Nancy Pelosi

Her father was a sitting congressman on the day she was born and mayor of Baltimore by the time she was seven, and her mother organized Democratic women and taught her how it was done. She was the only daughter and the youngest of six children in a Little Italy household where campaign work was chores. Institute of Notre Dame, then Trinity College in Washington, a political science degree in 1962, and an internship with Senator Daniel Brewster alongside Steny Hoyer. She married Paul Pelosi at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore on September 7, 1963, had five children, and moved to San Francisco in 1969. For two decades she volunteered, raised money and chaired the California party without ever putting her own name on a ballot.

Sala Burton, dying, wanted her to have the seat, and Pelosi took the June 1987 special election. There were 23 women in the House. Her first floor speech promised she would fight what she called the crisis of AIDS, and some in her own party told her privately to drop it. She hired an AIDS policy director and co-wrote the Ryan White CARE Act. Whip in 2001, leader in 2002, and on January 4, 2007 the first woman elected Speaker. She got the Affordable Care Act through a House that had written it off. She took the gavel back in 2019, ran the chamber through two Trump impeachments, tore up his State of the Union text in February 2020, and held it on January 6, 2021, when her office was ransacked and her laptop taken. It has not been recovered.

The wealth is her husband's and it is enormous. Net worth estimates have swung from 26 million dollars in 2012 to about 101 million in 2014 to 16 million in 2018 to roughly 120 million in 2021, depending on who counted. Their portfolio returned 16,930 percent between 1987 and 2024. In 2011 a 60 Minutes report accused her of trading on closed-session knowledge, citing Visa stock bought while a card-fee bill sat in the House. She called it a right-wing smear, then voted for the STOCK Act. In December 2021 she opposed banning members from owning individual stocks, saying the country is a free market economy, and drew a rebuke from Democrats who wanted it. In July 2024 Paul Pelosi sold Visa shares weeks before the Justice Department sued the company. Her office said she owns none and knew nothing.

She is 86 and still in the House. An intruder hunting for her broke into their San Francisco house in October 2022 and attacked her husband with a hammer. David DePape drew life without parole. She fell down stairs in Luxembourg in December 2024 and had a hip replaced at an American military hospital in Germany. On November 6, 2025, she announced she would leave in January 2027. The assessment is not fixed. Chris Cillizza and Harold Meyerson have called her the greatest Speaker in the office's history. Politico's John Bresnahan called the record mixed and blamed the health care bill for the 2010 wipeout. Republicans ran a bus tour called Fire Pelosi and named a bill after her.

Nancy Pelosi's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Ryan White CARE Act law
  Co-authored in her first term, when colleagues told her the subject was poison 1990
• Emergency Economic Stabilization Act law
  The bank rescue she moved through a House that had voted it down once 2008
• Affordable Care Act law
  The bill everyone else had given up on after Massachusetts 2010
• CARES Act law
  The pandemic relief package, negotiated across the aisle in weeks 2020
• Two impeachments of Donald Trump other
  December 2019 and January 2021. The Senate acquitted both times. 2021
• Inflation Reduction Act law
  One of the Biden bills she moved in her final term as Speaker 2022

• 1962 aged ~22 Takes a political science degree at Trinity College, Washington She interned for Senator Daniel Brewster alongside Steny Hoyer.
• September 7, 1963 aged 23 Marries Paul Pelosi at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore They moved to New York, then to San Francisco in 1969.
• June 2, 1987 aged 47 Wins the special election for Sala Burton's seat at 47 It remains the only close race of her career.
• October 10, 2001 aged 61 Elected House minority whip, the first woman to hold the job
• January 4, 2007 aged 66 Becomes the first woman elected Speaker of the House She beat John Boehner 233 votes to 202.
• February 4, 2020 aged 79 Tears up her copy of the State of the Union address behind the president
• October 2022 aged 82 An intruder hunting for her attacks her husband with a hammer David DePape was convicted on federal and state charges and given life without parole.
• December 14, 2024 aged 84 Has a hip replaced in Germany after falling on a trip to Luxembourg She was there with a delegation marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.
• November 6, 2025 aged 85 Announces she will not seek reelection and will retire in January 2027

• Donald Trump b. 1946
  Businessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics. impeached
• Barack Obama b. 1961
  44th President and first African American to hold the office, known for the Affordable Care Act. passed the health law for
• Sam Rayburn 1882–1961
  Longest-serving Speaker of the House who steered New Deal and postwar legislation through Congress. predecessor as Speaker she is measured against
• Harvey Milk 1930–1978
  First openly gay elected official in California whose assassination made him a martyr for LGBTQ rights. took the seat once held in her city by
• Shirley Chisholm 1924–2005
  First Black woman elected to Congress and first woman to run for a major party's presidential nomination. opened the door she walked through
• Anthony Fauci b. 1940
  Physician-scientist who shaped federal responses to HIV/AIDS, emerging infections, and the COVID-19 pandemic. legislated the epidemic with