WASHINGTON — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was elected speaker of the House Thursday for a second time, as Democrats took control of the lower chamber.
Pelosi, 78 — who retook the speaker’s gavel after a formal floor vote that lasted about an hour — reclaimed the House’s top leadership post amid a congressional face-off with President Donald Trump over border wall funding that has left parts of the federal government shuttered for the third time in a year.
Pelosi won with 220 votes, with 12 Democrats for someone other than Pelosi and three Democrats voting present. As Pelosi cast a vote for herself, her granddaughter held her hand, jumped excitedly and yelled across the chamber. A number of House Democrats wore “Madame Speaker” buttons during the vote.
“Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn,” Pelosi said in remarks in the House chamber after the vote. “They called upon the beauty of our Constitution: our system of checks and balances that protects our democracy, remembering that the legislative branch is Article I: the first branch of government, co-equal to the presidency and judiciary.”
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