A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Nancy Pelosi will not run for reelection. In 2007, she claimed the title no woman had won before, speaker of the House. Here she is on C-SPAN.
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NANCY PELOSI: And today I thank my colleagues. By electing me speaker, you have brought us closer to the ideal of equality that is America's heritage and America's hope.
MARTÍNEZ: Over 38 years in Congress, Pelosi fought for civil rights and health care. She fought against guns and AIDs. California Governor Gavin Newsom told KQED's Political Breakdown last month that Pelosi's impact cannot be overstated.
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GAVIN NEWSOM: No one - period, full stop - has delivered more for San Francisco and the state of California than Nancy Pelosi, period.
MARTÍNEZ: For more, we're joined now by journalist Molly Ball, who wrote the biography "Pelosi." Molly, I mean, Pelosi's path to Congress was not necessarily a traditional one. Why was her first election to Congress such a notable change for her?
MOLLY BALL: Well, she was already 47 years old. She had been a housewife and political volunteer for her entire life up to that point. So while she was active in Democratic politics, she wasn't someone who'd set out to run for office. It only came about because her friend who held that San Francisco political seat, Sala Burton, was dying of cancer. And in a scene so cinematic you sort of can't make it up, she extracted a deathbed promise from her friend Nancy Pelosi to run for the seat in Congress after she passed. So this was not something that Pelosi set out to do. It was something of a second career for her when she became an empty nester. But of course, she ended up being historically successful at it.
MARTÍNEZ: But 47 years old. I think people forget that, right? Because people are elected so young nowadays that 47 back then was kind of an older age to start.
BALL: Absolutely. I mean, she certainly was not part of any youthquake. But she brought to the job a lot of contacts, a lot of credentials. She had been a volunteer and political operative in California. She helped bring the 1984 Democratic Convention to San Francisco. She even ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. So she was pretty well-known as a Democratic operative, but she didn't ever see herself actually being in the arena until fate made that a possibility.
MARTÍNEZ: What was it like to be a congresswoman in the late '80s, like, when Nancy Pelosi entered Congress?
BALL: I'm so glad you asked that because it's so easy to forget how different things were for women in politics just 40 years ago. There were only 25 other women members of the entire House and Senate, 535 members, at the time that Nancy Pelosi got there in 1987. There was no women's bathroom near the House floor. Women were not allowed to wear pants on the floor of the Senate.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
BALL: And many of the women who were there were the widows of congressmen who had died and whose wives had taken their place. So the idea that a woman could not only be a member of Congress but a leader in Congress was unthinkable. And indeed, no woman had become either the House whip or House party leader before Nancy Pelosi achieved those milestones in 2001 and 2003, before, of course, becoming the first woman speaker.
MARTÍNEZ: Molly, what would you say are her biggest legislative achievements?
BALL: She would always tell you the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is the thing that she is proudest of. And she moved heaven and Earth to get that legislation through the House under very difficult circumstances when Barack Obama was president. She was also Obama's partner on his other legislative achievements, the stimulus bill, Wall Street reform. She worked on issues such as allowing gays to serve openly in the military. When Biden was president, she helped him pass his massive social spending and climate spending and infrastructure bills. And even when George W. Bush was president, during his first speakership, she opposed him on most things. But she also worked with him to pass the financial bailout that they saw as rescuing the economy during the 2008 crash.
MARTÍNEZ: Just about a few seconds left, Molly. I mean, why do you think she decided to make this, of all the terms, her last term?
BALL: Well, she's 85 years old. It's not a question we usually ask of 85-year-olds when they decide to retire, why do it now?
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter) Yeah.
BALL: But, you know, she was instrumental in convincing Joe Biden to exit the presidential race last year. She also saw the decline of her colleague in the California delegation, Dianne Feinstein. You have to imagine, although I haven't spoken to her about this, that those examples were on her mind and she wanted to leave gracefully, on her own terms, not seeming to be pushed out by anyone - having all of her faculties intact and being able to take a sort of victory lap and leave on a high note with the gratitude of a generation of Democrats.
MARTÍNEZ: Molly Ball is a political journalist and the author of the biography "Pelosi." Molly, thanks.
BALL: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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