Pelosi honored with official portrait and emotional tributes at unveiling ceremony

Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s official portrait was unveiled in a ceremony Wednesday on the US Capitol, with speeches from outdated allies and political sparring-mates who reminisced on her historic tenure.

The portray, which depicts Pelosi standing earlier than the speaker’s chair within the Home chamber and holding a gavel, will dangle within the Speaker’s Foyer simply off the Home flooring.

“This program was great to me. It was like seeing the story of my political life revealed in entrance of me, not by way of believing all of the accolades, however in figuring out with the individuals who have been presenting,” Pelosi mentioned, thanking fellow California Democratic Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Lucille Roybal-Allard, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, and former Republican Home Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner, who handed off the gavel to Pelosi in 2007 when she turned the primary and solely feminine speaker, praised her as “one robust cookie.”

“You recognize the youthful era right now has a saying, recreation acknowledges recreation,” Boehner mentioned. “And the very fact of the matter is, no different speaker of the Home in trendy period – Republican or Democrat – has wielded the gavel with such authority or such constant outcomes.”

“You’ve been a fierce warrior on your celebration, however when the stakes have been highest, you have been prepared to place the curiosity of the nation first and take the warmth for it. Now that’s management. Leaders lead, Madame Speaker, and also you Madame Speaker, have led,” he mentioned. “And I’m right here to say thanks for that.”

Pelosi and Boehner, who’ve lengthy maintained a pleasant rapport regardless of disagreeing on coverage, embraced following his remarks.

“I’d have been just a little dissatisfied if he hadn’t gotten emotional,” Pelosi mentioned of Boehner, who served as each her predecessor and her successor, and who teared up at instances throughout his remarks. “He gave me the gavel. I gave him the gavel. I used to be current at his unveiling and he’s right here right now.”

Former President Barack Obama recorded a message thanking Pelosi and saying that “she is going to go down as one of the vital achieved legislators within the nation.”

“Simply final week, she helped maintain marriage equality, the legislation of the land and even after insurrectionists actually broke into her workplace. She by no means stopped defending democracy right here at dwelling and world wide,” he mentioned within the tribute. “Whilst you gained’t be in management anymore, I’ll nonetheless really feel higher realizing that your portrait shall be wanting down from these partitions, combating everybody who sees it to maintain up the battle.”

Pelosi, who was designated “Speaker Emerita” in a unanimous vote by the Home Democratic Steering and Coverage Committee final month, introduced in mid-November that she could be stepping down as speaker after main Home Democrats for twenty years.

The announcement got here simply weeks after her husband, Paul, was violently attacked within the couple’s San Francisco dwelling. He was current, sporting a fedora and a glove that he has donned since struggling accidents within the assault, together with the couple’s kids on the unveiling.

Pelosi has thrown her help behind a brand new group of Democratic leaders, headed up by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries from New York, who who will turn into the primary Black individual to guide both main celebration in both chamber of Congress when he assumes the position subsequent yr.

Jeffries, 52, will symbolize a generational change from the present triumvirate of Home Democratic leaders, who’re three many years older than him.