By any objective measure, the first 100 days of Nancy Pelosi in her second stint as the Speaker of the House were an unmitigated and unproductive disaster. This mark of 100 days is a traditional point at which to assess the strength of a new party in power. While the Democrats hit this landmark the other day, they reached it with nary a feckless whimper and without proving anything but their own disunity and ineffectiveness in policy.
The only significant legislation for which House Democrats have been able to secure any notable Republican support was the joint resolution to rescind the national emergency declaration by President Trump for the southern border. It was summarily vetoed and accomplished precisely nothing. The Democrats themselves prompted the national emergency declaration with their steadfast refusal to fund essential border barriers to combat the worsening crisis on the southern border, and their inability to override his veto means they are now in a worse position than before.
{mosads}Even the purely symbolic bills, such as the Green New Deal and the Big Tech handout deceptively known as the Save the Internet Act, that Pelosi and her caucus have passed with the full knowledge that they would have no chance of becoming law are thin gruel. Despite the excuses about controlling only one chamber of Congress, this is an embarrassing record. The first time Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2007, she enjoyed a Senate controlled by her fellow Democrats while she had to contend, as she does today, with a Republican president at the helm.
Nevertheless, Pelosi came roaring out of the gate that year, passing a whole host of liberal legislative priorities, including a minimum wage increase and “pay as you go” budgeting, not just in the first 100 days, but in the first 100 legislative hours of her term as Speaker of the House. Moreover, most of that legislation passed the Senate and was signed into law by President George Bush. The same can also be said for the last Republican Speaker of the House under similar circumstances. In the first 100 days of 2011, when John Boehner stepped into the same position Pelosi now occupies, he managed to extend the tax cuts that were a central element of the legislative legacy of Bush, even with President Obama in the White House and Democrats in control of the Senate.
By stark contrast, the second time around for Pelosi has accomplished effectively nothing so far. The reasons should be clear enough. In addition to the president, the Republican majority in the Senate, and an electorate that is not particularly impressed by the increasingly radical Democratic agenda, Pelosi has had to contend with an openly socialist left wing that already tried to stop her from becoming Speaker of the House again.
Piloted by the increasingly unpopular darlings of the far left, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, the radical division of the caucus is thwarting efforts by Pelosi and the more responsible Democrats to actually govern. With help from the media, Democrats are trying to spin her tenure as some kind of resounding success. On top of taking a victory lap without winning anything, Pelosi told “60 Minutes” about her restless socialist members by citing the diminutive presence of “like five people.”
CBS took this at face value and gave her one of the greatest softball interviews in recent memory. Lesley Stahl gushed all throughout her questioning, calling Pelosi “one of the very few people who stood up to” President Trump and won. Complete with shiny graphics from the online storefront selling “patron saint of shade” shirts, the show applauded Pelosi on her disgraceful displays during the State of the Union Address back in February. Still gushing, Stahl described Pelosi as “like a giant slayer.”
Unfortunately for Pelosi and her supporters, no amount of favorably biased media treatment can cover for her actual record of failure. The Democratic House majority has already scuttled itself, ceding any real leadership and governance to President Trump and the White House.
Madison Gesiotto is an attorney and a commentator who serves with the advisory board of the Donald Trump campaign. She was an inauguration spokesperson and former Miss Ohio. She is on Twitter @MadisonGesiotto.