Nancy Pelosi is an American politician who served as the 52nd speaker of the House of Representatives. She led the House Democrats from 2003 to 2023. Pelosi was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which she left in 2003 after being elected House minority leader. She is still widely considered a liberal.

Civil liberties and human rights

In 2001, she voted in favor of the USA Patriot Act, but voted against reauthorization of certain provisions in 2005. She voted against a Constitutional amendment banning flag-burning.

Immigration

Pelosi voted against the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

In June 2018, Pelosi visited a federal facility used to detain migrant children separated from their parents and subsequently called for the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. In July, Pelosi characterized the compromise immigration bill by the Republicans as a "deal with the devil" and said she had not had conversations with House Speaker Ryan about a legislative solution to the separation of families at the southern border.

In April 2021, after southern border crossings peaked, House Republicans criticized Pelosi for saying that immigration under the Biden administration was "on a good path". U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that nearly 19,000 unaccompanied minors arrived in March.

LGBT rights

Pelosi has long supported LGBT rights. In 1996, she voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, and in 2004 and 2006, she voted against the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which would amend the United States Constitution to define marriage federally as being between one man and one woman, thereby overriding states' individual rights to legalize same-sex marriage. When the Supreme Court of California overturned the state's ban on marriage between same-sex couples in 2008, Pelosi released a statement welcoming the "historic decision". She also indirectly voiced her opposition to California Proposition 8, a successful 2008 state ballot initiative which defined marriage in California as a union between one man and one woman.

In 2012, Pelosi said her position on LGBT rights such as same-sex marriage grows from and reflects her Catholic faith; it also places her at odds with Catholic doctrine, which defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. She said: "My religion compels me—and I love it for it—to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider [the ban on gay marriage] a form of discrimination. I think it's unconstitutional on top of that."

Pelosi supports the Equality Act, a bill that would expand the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2019, she spoke in Congress in favor of the bill and called for ending discrimination against LGBT people. Pelosi also opposed Trump's transgender military ban.

Marijuana Pelosi supports reform in marijuana laws, although NORML's deputy director Paul Armentano said she and other members of Congress had not done anything to change the laws. She also supports use of medical marijuana.

PRISM As of 2014, Pelosi supported the Bush/Obama NSA surveillance program PRISM.

Removal from the Capitol of art depicting Confederates

Pelosi repeatedly criticized the fact that the United States Capitol exhibited artworks depicting people who in various capacities supported the Confederacy in the American Civil War. In 2017, this included at least 10 statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection, either in the National Statuary Hall itself or some less prominent Capitol rooms. Almost all the statues in that collection were selected and donated by the states (two from each state) and could only be exchanged for others by an ordered process involving the consent of the states' legislatures and governors, but the speaker of the House directly could influence their precise placement.

During her first tenure as speaker, Pelosi moved the statue of Robert E. Lee from the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol to the Capitol crypt. In August 2017, she supported an initiative by Senator Cory Booker to have Confederate monuments and memorials removed from the Capitol Building by means of legislation.

In June 2020, following the nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd, Pelosi pushed for the removal of all statues of Confederates from the Capitol. On June 18, Pelosi also ordered that four paintings of former Confederates in the Capitol Speaker's Gallery be taken down. "We didn't know about this until we were taking inventory of the statues and the curator told us that there were four paintings of Speakers in the Capitol of the United States, four Speakers who had served in the Confederacy", Pelosi told reporters.

Waterboarding

In 2002, while Pelosi was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, she was briefed on the ongoing use of "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding, authorized for a captured terrorist, Abu Zubaydah. After the briefing, Pelosi said she "was assured by lawyers with the CIA and the Department of Justice that the methods were legal". Two unnamed former Bush administration officials say the briefing was detailed and graphic, and at the time she did not raise substantial objections. One unnamed U.S. official present during the early briefings said, "In fairness, the environment was different then because we were closer to September 11 and people were still in a panic. But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing. The attitude was, 'We don't care what you do to those guys as long as you get the information you need to protect the American people.

These techniques later became controversial, and in 2007 Pelosi's office said she had protested their use at the time, and she concurred with objections raised by Democratic colleague Jane Harman in a letter to the CIA in early 2003. Subsequently, several leading Democratic lawmakers in the House signed a letter on June 26, 2009, alleging CIA Director Leon Panetta had asserted that the CIA misled Congress for a "number of years" spanning back to 2001, casting clouds on the controversy. The letter, lawmakers and the CIA all providing no details, and the circumstances surrounding the allegations, make it hard to assess the claims and counterclaims of both sides.

