WASHINGTON — House Democrats nominated Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday as the speaker to lead them into Joe Biden’s presidency, but she’d be guiding a smaller and ideologically divided majority as she tries shepherding his agenda toward enactment.
Democrats used a voice vote to make Pelosi, D-Calif., their choice to serve two more years in her post. Scattered around the country, it was the party’s first virtual leadership election, a response to the coronavirus pandemic.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and No. 3 party leader Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., Congress’ highest ranking Black member, were reelected to their positions, like Pelosi without opposition. Clyburn revived Biden’s faltering bid for the Democratic presidential nomination this year by helping him win the South Carolina primary, a turnaround moment in Biden’s campaign.
“Let us all be advocates for unity in the Democratic party, where our values are opportunity and community,” Pelosi, the first female speaker, wrote to Democrats this week.
Underscoring Pelosi’s emphasis on inclusiveness, five of the seven Democrats who’d planned to deliver speeches backing her candidacy were women. They included congresswoman-elect Nikema Williams, who won the Atlanta-area district represented by Democratic Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights champion, until his death in July.