Articles
San Francisco Chronicle: Pelosi Proud of Dems' Work in First 100 Days
03/29/2007
By Edward Epstein
Nancy Pelosi took an early survey of her first 100 days as
speaker of the House of Representatives and called reporters to the Capitol
Wednesday to proclaim she had compiled a "remarkable record of which I'm
enormously proud."
Outside experts said her boast was only somewhat hyperbolic.
Even Republicans conceded that Pelosi, whom they have derided as an
out-of-touch
"Overall, I'd give her high marks," said Julian
Zelizer, a scholar of Congress at
After leading Democrats to victory in November's election,
Pelosi took office Jan. 3. Her 100th day as the first female speaker in the
history of Congress won't come until mid-April. But the House will be on its
spring recess then, so Pelosi gathered her top deputies Wednesday and called a
news conference to praise the work of her leadership team.
"In the last election, the American people voted for
change," Pelosi said, standing in front of an array of American flags and
a banner emblazoned with her campaign slogan, "A New Direction."
"Democrats have brought the winds of change to the
Capitol," she added.
Pelosi and Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid are engaged
in a political battle with Bush over ways to limit the
"You're the president, we're the Congress, let's work
together for the American people. Take a deep breath, Mr. President,"
Pelosi said.
Pelosi's speakership got off to a rocky start even before
she took office. After the election, she backed her longtime friend, Rep. John
Murtha, D-Pa., in a campaign to unseat the Democrats' new majority leader, Rep.
Steny Hoyer of
But since her election as speaker, in a party-line vote Jan.
4, Pelosi has carefully cultivated the image of change. In a first, after she
spoke to the House that day, she invited the children of the members in the
chamber to join her on the speaker's dais as she pounded the speaker's gavel,
producing a unique image for the evening news and nation's newspapers.
In response to scandals that had dogged the Republican-led
109th Congress, the House quickly adopted rules that limited lobbyists' ability
to entertain members or their staffs and reinstated "pay-go" rules
for the federal budget requiring that any new spending be offset by spending
cuts or increased taxes.
Then Pelosi's fellow Democrats fulfilled her pledge to pass
the "Six for '06" agenda of carefully poll-tested legislation within
100 legislative hours. The House voted to raise the federal minimum wage, allow
federally funded embryonic stem cell research, implement recommendations of the
9/11 commission, cut oil and gas tax breaks, allow Medicare to negotiate drug
price discounts and cut student loan rates.
The bills passed, with an average of 62 Republicans joining
the Democrats, well within 100 legislative hours, although Republicans pointed
out that the official clock seemed to stop and start selectively -- and that
they weren't allowed to offer amendments despite Pelosi's pledge to treat the
minority generously.
Since the initial flurry, the focus has been on two pieces
of legislation related to the
First was a nonbinding resolution opposing Bush's plan to
send more than 21,500 additional
The negotiating and cajoling over that bill were nothing
compared to the effort required last week to pass a $124 billion emergency war
spending bill that came with a deadline of Aug. 31, 2008, for withdrawing all
U.S. forces from Iraq. Billions of dollars in domestic spending were added to
lure votes, and the wording about deadlines and troop conditions were almost
endlessly negotiated.
The measure passed 218-212, only two Republicans voting yes.
Fourteen Democrats, from the right and left, voted no. The Senate is poised
today to pass a similar measure.
To UC Berkeley political scientist Bruce Cain, Pelosi's
record is mixed.
"The first thing you look for is a leader's ability to
lead your caucus," he said. Pointing to her quixotic support for Murtha,
he said, "I think she started out shaky there but ended on a strong
note."
The second dimension of effective leadership, Cain said, is
producing results. "In the end, legislators have to produce things. Her
first 100 days started out with promise and ended in stalemate," he said.
Here, Pelosi ran up against the unusual arithmetic of the
Senate, which turned narrowly Democratic after November's election. Under
Senate rules, almost nothing can pass without 60 votes, meaning bipartisan
accord is necessary to prevent gridlock.
Pelosi's "Six for '06" measures either haven't
come to the Senate floor or are awaiting action by House-Senate conference
committees.
But House Democrats say they and their Senate counterparts
also have played a major role in oversight of the Bush administration.
In the House alone, more than 100 hearings have been held
this year on the conduct of the war in
And on matters such as reports of patient neglect at
Pelosi's Republican House rivals, still trying to adjust to
life in the minority after 12 years in charge, give her grudging praise.
Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., who chairs the House Republican
Conference, said of Pelosi and her team, "I think they've done a pretty
good job of keeping their troops in line."
But he said Pelosi's legislative agenda has endangered many
of the 42 Democratic House freshmen who were elected from competitive
districts. "This comes at a great political cost to their members who ran
as conservatives. She is making them walk the plank," Putnam said.
But those conservative Democrats say Pelosi has run the
caucus from the middle, not from the liberal flank, and has sought out their
input.
An example, said Blue Dog leader Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., is
legislation for the $2.9 trillion federal budget scheduled today for a House
vote. Democratic leaders gave the Blue Dogs a lead role in writing the House
budget.
"We're in the middle. We believe the American people
are in the middle. We believe this budget is an opportunity to lead from the
middle," Ross said. "We believe this new budget is another example of
the leadership leading from the middle."