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Pelosi is out. Expect heavy campaigning in CA — and cues for senior Dems in DC to follow suit.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House and one of the most powerful women in modern American politics, will retire from Congress next year.

The San Francisco Democrat, who announced her decision Thursday, had come under increasing pressure to step aside amid her party’s widening generational divide. Now 85, she defied political observers in 2023 when she ran for a 20th congressional term despite Democrats losing the House and her speakership the year before. But next year, she faced a tougher-than-expected group of primary challengers.

“I will not be seeking reelection to Congress. With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative,” Pelosi said in a lengthy and emotional video posted on social media and addressed to San Franciscans.

One of the most formidable political tacticians of her generation, Pelosi had deflected speculation for months about her plans. Her announcement came two days after California voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to redraw the state’s congressional map to favor Democrats in next year’s midterm elections.

The question of Pelosi’s retirement timeline has for years been the subject of feverish speculation in San Francisco, a deep-blue and politics-obsessed city that has produced a stream of national Democratic leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris. But Pelosi had hinted that she would make a major announcement after Tuesday’s election.

Now, the departure of one of the nation’s most recognizable Democrats, who was first elected to Congress in a 1987 special election, marks the end of an era. It also sets off a cascade of campaign maneuvering here as Democrats seize on the once-in-a-generation opportunity of an open House seat in this center of Democratic politics. And in Washington, Pelosi’s coming departure will prompt questions about the political futures of her senior-ranking congressional allies.

Pelosi already faced two serious Democratic challengers: Saikat Chakrabarti, a wealthy former tech executive and progressive organizer, and Scott Wiener, a prominent state lawmaker who has been angling to succeed Pelosi for years.

Another potential contender for the seat is San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, a progressive force inside City Hall who, much like Pelosi, is closely aligned with the city’s powerful labor movement. Pelosi has recently heaped attention on Chan, who’s been featured alongside the former speaker at several recent campaign events.

Pelosi’s departure will deprive Republicans of a chief antagonist they have used as a visceral foil since long before the Trump era — part of a decades-long effort by the GOP to cast Pelosi as a caricature of coastal elite liberalism.

Pelosi, while fading from center stage after stepping aside from her leadership post, continued to wield clout in party politics. She campaigned across the state this fall in support of Democrats’ redistricting measure and was central to the effort to resist President Donald Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and federal safety-net programs. Last year, Pelosi moved behind the scenes to help convince former President Joe Biden not to run for another term. And she’s continued to be a sounding board for Hill Democrats, including her successor, Hakeem Jeffries.

Some Pelosi allies said in recent days that they hoped she would run again, predicting she could help boost Democrats in the midterms.

“She’s back in her five-inch heels. This is not someone who gets lost in the hallways,” said Oakland Rep. Lateefah Simon, a first-term member who counts Pelosi as a mentor and described her as a force at the Capitol even after leaving leadership and recovering from an injury last year. “She has been one of the most consequential legislators in American history. That loss is going to be deeply felt.”

Pelosi has often said she meant to retire years ago but stayed on Capitol Hill to defend the Affordable Care Act — one of her crowning achievements as speaker — amid threats from Republicans. Then, she found herself embroiled in her party’s yearslong power struggle with Trump, who she, like many Democrats, cast as a threat to democracy.

Her farewell video, posted on social media, recalls highlights of Pelosi’s career, including leading efforts to rebuild in San Francisco after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, helping to create the city’s Presidio national park site and her trailblazing status as the first female speaker.

“I have truly loved serving as your voice in Congress, and I’ve always honored the song of Saint Francis, ‘Lord make me an instrument of thy peace,’ the anthem of our city,” Pelosi said. “That is why I want you, my fellow San Franciscans, to be the first to know.”

Pelosi also faced personal struggles in recent years that fueled speculation about her political future. Just before the 2022 midterms, David DePape broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco mansion and attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer. He was sentenced to life in prison on a slew of state and federal charges. And last year, she underwent hip replacement surgery after suffering an injury while traveling.

