Washington Monthly - September/October 2023 - 113

Nancy Pelosi's
Big Stick
An insider account of the Californian's
first four years as House speaker reveals
how she prodded Washington's more
timid male leaders to do big things.
By Jean Parvin Bordewich
I
n September 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was hearing worrisome rumblings
of a possible run on the San Francisco Federal Reserve. House and Senate
Democrats had held hearings months before on the growing subprime mortgage
crisis, but no bills had moved, the banking industry was gleefully riding the wave
of booming profits, and Republicans in Congress and the George W. Bush administration
were ignoring signs of trouble. On the morning of September 18, Pelosi
spoke with her economic advisers, who confirmed that conditions were deteriorating
fast. " The markets are frozen up, " one said. " No one wants to lend to anyone.
All that can happen now is an implosion. "
Pelosi immediately called Henry Paulson, treasury secretary to Bush, requesting
a meeting the next morning, a Friday. " Tomorrow will be too late, " Paulson
said. " If we don't act now, we won't have an economy by Monday. " Alarmed,
Pelosi asked, " If things are this bad, why aren't you calling me? " Paulson answered,
" The White House wouldn't let us. They were saving the problem for the
next president. "
John A. Lawrence, who served for eight years as Pelosi's chief of staff, recounts
many similar stories in his masterful book, Arc of Power. They reveal in finegrained
detail how Congress enacted a raft of monumental legislation during the
four years of Pelosi's first turn as speaker, 2007 to 2011. She succeeded under both
divided government and unified Democratic control of the House, Senate, and
presidency. Lawrence persuasively argues that her speakership really mattered-
not because she was the first woman in the role, but because in a stunning number
of instances she was the seminal figure pushing Congress and the White House
to act boldly and courageously on behalf of the larger public interest. When other
leaders sat on their hands, she moved decisively. When Republicans obstructed,
she persisted. When the Obama White House or the Senate considered opting for
incremental changes on health care, she insisted they go big. And when her Democratic
members balked, she cajoled and scolded to bring them along. " Some of you
are here to make a beautiful pâté, " she once chided progressives in her caucus, " but
we're making sausage most of the time. "
Republicans criticized her as " very partisan, " but she was often the first to cross
the aisle, as when she called Paulson. Like other Democratic and Republican leaders,
she had to wrangle with factions in her own caucus as well as with the other
party and the other chamber. She was often frustrated by the Senate's slow pace
and supermajority threshold. But when necessary, she worked with Republicans,
without withering, on the country's most pressing problems. " When you are in a
negotiation, the last place to get weak knees is at the end, " she said.
Washington Monthly 113
Arc of Power:
Inside Nancy Pelosi's
Speakership, 2005-2010
by John A. Lawrence
University of Kansas Press, 384 pp.
Washington Monthly - September/October 2023

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