House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that shutting down the government would be a “dereliction of duty,” and she is accusing Republicans of ignoring the consequences.
“There’s a difference of opinion of how serious it is to shut down government,” she said during Politico’s Women Rule Summit. “Do your job, get it done, figure it out.”
{mosads}Lawmakers are scrambling to bring a bill to the floor to extend government funding before it expires this week. GOP members are expected to release a bill that would provide funding for most agencies until September but only fund the Department of Homeland Security for a few months in response to President Obama’s recent executive orders on immigration.
But the House hasn’t yet brought the package forward, which is creating some skepticism that the shutdown will be avoided. With some Republicans and conservative groups threatening not to support the bill unless it defunds Obama’s executive action, GOP leaders may need Democratic votes to pass their plan.
“If Democratic votes are required to pass the bill, the bill has to have a certain level of bipartisanship,” Pelosi said.
The majority of Pelosi’s comments centered on how to increase women’s participation in politics. She noted that there were only 23 women in the House when she was elected in 1987. There are now 83, including 64 Democrats, according to numbers from Rutgers University.
“Our House Democratic caucus is a majority of women, minorities and LGBT members,” she said. “That’s a pretty remarkable thing for any political parliament in the world.”
Despite the progress, Pelosi said that there should be a concerted, bipartisan effort to increase that number. She said that women could reach gender parity by 2050 with a motivated effort.
Pelosi also lauded former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as almost a lock in her bid to become the first female president.
“When she runs, she’ll win. And when she wins, she’ll be one of the best-prepared,” Pelosi said.
“I would like to be relieved of the title of the highest-ranking woman in politics in America; I want to have a woman president of the United States.”