Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that she will not seek reelection closes the final chapter on a dominant era for Bay Area Democrats.
While recent Republican control of Congress has marginalized most Democrats, for significant stretches of the past two decades, Pelosi anchored a Northern California delegation that was indisputably the nation’s most powerful.
As speaker, Pelosi commanded the House’s agenda, priorities and purse strings. Decisions regarding legislative strategy, messaging and who got campaign dollars were vetted, if not initiated, in San Francisco.
Fellow Bay Area representatives such as George Miller of Martinez and Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto had outsized roles serving as Pelosi enforcers and confidantes. The Bay Area delegation, elevated by seniority and Pelosi’s control over committee assignments, chaired committees such as Labor, Education and Health (George Miller), Foreign Affairs (Tom Lantos) and Ethics (Zoe Lofgren), in addition to multiple subcommittees.
Adding to the Bay Area’s muscle, both the state’s senators during much of Pelosi’s reign had previously won elections in San Francisco — Dianne Feinstein as mayor and Barbara Boxer as a U.S. representative. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2024, was twice elected San Francisco district attorney.
When U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick taunted liberals as “San Francisco Democrats’’ in the 1980s, she meant it as a disparaging sign of weakness. For much of the past two decades, the phrase better describes what power looks like in the nation’s capital.
Pelosi’s retirement marks the end of that run, and with it a shift of power to Southern California Democrats.
With Pelosi’s departure, San Francisco will be losing the longest-serving member of the California delegation and will be represented in Congress by a freshman for the first time since 1987, when AIDS was ravaging the city and Joe Montana was the 49ers’ starting quarterback. Harris may flirt with another presidential bid, but for now she is a sidelined private citizen (who lives in Los Angeles now, by the way). Boxer retired in 2017, and Feinstein passed away in 2023.
While a few old-timers remain, most of the 11 members whose districts include portions of the Bay Area are relative newcomers. Just two of them were around when Pelosi first assumed the speakership in 2007, and seven joined the House in 2013 or later.
California’s horse in leadership is now Rep. Pete Aguilar, the former mayor of Redlands in San Bernardino County. His position as chair of the House Democratic Caucus makes him third in the party’s House hierarchy, with chances for advancement if he hangs around. Both the state’s senators — Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff — are from Los Angeles County.
The Bay Area’s fall from power comes as California, following the passage of Proposition 50, stands poised to increase the size of its Democratic congressional delegation, already the largest of any state in history. If the new congressional districts approved by voters last week work out the way Democrats hope, California will be sending 48 Democrats to the House in 2027, more than the next three largest states combined.
California’s independent redistricting commission, which has drawn congressional district lines since the 2010 census — and whose map is now moot until the 2030 census is complete — created more competitive districts that led to a higher rate of turnover and a loss of seniority for the state.
Northern California’s dominance of the state’s Washington delegation predates Pelosi. Sacramento’s Vic Fazio was head of the Democratic Caucus in the 1990s, and before that San Francisco’s Phil Burton was a powerhouse who came within a vote of becoming Democratic majority leader in the 1970s, which would have put him on a path to becoming speaker.
Southern Californians such as Reps. Ed Royce, a Republican, and Democrat Henry Waxman held sway. But no one compared to Pelosi, who continues to hold clout among House Democrats, some of whom revere her legacy and others who want a share of her campaign war chest.
Pelosi’s absence will leave an enormous void and perhaps prompt Republicans to give the phrase “San Francisco Democrats’’ a rest — at least until Gov. Gavin Newsom becomes a threat.
