Nancy Pelosi elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives
DHARAMSALA, Jan 4: Nancy Pelosi has become the first politician in 58 years to take back the gavel in the US after she was elected the Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
The California Democrat earned 220 votes from a total of 430 members present, while Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, won 192, The Guardian reported.
The veteran Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi also made history on Thursday when she won back the speaker’s gavel and reclaimed a title she held from 2007 to 2011. To date, she remains the first and only female House speaker.
Pelosi, 78 invited her grandchildren and all the children on the House floor to come up and stand with her as she took the oath of office to become the 52nd Speaker of the House on Thursday afternoon.
After she took the oath of office, she said it is particularly proud for her to be a woman Speaker of the house of the Congress, which marks the 100th year of women having the right to vote.
The 116th Congress bores the record for the highest number of women elected to Congress. As of Thursday, 102 women serve in the House, an all-time high, including 36 newly elected members and a record 43 women of colour, reports the BBC.
The 52nd speaker of the house added that she feels privileged to serve with over 100 women members of Congress – the largest number in history.
Pelosi is an old friend of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a staunch supporter of the Tibetan people and the Tibet issue.
In a congratulatory letter addressed to her, the Dalai Lama thanked her for her personal friendship and for her loyal and unwavering support in the past decades to the just cause of the Tibetan people.
“Your friendship, support and solidarity during this most difficult period in Tibet’s long history have been a source of hope, inspiration and strength in our enduring and challenging quest for justice and freedom,” the Dalai Lama wrote in the missive.
The Tibetan spiritual leader further stated that in spite of the uncertainty and upheaval we are presently witnessing across the world, including the continuing plight of my compatriots in Tibet, he remains hopeful and optimistic that ultimately truth, justice and human reasoning and decency will prevail.
Nancy Pelosi is currently in her 17th term as a Member of the House of Representatives, she was first elected in a 1987 special election. Pelosi is also a two-time House Minority Leader, serving from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2019.
