United Liberty

We speculated on Nancy Pelosi’s future earlier this week, wondering whether she would stay in the House or retire. Today, she announced her bid for House Minority Leader in the next Congress, a position she held from 2003 to 2007:

Nancy Pelosi, the nation’s first female House speaker, said Friday she will try to keep her spot as leader of the House Democrats despite huge election losses that cost her party the majority.

Pelosi, a California liberal, rejected pressure from moderate House Democrats — and even some liberal allies — who said the widespread defeats cried out for new party leadership.

Pelosi, 70, will seek her colleagues’ support to become House minority leader when the new Congress convenes in January. That would keep her atop the Democratic House caucus, which will number about 190 people next year. But it would mark a big drop from being speaker, which carries tremendous power to influence legislation and is second only to the vice president in the line of presidential succession.

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) has publicly stated that Pelosi should step down, and that he would challenge her if she decided to run for this post. However, the Democratic caucus is much more to the left than Shuler, as over half of Blue Dog Democrats went down on Tuesday evening. And Pelosi isn’t the type of politician that wouldn’t announce a run for this if she didn’t already have the votes.