Nancy Pelosi secured another term as Speaker of the House of Representatives on Sunday. This will be the fourth (albeit nonconsecutive) term for the controversial San Francisco Democrat.
“As we go into session today, I do so full of pride to be nominated by our Democratic Caucus to be Speaker of the House,” Pelosi said in a letter released prior to the vote. “I am enormously grateful for the trust that Members have placed in me. I am confident that the Speaker’s election today will show a united Democratic Caucus ready to meet the challenges ahead, and that we are prepared to set our country on a new course, starting with the Electoral College meeting on Wednesday.”
Some had suggested that a surprise upset by a Republican could have happened.
While House members could vote by proxy due to emergency rules adopted in May to protect members from getting and spreading COVID-19, those rules expired with the new Congress. Since new rules governing the 117th Congress happen after the vote for speaker, members were required to be physically present to vote for speaker
House Democrats had been taking advantage of this proxy-voting rule in significant numbers, so there was certainly a reasonable concern from them that, due to the small margin of the Democrats’ majority, it was theoretically possible that more Republicans could have been present for the speaker vote than Democrats.
Despite her winning reelection as speaker, a majority of American voters opposed Pelosi for the position, while only 31 percent of voters supported her.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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