Officials in Congress say her ability to challenge the practices may have been hampered by strict rules of secrecy that prohibited her from taking notes or consulting legal experts or members of her own staffs. In an April 2009 press conference, Pelosi said: "In that or any other briefing... we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel—the Office of Legislative Counsel opinions that they could be used, but not that they would. And they further [...] the point was that if and when they would be used, they would brief Congress at that time."

Economy Fiscal policy

Pelosi voted against the 1995 Balanced Budget Proposed Constitutional Amendment, which passed the House by a 300–132 vote, but fell two votes short of the 2/3 supermajority required in the Senate (with 65 senators voting in favor).

As Speaker of the House, she spearheaded the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 as part of the 100-Hour Plan. The act raises the minimum wage in the United States and the territories of the Northern Marianas Islands and American Samoa. American Samoa was initially absent from the act, but it was included as part of HR 2206. One Republican congressman who voted against the initial bill accused Pelosi of unethically benefiting Del Monte Foods (headquartered in her district) by excluding the territory, where Del Monte's StarKist Tuna brand is a major employer. Pelosi co-sponsored legislation that omitted American Samoa from a raise in the minimum wage as early as 1999, before Del Monte's acquisition of StarKist Tuna in 2002.

Pelosi opposed the welfare reform President Bush proposed as well as reforms proposed and passed under President Clinton. She also opposed the tax reform signed by Trump in December 2017, calling it "probably one of the worst bills in the history of the United States of America... It robs from the future [and] it rewards the rich... and corporations at the expense of tens of millions of working middle-class families in our country." She said "this is Armageddon" and argued that the tax bill increased the debt in a way that would adversely impact social insurance spending. In January 2018, shortly after the tax bill passed, a reporter asked Pelosi to respond to statements by companies crediting the tax cuts with allowing them to raise wages and give bonuses. She said that, given the benefits corporations received from the tax bill, the benefits workers got were "crumbs". Most companies that awarded bonuses gave out payments of hundreds of dollars, while some gave bonuses significantly over $1,000.

Infrastructure

In November 2018, Pelosi said she had spoken with Trump about infrastructure development. Though he "really didn't come through with it in his first two years in office" while it was a topic during his campaign, the subject had not been a partisan matter in Congress. She mentioned potential bipartisan legislative initiatives that would "create good paying jobs and will also generate other economic growth in their regions". On May 1, 2019, Pelosi and Schumer met with Trump about infrastructure funding. In late May, a meeting to discuss an impending $2trillion infrastructure plan was cut short when Trump abruptly left after only a few minutes.

Disaster relief

In August 2018, after Trump signed an emergency declaration for federal aid in combating the Carr Fire in Northern California, Pelosi called the move "an important first step" but requested that Trump accede to California Governor Jerry Brown's request for further aid to other hard-hit areas in California. She called on the Trump administration to take "real, urgent action to combat the threat of the climate crisis, which is making the wildfire season longer, more expensive and more destructive".

Education

In 1999, Pelosi voted against displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings, including schools. She voted for the No Child Left Behind Act, which instituted testing to track students' progress and authorized an increase in overall education spending.

Environment

In 2019, Pelosi said climate change was "the existential threat of our time" and called for action to curb it. She has supported the development of new technologies to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and remediate the adverse environmental effects of burning fossil fuels. Pelosi has widely supported conservation programs and energy research appropriations. She has also voted to remove an amendment that would allow for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Pelosi has blocked efforts to revive offshore oil drilling in protected areas, reasoning that offshore drilling could lead to an increase in dependence on fossil fuels.

Health care Affordable Care Act

Pelosi was instrumental in passing the Affordable Care Act of 2010. She was a key figure in convincing Obama to continue pushing for health-care reform after the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown in a January special election—a defeat seen as potentially fatal to Democratic reform efforts. After delivering 219 votes in the House for Obama's health-care package, Pelosi was both praised and heckled as she made her way to Capitol Hill.

Pelosi has voted to increase Medicare and Medicaid benefits. She does not endorse Senator Bernie Sanders's bill for single-payer healthcare.