House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will not be Speaker of the House again. However the 73-year-old says she will run again for her seat.In an interview published Friday in the National Journal, an inside-Washington magazine, Pelosi was asked whether she wishes to return to the top job. Pelosi said she did not, pointing out that she has held the post.
“No, that’s not my thing. I did that,” Pelosi said.
However, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill discounted Pelosi’s comments, saying they’re in line with her stock response when she’s asked about running for leadership positions. Hammill said Friday that she’s working hard to win back the majority for Democrats and that, if the effort is successful, her colleagues would elect their speaker.
“She was simply saying she doesn’t ‘wish’ for things,” Hammill said.
Pelosi became the first woman to ever be Speaker of the House in 2007, when democrats won the majority. She lost it to current speaker John Boehner in 2011 in the landslide 2010 midterm elections when Republicans gained control of the House. During the interview, Pelosi was asked if Congress, after the long recess was starting to feel “repetitive”. She replied,
“Oh, it’s Groundhog Day Central. There’s no question about that. It’s not productive. It’s a waste of the taxpayers’ dollar. It’s a waste of our time. And it’s time that’s not working [for] the American people. [The Republicans’] agenda is nothing, and their timetable is never. But having said that, hopefully there are some among them that realize we have a responsibility to govern.”
She was then asked if she thought it was because of the 20 or so Republicans dominating conversations from the right, she responded,
“I think it’s more than 20. Here’s what I have to say to my Republican friends out there: Take back your party. This isn’t the Grand Old Party that used to have such great leadership. The name “Republican” in some ways has been hijacked by obstructionists. They are nowhere on the spectrum of trying to get the job done, and they claim the name without bringing to it the greatness, the leadership of the past.”
The interviewer continued by asking if the disjointed Repulican party gave her some leverage when it came to them needing votes, she said,
“I only have leverage if the other side is willing to govern. If they are willing to govern, we can find compromise. Not if they are just going to hold their ideological position and say, ‘We can be irresponsible because the Democrats are going to be responsible.’ “
Read the interview in it’s entirety at The National Journal!