New House Speaker Shows She's Boss

Newly elected Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi, is sworn in at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in this Jan. 4, 2007, file photo. Pelosi has wasted no time showing fellow lawmakers who's boss in her first two weeks on the job. As each bill passed with bipartisan majorities, Pelosi swept triumphantly onto the House floor to gavel down the vote, banging the gavel so enthusiastically at one point that she dented the podium. "These past two weeks we have delivered," she declared at a packed news conference. "This is only the beginning." (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) (Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP)

Even moderates who are not always aligned with the liberal Pelosi were not complaining.

"I've had no problem choking down anything she's done to date," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats. "I think she's done very well in the good old boy halls of Congress. She's been more collegial than some members thought she might be."

Pelosi, who is in her 10th House term, moved quickly to defuse the first potential controversy to beset her speakership: questions over whether the minimum wage bill gave preferential treatment to a company in her district. She instructed the bill's authors to make sure it did not.

She has been at the forefront of her party's opposition to Bush's proposed troop increase, carefully emphasizing that Democrats will not support any attempt to cut off money for soldiers already in Iraq.

And she has played tough with Republicans and Democrats alike.

Pelosi's move to end smoking in the House Speaker's Lobby came even though House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is a heavy smoker. She angered Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House's longest-serving member, by creating a special committee to look at global warming, which is under Dingell's committee's jurisdiction.

"I have yet to have it explained to me what good it is," grumbled Dingell, D-Mich., an auto industry ally who has clashed with Pelosi.

Newly demoted Republicans have been able to do little but watch unhappily from the sidelines, echoing the complaint often made by Democrats during their 12 years in the minority: that they are being shut out of the legislative process.

Yet several GOP lawmakers said it hardly is surprising that Pelosi is flexing her muscles now that she is leading the Democrats' return to power.

"Speaker Pelosi worked a long time to earn this opportunity to be elected speaker, and she is totally enjoying her first month on the job," said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y.

"It's not that she's the first woman, it's her style," he added. "She's a risk taker."