Nancy Pelosi
From Skinny Moose Data Center
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi (born March 26, 1940) is the current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before being elected Speaker in the 110th Congress, she was the House Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007, holding the post during the 108th and 109th Congresses.
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Overview
Since 1987, she has represented the 8th Congressional District of California, which consists of four-fifths of the City and County of San Francisco. The district was numbered as the 5th during Pelosi's first three terms in the House.
With her election as Speaker, she is the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. She is also the first Italian-American and first Californian to serve as Speaker. She is the second Speaker from a state west of the Rocky Mountains, with the first being Washington's Tom Foley, who was the last Democrat to hold the post before Pelosi. As Speaker of the House, Pelosi ranks third in the line of presidential succession, following Vice President Joe Biden, which makes her the highest-ranking female politician in United States history.
Early Life
Pelosi was born in Baltimore, Maryland. The youngest of six children, she was involved with politics from an early age. Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., was a U.S. Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore. Her brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, also a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, when he declined to run for a second term. Pelosi graduated from Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic all-girls high school in Baltimore, and from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C. in 1962. Pelosi interned for Senator Daniel Brewster (D-Maryland) alongside future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. She met Paul Frank Pelosi (b. April 15, 1940 in San Francisco, California) while she was attending Trinity College. They married in a Catholic church on September 7, 1963. After the couple married they moved to New York, and then to San Francisco in 1969, where his brother, Ronald Pelosi was a member of the City and County of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors.
Career
After moving to San Francisco, Pelosi worked her way up in Democratic politics. She was elected as party chairwoman for Northern California on January 30, 1977. She later joined forces with one of the leaders of the California Democratic Party, 5th District Congressman Phillip Burton. In 1987, after her youngest child became a high school senior, she decided to run for political office.
Pelosi is a board member of the National Organization of Italian American Women.
Pelosi lives in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.
Family
Pelosi has five children: Nancy Corinne, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul, and Alexandra, as well as seven grandchildren. Alexandra, a journalist, covered the Republican presidential campaigns in 2000 and made a film about the experience, Journeys with George. In 2007, Christine published a book, Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders.
Financial status
The Pelosi family has a net worth of nearly $19 million as of 2007, primarily from investments. In addition to their large portfolio of jointly owned San Francisco Bay Area real estate, the couple also owns a vineyard in St. Helena, California, valued at $5 million to $25 million. Pelosi's husband also owns stock, including $5 million in Apple Computer. Pelosi continues to be among the richest members of Congress.
Waterboarding
Pelosi officially opposes the interrogation technique of waterboarding. In one hour-long 2002 briefing, while Pelosi was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, she was told about enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding authorized for a captured terrorist, Abu Zubaydah. After the briefing, Pelosi said she "was assured by lawyers with the CIA and the Department of Justice that the methods were legal." Two unnamed former Bush Administration officials say that the briefing was detailed and graphic, and at the time she didn't raise substantial objections. The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.'"
Officials in Congress say her ability to challenge the practices was hampered by strict rules of secrecy that prohibited her from being able to take notes or consult legal experts or members of her own staff. In an April 2009 press conference, Pelosi stated, "In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel -- the Office of Legislative Counsel opinions that they could be used, but not that they would. And they further -- further, the point was that if and when they would be used, they would brief Congress at that time" Pelosi's office stated that she later protested the technique and that she concurred with objections raised by Democratic colleague Jane Harman in a letter to the CIA in early 2003.
Pelosi vs Central Intelligence Agency
Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration for lying to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques which dramatically raised the stakes in a growing debate over the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies even as it raised some questions about the speaker's credibility.
For the first time, in May of 2009, Pelosi acknowledged that in 2003 she was informed by an aide that the CIA had told others in Congress that officials had used waterboarding during interrogations. But she insisted, contrary to CIA accounts, that she was not told about waterboarding during a September 2002 briefing by agency officials. Asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying, she replied, "Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States."