Nancy Pelosi Net Worth 2020 [Age, Biography and Husband]

Who Is Nancy Pelosi?

Nancy Patricia Pelosi was born on 26 March 1940. She is an American politician who serves as a congresswoman from California. She is the two-time and current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

As a member of the Democratic-Party, Pelosi is the only woman in the history of the United States to serve as Speaker and the highest-ranking elected official in the history of the United States. As Speaker of House of Representatives, Pelosi is second only to the Vice President in succession to the President.

Nancy Pelosi Early Life and Career

Pelosi was born in Baltimore into an Italian American family. She was the youngest of seven children and the only girl of her parents, Annunciata M. “Nancy” D’Alesandro and Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., who both had Italian roots.

Her mother was born in Campobasso in southern-Italy, and her father could trace his Italian ancestry back to Genoa, Venice and the Abruzzi. When Nancy Pelosi was born, her father was a Democratic-congressman from her home town of Maryland (and he became Mayor of Baltimore 7-years later).

Nancy Pelosi’s mother was also active in politics, organizing democratic women and teaching her daughter the value of social-networks. Nancy Pelosi’s brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III, was also a Democrat, was the Mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971.

Pelosi became involved in politics at an early-age. She helped her father with his election campaign events. She attended the inaugural speech of John F. Kennedy when he was sworn in as US President in January 1961.

In 1958 Pelosi had graduated from the Institute of Notre-Dame, a Catholic school for girls in Baltimore. In 1962 she graduated from Trinity-College in Washington with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. Pelosi was an intern for Senator Daniel Brewster (D-Maryland) in the 1960s alongside the future majority leader of the House, Steny Hoyer.

After moving to San Francisco, Pelosi had become friends with Congressman Phillip Burton from the 5th District and began to work his way up in democratic politics.

House-Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seen here (left) during Congressman Ellison’s Swearing-In Ceremony with Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an

In 1976 she was elected as a member of the California Democratic National Committee, a position she held until 1996. In January 1977, she was elected party leader for Northern California, and four years later was elected leader of the Democratic Party of California, a position she held until 1983.

Subsequently, Pelosi served as chair of the 1984 San Francisco Democratic National Congress and from 1985 to 1986 as chair of the Finance Committee of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

The US House of Representatives-Elections

Phillip-Burton died in 1983 and was succeeded by his wife, Sala. At the end of 1986, Sala fell ill with cancer and decided in 1988 not to stand for re-election. She chose Pelosi as her designated successor and guaranteed her the support of the Burtons’ contacts.

Sala died on February 1, 1987, just one month after being sworn in for a second full term. Pelosi won the special election as her designated successor, narrowly defeating San Francisco’s superior, Harry Britt, on April 7, 1987, and slightly defeating Republican candidate Harriet Ross on June 2, 1987. Pelosi took office a week later.

Pelosi won re-election in the 1988 regular elections and was re-elected 16 more times without any significant dissent. She won with an average of 80 per cent of the vote.

Pelosi has not participated in the debates of the candidates since her race against Harriet Ross in 1987. The biggest challenge for Pelosi was in 2016 when Preston-Picus polled 19.1%, and Pelosi won with a margin of 80.9%.

For the 2000 and 2002 election-cycles, Pelosi had the distinction of contributing the most money among Congressmen for other Congressional campaigns.

Speaker of the House under George W. Bush

As the leader of the Democratic-Party in the House under a Republican president, Nancy Pelosi was sometimes had to become a divisive figure. A vocal critic of President the then president George W. Bush‘s stance on the active war in-Iraq, she advocated for the withdrawal of american troops from the region.

Pelosi found herself at the centre of a controversy in 2009 when the CIA asserted that she had been made aware of its frequent use of waterboarding of terrorism suspects—a technique that Pelosi had vocally opposed. Pelosi denied the CIA’s claims.

After the election of Barack Obama in 2008, Nancy Pelosi was in position to work with a president of the same party. She was instrumental in pushing for the health care reform legislation that became the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2010, a position that earned her more criticism from the GOP.

Minority Leader

Pelosi had remained the House-speaker until November 2010, when Republicans gained control of the House and elected John-Boehner to the role, relegating Pelosi to minority leader.

As the House’s top Democrat, Pelosi endured and suffered criticism for her party’s losses and challenges to her leadership. Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan sought to replace Pelosi as minority leader in 2016, but the move did not succeed.

On February 7th, 2018, Pelosi delivered a marathon speech on the House floor to protest the legislation that lacked protection for “Dreamers,” involving the children of undocumented immigrants.

Taking advantage of the house “magic-minute rule,” which allows any House-leader to speak for as long as they desire, Pelosi read full-testimonies from Dreamers and recited Bible-passages, in all standing for some 8-hours and seven minutes, a House record dating back to at least 1909.

Return to Speaker Role

After the Democrats had regained full control of the House in the interim in 2018, Nancy Pelosi was re-elected Speaker of the House in early 2019. This put her at the forefront of the battle with President Donald Trump for his demand for $5.7 billion for a wall over the House border between the US and Mexico.

The stalemate led to a controversial 35-day government shutdown, with the spokeswoman drawing most of the President’s wrath on her control over Congressional funding. Shortly after Pelosi effectively cancelled the traditional State of the Union address scheduled for 29 January, President Trump agreed to a temporary reopening of the government.

After Congress passed a funding bill that provided only $1.375 billion for the border wall, Trump declared a national emergency on 15 February, which allowed him to redirect money to his wall for other projects.

Pelosi countered by planning for a House of Representatives vote on the legislation to end the national emergency and by increasing pressure on US Senate Republicans to take a stand on the issue. The move paid off when the Republican-controlled Senate also voted to end the national emergency, forcing Donald J. Trump to use the first veto of his presidency

Nancy Pelosi Impeachment Inquiry

After months of resisting calls from progressives to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Trump, Nancy Pelosi in September 2019 announced that the House would launch a formal impeachment inquiry.

The tipping point came with reports that Trump had withheld military aid to Ukraine to pressure its government into investigating the actions of 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son. “The president must be held accountable,” the speaker said. “No one is above the law.”

Nancy Pelosi Family

On September 7th, 1963, Nancy married Paul Francis Pelosi at the Cathedral of Mary Our-Queen, in Baltimore. They at first settled down in the New York City area where Paul was working as a banker, until 1969. After that, they moved to San Francisco where the Pelosi family live until this day.

Pelosi and her husband have 5-children; Nancy Corinne, Christine, Jacqueline, Paul Jr. and Alexandra. Among them, Christine followed her mother’s footsteps, joining the Democratic Party’s political strategist from California while her son, Alexandra, grew up to be a working journalist, documentary filmmaker and writer.

Pelosi has often been listed on Forbes list of 100 most powerful women of the world. In 2014, she was ranked 26th on the list.