Nancy Pelosi hopes for the next female president
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY’s Susan Page, Nancy Pelosi said she believes the next generation will have a female president.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is retiring from Congress, but not from politics.
The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy will be established at the University of California, Berkeley in January, the university announced on June 29. The institute will sponsor research, support summer internships, host an annual forum “for the world’s thought leaders,” and offer undergraduate classes.
This is one of them. This course on Congress is co-taught by political science professor Eric Schickler and Pelosi.
Still “continuing the fight”
With President Donald Trump in the White House and a Republican majority in the House, Pelosi told USA TODAY in a December interview, “I don’t have any authority right now.” “I get less when I’m not in Congress, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have influence. There are a lot of people outside Congress, including myself… who can fight.”
The first woman (and first Californian) to serve as Speaker of the House, Pelosi played a key role in the creation of the Affordable Care Act, including responding to the 2008 financial collapse and opposing the Iraq War. Many historians and politicians consider her the most powerful woman in American history.
She was a key legislative ally of Democratic President Barack Obama, who named the Garden Pavilion at his new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago in her honor. She was Republican President Donald Trump’s nemesis during his first term. Under her leadership, the House impeached him twice. The Senate acquitted him both times.
When Pelosi announced she would not run for a 21st term this year, President Trump called her an “evil woman” who “has done a tremendous service to our country by retiring.”
He also aroused hostility from Democratic President Joe Biden by urging him to reconsider his decision to seek a second term in 2024, although the two sides later reconciled.
“The work of democracy never ends, and our greatest mission is to secure its future,” Pelosi, 86, said in a written statement. “I was thinking about the words ‘One Nation, One Destiny’ embroidered on Abraham Lincoln’s overcoat,” she said.
$32 million has been raised so far
The Nancy Pelosi Institute has already received more than $32 million in funding and aims to raise a total of $50 million, the university said. Donors include Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul, as well as prominent philanthropists with roots in Silicon Valley and major Democratic donors.
Among them are the families of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy, Dagmar Dolby, Fred Eichaner, Jeannie Lavin, Jonathan Lavin, George Marcus, Judy Marcus, John Stryker, Slobodan Langelovic, and Ron Conway.
“We’re going to do more than just study democracy,” said Berkeley President Rich Lyons. “We’re building this lab to enhance that.”
Although the institute is said to be nonpartisan, there is a liberal slant to its description of its activities. That’s not surprising, given Pelosi’s Democratic background and Berkeley’s famously progressive campus. Its fundamental “pillars” include promoting human and civil rights, and the research it supports will also include climate change and wealth inequality.
Although the announcement did not use the word “diversity,” it did state the goal of “ensuring political leadership that represents all perspectives and backgrounds in California and this country.” Berkeley is among the elite universities facing scrutiny of its admissions policies and some programs by the Trump administration, which has threatened federal funding for the use of race-based practices.
The Pelosi Institute will also focus on reforming the criminal justice system and ensuring that artificial intelligence “enables democracy rather than undermines it.”
USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page is the author of the best-selling biography Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power (Twelve, 2021).
