WASHINGTON — There was a brief moment in Nancy Pelosi’s life when she worried she had too much power. She had so many titles in the California Democratic Party, including chairwoman, that she told Lindy Boggs, a Louisiana congresswoman, that she was thinking of giving some up.
That was in 1984, and Ms. Boggs “said, ‘Darlin’, no man would ever think that. Don’t you give anything up,’” Ms. Pelosi said in a recent interview, leaning forward as she mimicked Ms. Boggs’s Southern accent. “And then she said, ‘Know thy power.’”
More than three decades later, Ms. Pelosi is all but assured on Thursday of reclaiming her former title as speaker of the House, the first lawmaker in more than half a century to hold the office twice. With the gavel in hand, she will cement her status as the highest-ranking and most powerful elected woman in American political history.
The story of her rise, from the well-mannered daughter of a Baltimore mayor to a savvy legislator and prolific fund-raiser who is as much feared within her caucus as she is admired, is, in some ways, the story of the women’s movement itself. It is also a comeback story; after losing the speakership eight years ago, she will now usher in a new era of divided government in Washington.
And in the era of #MeToo, Ms. Pelosi, a mother of five and grandmother of nine, will be the public face of the opposition to a president who won the White House after disparaging women, and paying hush money to a Playboy model and a pornographic film actress who said they had extramarital affairs with him.
But Ms. Pelosi, 78, long a target of Republicans who have demonized her as a San Francisco liberal, is also coming to the speakership with self-imposed constraints. To quell an uprising among Democrats who wanted a younger generation of leaders, she has agreed to limit her term to four years. Some say that could weaken her — a notion she dismissed.
“I’m used to, shall we say, enthusiasms from all elements of the party — I can roll with that,” she said.
Republicans do not underestimate her. “She is a skilled adversary and a master at keeping all Democrats in line,” said Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Ms. Pelosi knows that this speakership will be defined by how she handles President Trump. The last time she was speaker, from 2007 to 2011, legislative accomplishments made her reputation. She muscled through bills that bailed out Wall Street and helped arrest an economic free-fall, allowed gays to serve in the military, overhauled the nation’s banking laws and expanded access to health care for an estimated 17 million people. Many say passage of the Affordable Care Act is her signature achievement.
But divided government, an unpopular president and wide-ranging, possibly criminal investigations into Mr. Trump, his presidential campaign and his businesses have changed her role drastically.
“This is legacy-building time,” said Jennifer Lawless, an expert on women in politics at the University of Virginia. “If she can be the person who is remembered for holding Trump accountable, or not letting him put forward facts that are not facts, if she can be the one who just calmly sits there and hold his feet to the fire, in a lot of ways, that’s just as important as anything else she does.”
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