Pelosi Wins Speaker Election, Despite Leftist Threats

Washington, D.C. — Nancy Pelosi narrowly won her race to retain the position of Speaker of the House.

Speaker Pelosi won her fourth term as Speaker with 216 votes. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy garnered 209 votes. Two Democrats voted for other candidates, and three Democrats voted “Present.”

The Speaker election is a typically mundane vote that more or less reflects the split between the two major parties in the House. However, this year’s election drew quite a bit of attention, with the extreme left wing of the party threatening to oppose Pelosi.

Pelosi apparently is not liberal enough for some of her Democrat colleagues. Members of “The Squad,” including socialist Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, have openly criticized Pelosi, perceiving her as a moderate.

With the slim margin between Republicans and Democrats in the House, some speculated that Pelosi could actually lose the Speakership to McCarthy if some of the radical leftists followed through and voted for someone else.
As it turned out, Representative Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts are all bark and no bite.

Only five Democrats openly voted against Pelosi. One was Rep. Jared Golden (Maine), who voted for Democrat Senator Tammy Duckworth (Illinois), and another was Rep. Conor Lamb (Pennsylvania), who voted for House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries (New York).

The other three Democrats Reps., Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), Mikie Sherrill (New Jersey) and Abigail Spanberger (Virginia), voted “present,” signaling that they didn’t want to support Pelosi but also did not want to ruffle feathers with others by actually picking a side.

What did Rep. Ocasio-Cortez have to say for her lack of conviction? Basically, she copped out and blamed Republicans.

.@AOC on vote for Pelosi : “in a time when the Republican Party is attempting an electoral coup and trying to overturn the results of our election, this is not just about being united as a party. It's about being united as people who have basic respect for the rule of law.”

— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) January 3, 2021

The situation is somewhat reminiscent of former Republican Speaker John Boehner’s tenure as Speaker. Speaker Boehner’s leadership came into question in his final years in office, with members of the Freedom Caucus threatening to vote against him.

These, too, were empty threats. Boehner easily won his reelection as Speaker and remained there until he “voluntarily” stepped down in 2015.
Similar to Boehner, Pelosi’s days as Speaker may be numbered. However, unless Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and her friends suddenly grow a spine, Pelosi will remain as the top dog in the House. Until then, it is hard to take the far-left wing of the Democrat party seriously when they just cave to party pressure with every conflict.

Twitter user Isabelle Morales summed up Ocasio-Cortez’s hypocrisy perfectly in this tweet:

AOC called the omnibus/stimulus bill a “hostage-taking” of Congress. She voted for it.

AOC said the House needed new leadership. She voted for Pelosi.

This is the making of your typical, establishment politician. Enables things they don’t believe in, in fear of retaliation.

— Isabelle Morales (@IsabelleAliciaa) January 4, 2021

Socialist radicals like AOC can tweet all they want, but if they vote like Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats, they aren’t anything different or special.

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