Pelosi, in a 2022 documentary by her daughter, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, reflected on the accomplishments and travails of her speakership — offering a sobering yet unapologetic take.

“Being speaker makes you a target — a target of misinformation, a target of mockery and sometimes a target of violence,” Pelosi said, before quoting from a prayer she once saw in Africa: “When one day I meet my maker … he will say to me: ‘Show me your wounds.’ … I’m proud of my wounds.”

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Congress

House Democrats once again left complaining about a Senate spending deal

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For the third time in less than a year, a spending deal brokered in the Senate has House Democrats feeling left out — and grumbling about their counterparts across the Capitol.

This time, the agreement between President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leaders would spare the vast majority of federal agencies from an extended shutdown — funding most of them through the end of the fiscal year in September while punting Homeland Security funding only through Feb. 13.

But to Democrats up in arms over Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, that’s still 10 days of DHS funding too many — assuming the deal passes the House as planned Tuesday — leaving them to vent once again about the other chamber.

“There are some Senate Democrats who always signal nervousness and are so reluctant to be strong,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). “We end up having to answer for what they won’t do, and it can be very frustrating.”

“We are far closer to the people,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), adding that it’s “critically important that House members be brought in” during negotiations over immigration enforcement constraints considering ICE, Border Patrol and other agencies are deployed in their districts.

The interchamber tensions between Democrats are becoming a regular feature of funding fights in the second Trump term. Lawmakers, strategists and voters alike exploded in anger last March when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a handful of colleagues allowed a spending package to move forward amid the Elon Musk-led DOGE assault on federal agencies. In November, tempers again flared when a handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to end a record 43-day shutdown.

This time, the situation is more nuanced. At stake is $1.2 trillion in full-year funding that was negotiated on a bipartisan basis; Democrats generally support the vast majority of the agreement. But the inclusion of the DHS money has been a sore spot — especially after the killing last month of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis.

A version of the DHS bill passed in the House before the Jan. 24 killing of Alex Pretti garnered only seven Democratic votes. Senate Democrats immediately declared a no-go on full-year funding for the department after the incident, and Schumer and Trump negotiated a two-week punt to allow for further talks.

Fewer than half of Senate Democratic Caucus members ultimately ended up voting for the deal, however, and support among House Democrats is considerably more scant.

Asked if House Democrats were sufficiently read in on the Trump-Schumer deal, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said “no” but added, “I don’t think that that’s surprising.”

“But I think the split among senators was kind of surprising,” the California lawmaker added. “And so … we’ll see what happens.”

The spending package is headed to the floor Tuesday, where it remains an open question if House Republicans will be able to unite on a key test vote. Late last week — facing dissension in his own ranks over having to pass a bill with only temporary DHS funding — Speaker Mike Johnson entertained using a bipartisan fast-track process.

But members of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership circle were caught unaware — with some downright livid — at Johnson’s confidence that he could pass the bill under that process — which would require a two-thirds-majority vote, meaning at least 70 Democrats would be needed to get it across the line.

Such a move generally requires tacit agreement from minority party leaders to supply the votes. But Republicans at that point hadn’t asked their Democratic counterparts for a more formal private count of how many Democrats might support the measure, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Jeffries told Johnson just hours later on a private call that Democratic leadership would not commit to delivering the required votes for a fast-track vote, forcing Johnson to gather GOP votes to jump through a procedural hurdle first. Johnson has since accused Democrats of “playing games” with the shutdown-ending package.

Those interparty antics have helped deflect attention from internal Democratic tensions over the Senate-brokered funding deal, with Jeffries playing down any such rift Monday.

“I speak regularly with Leader Schumer, and I speak regularly with Mike Johnson,” he said when asked if House Democrats were properly consulted in the funding package negotiations. “There’s no daylight between House and Senate Democrats on accomplishing the objective, which is dramatic reform of ICE.”

