The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, announced that she will not seek re-election to lead the Democratic caucus.
Her move ushers in a younger generation of leadership in the party and conservative Republicans take control of the House in January.
Pelosi, 82, was elected to Congress in 1987 and became first speaker in 2007 and presided over both of Donald Trump’s impeachment trials during his second term in office. She previously indicated that her time as a legislator may have expired.
Pelosi, a California liberal who served two terms as a speaker, said she will remain in Congress, representing San Francisco in the House as she has for 35 years.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York could try to take her place as the House’s top Democrat. Jeffries would be the first black lawmaker to lead a major party caucus in Congress.
Ms. Pelosi received applause from her fellow Democrats when she took her place on the House floor to make the announcement and during her remarks.
She called the House chamber “sacred ground” and the “heart of American democracy”, reports RTE.
She recalled visiting the Capitol for the first time as a child when her father was sworn in as a member of the House. She said that the camera represented “the people’s house” and had done “the people’s work”.
“American democracy is majestic but it is fragile. Many of us here have witnessed our fragility firsthand, tragically in this chamber. And so democracy must be forever defended from forces that wish it harm,” Ms Pelosi said, alluding to the attack on the Capitol last year by former President Donald Trump’s supporters, reports RTE.
“We the people – one country, one destiny,” she added, reports RTE.
Pelosi also noted the increase in the number of women serving in the House since she first entered. She thanked her family and staff.
Currently second in line to President Joe Biden, Pelosi said last week that her final decision on her career, if the Democrats lose the House, would be influenced by the brutal attack on her elderly husband in the pre-election period of Midterm elections on November 8.
Paul Pelosi, also 82, was hospitalized with serious injuries after an intruder, possibly looking for the speaker, broke into his San Francisco home and attacked him with a hammer.
President Biden said history will point out that Ms. Pelosi is “most consequential Speaker of the House of Representatives in our history”, reports RTE.
In a statement tonight, Mr Biden said Pelosi is a “fierce defender of democracy through our laws, history will also note her fierceness and resolve to protect our democracy from the violent, deadly insurrection of 6 January”, reports RTE.
And House Republicans immediately signaled they would use their newfound power to make life more difficult for Mr Biden, calling a press conference to announce plans to investigate the “national security” implications of the Biden family’s business ties.
With inflation rising and Biden’s popularity ratings plummeting, Republicans expected to see a “red wave” engulf the United States, giving them control of both chambers and thus an effective deadlock on the most of Biden’s legislative plans.
But instead, Democratic voters, galvanized by the Supreme Court’s nullification of abortion rights and wary of Trump-backed candidates who openly rejected the 2020 presidential election result, fell into force.
And Republicans have not lost ground to candidates rejected by moderate voters for being too hard-line.
Biden’s party secured an unassailable majority in the upper house by 50 secges plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, and a Senate runoff in Georgia could still Green and Democrats improve their upper house majorities.
The Senate after the federal judiciary and cabinet members are confirmed and with the body 100 seconds on their side will be a big plus for Biden.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, McCarthy won his party’s leadership vote by secret ballot, putting him in a prime position to be the next speaker.
But potential far-right defections could still complicate the 57-year-old’s course when the 435 newly elected members of the House of Representatives – Democrats and Republicans – choose their new president in January.
Midterm was about elections for US Congress, state governors and other local offices, above all was the 2024 US presidential race.
Mr Trump, who remains little celebrated and is the Republican party’s Celtic cousin for the party’s presidential nomination, has announced a series of arrest warrants and candidates from the extreme behind whom he has recruited or with whom he is allied if they are behaviorally male’ 8 November.
Some conservative Republican voters have not expressed Trump weariness.
Second, Trump is selling and voting hard that political pundits are nominating DeSantis, seen as a potential Trump backer in the field of 2024 Republican presidential candidates.
The 2024 election will immediately affect many legislative decisions that House Republicans pursue among more people and muscle with a newfound majority, however narrow.
They have publicly spoken out about the risk of cost savings in the Social Security and Medicare safety net programs and permanent tax cuts enacted in 2017 that are expected to expire.
The Conservatives are threatening to hold off the necessary debt limit increase for next year unless they get significant spending cuts.
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