US House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi appears on stage during the Concordia 2025 Annual Summit at the Sheraton New York Times Square on September 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images from the annual Concordia Summit)
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who made history as the first woman to wield the speaker’s gavel, announced Thursday that she is retiring, ending the 40-year legislative career of one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress.
Her statement came after Tuesday’s elections. Pelosi was involved in the development of so-called Proposition 50 in California, an effort to redraw the state’s congressional districts, in response to Republican redistricting efforts in Texas aimed at gaining more GOP seats in the House of Representatives.
The map change has passed and the Democrats swept major state races across the country, including the governorates of Virginia and New Jersey.
In a video posted on social media, 85-year-old Pelosi thanked her constituents in San Francisco’s congressional district.
“I will not seek re-election to Congress,” Pelosi said. “It is with a grateful heart that I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative.”
Tributes to Pelosi poured in throughout the day.
“It’s true that she made history as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, but in that moment she also changed the way we view political power,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, State University of New Jersey. “She made imaginations come true, and for young people who knew no other world, she permanently moved the boundaries of what was possible.”
