House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urges Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to hand over $ 2,000 stimulus checks to Americans during their weekly Capitol press conference in Washington, DC, USA on December 30, 2020.
Leah Millis | Reuters
The House re-elected Nancy Pelosi as mayor on Sunday, extending the Democrat’s second term in front of the chamber.
Pelosi, the only woman to serve as a speaker, will remain in office for a fourth term. The 80-year-old man recovered the hammer in 2019, after eight years of Republican control. California minority leader Kevin McCarthy will lead the GOP for a second term.
Pelosi got 216 votes, while McCarthy got 209. Five Democrats did not support Pelosi. Three voted “present”, one supported Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y., and another supported Senator Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.
The California Democrat leads a smaller majority after the Republican Party won at least 10 seats in the 2020 elections. His party entered Sunday with about 222 members, four more than the 218 needed for a plenary majority.
Pelosi and President-elect Joe Biden will make efforts to address issues such as coronavirus relief, healthcare and infrastructure at the new Congress. The second round of Tuesday’s election in Georgia, which will decide whether Republicans will have the Senate, will determine how much the pair can accomplish.
Before making comments to the House on Sunday, Pelosi lifted the spokesman’s hammer to applause from Democrats. She cited the end of the coronavirus pandemic as “our most urgent priority”.
“And we will defeat him,” she said.
Pelosi and Biden said they would push for another round of pandemic aid in the coming weeks. They described the $ 900 billion package sanctioned last month as an initial payment. Pelosi on Sunday asked for help from the state and local government, a provision that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Objected to.
She added that the House should work with Biden and elected Vice President Kamala Harris to “seek justice – economic justice, health justice, racial justice, environmental and climate justice”.
Pelosi insisted that the loss of his party’s seats will not reduce his influence or force him to change his strategy. She said Biden’s election, which will take office on January 20, will give Democrats more power over the next two years.
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