Jeffries opposed the prior package, with full-year DHS funding, but would not say Monday how he intended to vote on the revised bill with the short-term stopgap.

Schumer, for his part, said he spoke with Jeffries during the negotiations that erupted in the Senate following Pretti’s killing. He said after the Senate vote Friday night that Jeffries had agreed on limiting DHS funding to Feb. 13.

“This bill was negotiated by … [Senate Majority LeaderJohn] Thune and me,” Schumer said. “But I’ve talked to Hakeem Jeffries. For instance, we talked about how long a [stopgap] should be, because we wanted to limit it greatly.”

Asked about Schumer’s comment Monday, Jeffries said, “I think what we made clear to the Senate is that the original three-month proposal was completely and totally unacceptable.”

Behind the scenes, Schumer told the White House and congressional Republicans last week that they would need to talk to Jeffries because the bill was going back to the House, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose a private conversation.

If Republicans can get the bill over the procedural hurdle Tuesday, more Democrats are expected to support it than the seven who backed the previous version. But the party remained sharply divided Monday.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Appropriations Committee Democrat, said Monday she would support the bill on the floor, while another panel leader, Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern of the Rules Committee, said he would oppose it.

“I will not vote for business as usual while masked agents break into people’s homes without a judicial warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” McGovern said.

Others declined to forecast their plans, including members of the Democratic leadership team. Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the caucus vice chair, said he planned to attend Tuesday morning’s caucus meeting before deciding.

Several Democrats said they do not expect party leaders to formally whip votes for or against the funding package, with some acknowledging that it would not be an easy decision for members who support the vast majority of the funding bill and also don’t want to see noncontroversial DHS agencies such as FEMA and TSA shut down.

And blaming the Senate for having to take a tough note, one Democrat noted, is hardly new.

“I’ve been here long enough that people always complain about the other chamber, so that’s always an easy out,” Aguilar said.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

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House Republicans eye next week for housing bill vote

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House leadership is eyeing the week of Feb. 9 for a vote on a bipartisan housing package, according to four people with direct knowledge of the planning.

Senior lawmakers have also been mulling whether to consider the widely supported bill under suspension of House rules, which would expedite passage of the legislation, said three of the people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

However, plans for the bill are not locked in and could be subject to change as the House deals with a partial government shutdown.

The Housing in the 21st Century Act, which overwhelmingly advanced through the House Financial Services Committee in December, is part of a push by Congress to pass legislation that could address a growing housing affordability crisis. The bill includes 25 provisions that aim to increase the housing supply, modernize local development and rural housing programs, expand manufactured and affordable housing, protect borrowers and those utilizing federal housing programs, and enhance oversight of housing providers.

House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said Friday that he’s pushing for the Housing for the 21st Century Act to receive a floor vote expeditiously.

”I hope that that bill can come to the House floor in just a few days. I really am pushing for that, I think it’s the right decision,” Hill said on Bloomberg Radio.

The Senate’s housing bill, the ROAD to Housing Act, passed the upper chamber as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act but may be put to a separate floor vote. If the House is able to pass its own version by a wide margin before the Senate, it could have additional leverage for negotiations with the upper chamber for a final bill. Hill and other House Republicans have said the Senate bill, which received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate Banking Committee, has a number of provisions that would not be acceptable among House GOP members.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton now agree to testify before Congress

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Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an Oversight aide said Monday evening.

It’s a remarkable reversal for the former president and secretary of state, who were adamant they would defy committee-issued subpoenas and risk imprisonment by the Trump Justice Department as the House prepared to vote Wednesday to hold them both in contempt of Congress.

After both skipped their scheduled depositions earlier this year, the Oversight Committee voted on a bipartisan basis in January to approve contempt measures for each of them.

Although both have said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, they have maintained that the subpoenas were not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose, rendering them invalid. They also complained the GOP-led exercise was designed to embarrass and put them in jail.

It is not immediately clear when they will appear and if the House will continue to pursue the contempt votes.

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