New House speaker showing who's boss (Too funny!!! "She's a risk taker.")

AP on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 1/21/07 | Erica Werner - ap

[NormsRevenge]

Sworn in just over two weeks ago as the first female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi wasted no time showing who's boss.

The California Democrat rammed six major bills through the House at breakneck speed, stomped out smoking privileges near the House floor, partially sidelined a powerful Democratic committee chairman and decided she liked traditionally Republican office space so much she claimed it for herself.

By Democrats' timekeeping, she did it all in far under the 100 legislative hours she had allotted.

"We did what we promised the American people we would," Pelosi declared on Friday, pledging it was "just the beginning."

Pelosi's initial agenda, completed Thursday, included measures with wide popular support: increasing the minimum wage, broadening stem cell research, allowing government bargaining on Medicare drug prices, cutting student loan costs, putting in place terrorism-fighting recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission and rolling back energy company tax breaks.

Each bill passed with bipartisan majorities and Pelosi triumphantly gaveled down the votes, at one point banging the gavel so enthusiastically that it left a small dent in the podium.

Now Democrats will have to move on to thornier topics such as reconciling their conflicting views of President Bush's Iraq troop escalation plan, overhauling immigration laws and fixing the alternative minimum tax. That will be the true test of Pelosi's leadership, congressional observers said.

"It's sort of like a meal in which you eat your dessert first and then get the broccoli for the main course," said Rutgers political science professor Ross Baker. "It's a great debut, but it's the overture and there are three or four acts to go."

Still, in the view of many Democrats, Pelosi's opening performance bodes well. She seemed to recover from postelection stumbles such as backing the losing candidate in the contest for House majority leader.

She also is getting a honeymoon from the public. Pelosi is held in higher regard than the president or her colleagues in the Congress. An AP-AOL News poll taken Jan. 16-18 put her approval rating at 51 percent - much higher than that of Congress (34 percent) or Bush (36 percent).

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., a close ally, called Pelosi's performance "spectacular."

"What the Democrats in the caucus are telling me is that this is the best three weeks of their life," he crowed.

Even moderates who are not always aligned with the liberal Pelosi were not complaining.

"I've had no problem choking down anything she's done to date," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats. "I think she's done very well in the good old boy halls of Congress. She's been more collegial than some members thought she might be."

Pelosi, who is in her 10th House term, moved quickly to defuse the first potential controversy to beset her speakership: questions over whether the minimum wage bill gave preferential treatment to a company in her district. She instructed the bill's authors to make sure it did not.

She has been at the forefront of her party's opposition to Bush's proposed troop increase, carefully emphasizing that Democrats will not support any attempt to cut off money for soldiers already in Iraq.

And she has played tough with Republicans and Democrats alike.

Pelosi's move to end smoking in the House Speaker's Lobby came even though House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is a heavy smoker. She angered Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House's longest-serving member, by creating a special committee to look at global warming, which is under Dingell's committee's jurisdiction.

"I have yet to have it explained to me what good it is," grumbled Dingell, D-Mich., an auto industry ally who has clashed with Pelosi.

Newly demoted Republicans have been able to do little but watch unhappily from the sidelines, echoing the complaint often made by Democrats during their 12 years in the minority: that they are being shut out of the legislative process.

Yet several GOP lawmakers said it hardly is surprising that Pelosi is flexing her muscles now that she is leading the Democrats' return to power.

"Speaker Pelosi worked a long time to earn this opportunity to be elected speaker, and she is totally enjoying her first month on the job," said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y.

"It's not that she's the first woman, it's her style," he added. "She's a risk taker."

[NormsRevenge]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(R), D-NV, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, hold a news conference on "The State of the Union 2007" 19 January, 2007 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The new Democratic-controlled US Congress is trying to reassert itself as a counterweight to President George W. Bush as it looks for ways to chip away at the president's prerogative to conduct foreign policy, especially in the case of Iraq. Photo:Tim Sloan/AFP AFP via Yahoo! Canada News - Jan 20 9:28 AM

[Cyclopean Squid]

Amazing what one can accomplish when not worried about maintaining an atmosphere of bipartisanship.

[IronJack]

rammed six major bills through
stomped out smoking privileges
sidelined a committee chairman
claimed [some office space] for herself.

Woo hoo! The country's back on the healing path, and redemption is just around the corner! These bold acts move us light years forward in our eternal struggle against an idle House, smoke-filled antechambers, powerful committee chairs, and empty offices.

[NormsRevenge]

"We did what we promised the American people we would"

---

Some promises are just meant to be broken, yaknow..

Some might call it lying when one gives one's word out of one side of the mouth and then..

Well, we can see for ourselves what a dems word is worth these days. ;-)

[Free ThinkerNY]

Pelousy is trying to out-witch this witch

[Izzy Dunne]

Amazing what one can accomplish when not worried about maintaining an atmosphere of bipartisanship.

Indeed. A lesson could be learned, but probably won't.

[ErnBatavia]

Pelousy is trying to out-witch this witch

But even Nancy can't outb*tch this b*tch:

[alloysteel]

A real ball buster.

And we ain't talking about paintball, either.

[raftguide]

Yes Ironjack, she is a very smart and brilliant women, destined for much higher office. What a sleeper she has been wasting her time in California when she's was capable of bringing utopia to the world...singlehandedly!

[IronJack]

Well, how many Speakers do you know who claimed their own office space!!!! Within the first 100 hours of the new session, no less!

I stand in awe as the future unfolds at her feet ...

[NormsRevenge]

Yes,, all fine and good, she done rammed it home in record time, She da Man now! .. but can she bake cookies. ;-)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Amen to that!

[bmwcyle]

All those girls are dangerous.

[IronJack]

can she bake cookies.

Let's put it this way: if Jack Bauer is looking for the perfect mate, he'd need to team up with Chuck Norris to be worthy of her.

Her cookies would make Betty Crocker take up raquetball. Plus, she can bake them while banning smoking from the House lobby! Martha Stewart can't touch dat!

[Ritemind]

This is not a new thing. We would all still be in the Garden of Eden if some woman didn't screw it up.

[traditional1]

"An AP-AOL News poll taken Jan. 16-18 put her approval rating at 51 percent "</p>Hmmmm.....barely half the people polled by the Liberal-biased pollsters rated the banjo-tight-faced one as "approved"? Doesn't show much support in my book.....

[Raycpa]

When republican's take over "they march in lockstep".

[JSDude1]

NO AMEN TO THAT: Pelosi is still a weenie (or weenieless), liar (and her agend with exception to the 'minimum wage') will NEVEr become law (thank goodness for President Bush, and the Senate, in its more reasoned rule. on this one..

Pelosi SUCKS!

[Drango]

Propaganda masquerading as news from the AP