Association and its allies
from the law. A vote against it could easily cost a Democrat from a swing
district his congressional seat.
Instead of ending the vote as usual after 15 minutes, GOP leaders, who
control the gavel, kept the vote open, convinced they could persuade a
few more members to back the NRA proposal. But Pelosi's whip count was
so precise and she was so certain the amendment would lose, her staff confirms
she allowed several Democrats to vote for the amendment to spare them the
political grief of snubbing the NRA.
Her allowance for those shades of gray is part of what won her the position
in the first place.
"Unanimity is a word that practically does not exist in the Democratic
Party," she says.
Started as stay-at-home mom
Pelosi herself is a little more complicated than a stereotypical San
Francisco lefty.
She is a 61-year-old grandmother of five but she bears no resemblance
to the gray-haired Italian grandmas of her native Little Italy neighborhood
in Baltimore. She has the well-cared-for look of someone who has taken
advantage of good genes and a lot of money.
Pelosi has one of the most liberal voting records in Congress but she
cuts deals on the House Appropriations Committee like a seasoned ward boss.
She is now on the career track to be the first female speaker, but she
was a traditional stay-at-home mom and refused to run for public office
until her kids were grown and she was 47.
Pelosi may not be well known outside of Democratic Party circles, but
the San Francisco congresswoman is not exactly an overnight success story.
She was born to politics. At the time of her birth in 1940, her father,
Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr., represented a Maryland district in the U.S.
House. Pelosi is the youngest of D'Alesandro's seven children and the only
girl. By her own admission, she was a princess who grew up coddled by her
father and brothers. She says this gave her a comfort level with boys and
men, an advantage, she says, in navigating the male-dominated political
seas.
When she started 1st grade, her father was elected mayor of Baltimore.
(Her brother Thomas J. D'Alesandro III also has served as mayor of Baltimore.)
When she left home to attend Trinity College, a Catholic women's school
in Washington, her father was still mayor.
"We always thought our parents were on the side of the angels. We were
Democrats. They were helping people and we thought that was God's work,"
she says.
But it was not her work, at least not at first. She moved to the Bay
Area with her husband, San Francisco native Paul Pelosi, the son of Italian
immigrants who has made a fortune as an investment banker. And she had
five children in six years, four girls and one boy.
She was always an active Democrat and held top party positions but she
stayed largely behind the scenes. For example, she played a pivotal role
in persuading Gov. Jerry Brown to challenge President Jimmy Carter in the
1976 presidential primary in Maryland. But she repeatedly declined opportunities
to run for office.
"I said, 'I have five teenagers. I don't think so,' " remembers Pelosi.
The situation changed when her youngest child, Alexandra, was a senior
in high school in 1987. Rep. Sala Burton had cancer and on her deathbed
picked Pelosi to be her successor. Burton had taken the place of her husband,
Rep. Phil Burton, a legendary congressional power broker who was a mentor
to Pelosi before his death in 1983. She couldn't let the opportunity pass.
Fifteen years later, Pelosi still says, with a genuine pang of regret,
it would have been better if she could have waited one more year until
her daughter had gone off to college.
A few weeks ago, she moved into the Democratic whip's office, a suite
of tiny rooms wedged into the third floor of the U.S. Capitol.
On her non-stop 18-hour days she is now trailed by a security detail,
assigned to the whip's office after Sept. 11. She began one recent day
with a breakfast meeting at the State Department between appropriators
and Secretary of State Colin Powell. She spoke to the United Auto Workers
at a downtown hotel and was interviewed by Washington Post columnist Mary
McGrory on the ride back to the Capitol.
McGrory, wearing sensible flat shoes, marveled at how Pelosi teetered
around on very high pale blue and taupe suede heels, an exact match to
her jacket and trousers and a bargain purchased at 80 percent off retail
at a Taiwan shoe store.
Pelosi met with United Farm Workers representatives on how she could
shake loose some federal training money, spoke at the staff retreat of
Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey, then huddled with academics from Pittsburgh
about getting the feds to support a scholarship program for students from
areas of conflict like Bosnia.
An intelligence insider
She kept fretting that she needed time for her legislative work. She
is not only a longtime member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee,
which decides who gets federal dollars, but has served on the House Intelligence
Committee for 10 years. As the top Democrat on that panel, she is one of
the "gang of four," the four members of Congress who must by law be informed
by the administration of relevant secrets.
At one point, the most powerful woman in the U.S. House was hungry but
had no time for lunch. Rep. Holt pointed her toward the buffet set out
for his staff. She grabbed half a ham sandwich and ate it carefully as
she walked briskly back to the Capitol office.
Pelosi says her passion is issues. In that respect, she is a classic
liberal lawmaker. "In my view, it is all about children. It is all about
the future. If we are just here refereeing the battles of the titans on
economic issues, we are just doing a very small part of our job," she says.
"The main part of our job is what are we doing about these children's future.
How are we thinking ahead."
While her counterpart, House Republican Whip Tom DeLay of Texas, is
known as "the Hammer," a disciplinarian who threatens his Republicans with
loss of committee assignments and chairmanships if they fail to toe the
party line, Pelosi is still the polished hostess from Pacific Heights.
She's not given to showing a fist.
"I want to have the same result [as DeLay] but I'm not sure I will get
there the same way," she said during an interview before the Shays-Meehan
vote.
On the eve of Pelosi's swearing-in ceremony, a Democratic congresswoman
from Evanston, Jan Schakowsky, subsequently named chief deputy whip, went
to the House floor to hail Pelosi's election as a "historic landmark in
the evolution of our great democracy. ... Women do not want to just be
at the table, we want to be at the head of the table. Because of the gentlewoman
from California, we are energized and empowered."
What her new role means for women
More than 12,000 people have served in Congress since the beginning
of the republic, and only 215 have been women. The election of Rep. Nancy
Pelosi as Democratic whip is a first for women in Congress.
By holding the No. 2 job in the Democratic Party in the House, Pelosi
is now in line to be the first female speaker if Democrats retake control
of the House.
While polls show the public trusts women in legislatures and other collective
bodies where women share responsibility, there is still a reluctance among
some to trust women in executive jobs and other positions with genuine
power.
As House Democratic whip, Pelosi has direct influence over the shape
of the Democratic Party message and performance in Congress.
-- Chris Black
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