Nancy Pelosi Announces Retirement from Congress After Historic 40-Year House Career

Nancy Pelosi‘s storied political career is coming to an end.

The former speaker of the House — and still the only woman to serve in the position — announced on Thursday, Nov. 6, that she won’t be seeking reelection in her San Francisco-based district in 2026, capping her 40-year career in Congress.

In a nearly six-minute video framed as a love letter to San Francisco, she summarized her decades of service and urged her hometown to remember that there is “always much more work to be done” as she clears the way for a new representative.

Pelosi has served 20 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was House speaker from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. When Republicans retook control of Congress in the 2022 midterms, she stepped down as leader of the House Democrats and was succeeded by New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.

Pelosi began her political career as a member of the Democratic National Committee, representing California. She served in various leadership positions within the party until winning a special election in 1988 to succeed the late Phillip Burton, who died in office, and his widow, Sala, who took over the seat until Pelosi was elected.

She represented essentially the same region of San Francisco for her entire congressional career, entering office in the midst of the city’s devastating AIDS epidemic. Right away, she hired a gay man, Stephen Morin, to head AIDS policy in her office, and raised eyebrows even among Democrats by announcing her plan to fight “the crisis of AIDS” during her first speech on the House floor.

In a 2023 profile with Politico, Pelosi recalled the stress of taking office at a time when she was attending “three funerals a week” due to the AIDS crisis. However, her work in co-authoring the Ryan White CARE Act, which provided funding to HIV/AIDS patients, as well as getting the AIDS Quilt declared a national treasure, will be a major part of her political legacy.

“I was doing the job,” she demurred to Politico.

Other key pieces of legislation Pelosi was part of throughout her career include the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the Affordable Care Act and the CARES Act.

But of course, it was her election as speaker of the House in 2007 that cemented her political legacy, making her the first woman, the first Californian, and the first Italian-American to hold the speakership.

In a speech following her election, Pelosi said, “This is a historic moment — for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years.”

“Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren’t just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and granddaughters, today, we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them.”

However, being the first female speaker also made her a target for plenty of political ire. She famously feuded with President Donald Trump — drawing Republicans’ vitriol when she tore up her copy of his State of the Union speech in 2020 after leading the first of two impeachment inquiries against him.

Her office was also targeted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building, and her husband, Paul, was attacked at their San Francisco home in October 2022 by a hammer-wielding man demanding to know her whereabouts.

On Nov. 17, 2022, Pelosi announced she would not seek reelection as the Democratic House leader, giving a speech on the House floor one day after the Republican Party regained the majority of seats in the lower chamber.

Calling herself “a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a devout Catholic” and “a proud Democrat,” Pelosi said her rise in the House was a surprise even to her.

“Never would I have thought I’d go from homemaker to House speaker. In fact I never intended to run for public office,” she said. “Mommy and Daddy taught us through their example that public service is a noble calling and that we all have a responsibility to help others.”

But Pelosi stopped short of taking full credit for her accomplishments, telling ABC’s This Week, “It’s easy for me coming from the beautiful place that I do, San Francisco, harder for others. And it’s their courage that made so much of this possible.”

“So, I’m so glad that we … dispelled the notion that Democrats could not win,” she continued. “We’re on a path to a brighter future for America. And I’m very proud of our members, our candidates, their courage and their purpose and their success.”