Nancy Pelosi to step down as House Speaker

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve in the post, said that she will not pursue a leadership post in the next Congress starting in January next year and that "the hour has come for a new generation to lead." No 3 in the line of U.S. presidential succession, Pelosi announced that she would relegate herself and open doors for the new generation. Some analyzed her stepping down as an aftermath of the midterm elections on November 8 that resulted in losing their House majority to Republicans. She said she would remain a member of Congress and serve her 19th term to which she was just elected.

"Now, we must move boldly into the future. The hour has come for a new generation," Pelosi said during her floor speech to the House on Thursday. "American Democracy is majestic but it is fragile. Democracy must be forever defended from forces that wish it harm."

Since her first election to the House in 1987, Pelosi served as House Majority Whip in 2003, then as House Speaker between 2007 and 2011, and has served in the post again since January 2019, writing a new history for female politicians in the U.S. In her speech for taking office as Speaker in 2007, she said, "For our daughters and granddaughters, we have broken the marble ceiling." She also enjoyed wearing white in official appearances for its association with the women's voting-rights movement.

She has been on bad terms with former President Donald Trump. Under her second speakership in 2019, the House twice impeached then-President Trump, but the Senate acquitted him both times. In her farewell speech on Thursday, she said she had enjoyed working with three presidents: Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, but ignored Donald Trump.


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