Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; née D'Alesandro; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician serving as Speaker of the United States House of Representati...
Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; née D'Alesandro; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician serving as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019, and previously from 2007 to 2011. Pelosi has served as a U.S. representative from California since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the only woman in U.S. history to serve as Speaker and, until the inauguration of Kamala Harris as vice president, was the highest-ranking female elected official in United States history. As House Speaker, Pelosi is second in the presidential line of succession, after the vice president.Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1987, following her father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., who served as a U.S. representative from Maryland and Mayor of Baltimore, into politics. She is the dean of California's congressional delegation, having begun her 18th term in 2021. Pelosi represents California's 12th congressional district, which comprises four-fifths of the city and county of San Francisco. She initially represented the 5th district (1987–1993), and then, when district boundaries were redrawn after the 1990 Census, the 8th district (1993–2013). Pelosi has led the House Democrats since 2003—the first woman to lead a party in Congress—serving twice each as House minority leader (2003–2007 and 2011–2019) and as Speaker (2007–2011 and since 2019).
Pelosi was a major opponent of the Iraq War as well as the Bush administration's 2005 attempt to partially privatize Social Security. During her first speakership, she was instrumental in the passage of many of the Obama administration's landmark bills, including the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the 2010 Tax Relief Act.
Pelosi lost the speakership in 2011 after the Republican Party won a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections. But she retained her role as leader of the House Democratic Caucus and returned to the role of House minority leader. In the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats regained control of the House. When the 116th Congress convened on January 3, 2019, Pelosi was again elected Speaker, becoming the first former Speaker to return to the post since Sam Rayburn in 1955. Under Pelosi's leadership, the House of Representatives impeached President Donald Trump, first on December 18, 2019, and again on January 13, 2021.On January 3, 2021, Pelosi was reelected to a fourth term as Speaker of the House, which is expected to be her last, after a deal with progressives.
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Paul Ryan
Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is a retired American politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives...
Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is a retired American politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from October 2015 to January 2019. He was also the 2012 vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, running unsuccessfully alongside Mitt Romney.
Ryan, a native of Janesville, Wisconsin, graduated from Miami University in 1992. He spent five years working for Republicans in Washington, D.C. and returned to Wisconsin in 1997 to work at his family's construction company. Ryan was elected to Congress to represent Wisconsin's 1st congressional district the following year, replacing an incumbent Republican who ran for U.S. Senate. Ryan would represent the district for 20 years. He chaired the House Budget Committee from 2011 to 2015 and briefly chaired the House Ways and Means Committee in 2015 prior to being elected Speaker of the House in October 2015 following John Boehner's retirement.
A self-proclaimed deficit hawk, Ryan was a major proponent of Social Security privatization in the mid-2000s. In the 2010s, two proposals heavily influenced by Ryan—"The Path to Prosperity" and "A Better Way"—advocated for the privatization of Medicare, the conversion of Medicaid into a block grant program, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and significant federal tax cuts. As Speaker, he had a role in passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. His other major piece of legislation, the American Health Care Act of 2017, passed the House but failed in the Senate by one vote. Despite his past fiscal conservative rhetoric, Ryan's tenure as Speaker of the House—most of which coincided with a period of unified Republican control of the federal government—saw a significant increase in federal government spending and deficits.
Ryan declined to run for re-election in the 2018 midterm elections. With the Democratic Party taking control of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi succeeded Ryan as Speaker of the House.
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