Edging Away From Inner Circle, Pelosi Asserts Authority

* * *

Once she assumed the speakership, Pelosi took on a frenetic schedule. She met with Democratic leaders formally three times a week but often informally two to three times daily, and held sessions with chairmen, freshmen and other lawmakers.

There is a downside to the pace. She tends to micromanage, frustrating staff members with her unwillingness to delegate tasks, and she jealously guards her schedule.

Still, an instinct for compromise and consultation got Pelosi through a series of initial tests that could have blown up publicly but instead passed quietly. After Murtha's defeat in November, his close ally Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) said lawmakers who had promised their votes to Murtha but delivered them to Hoyer were not to be trusted and should be unmasked. Brendan Daly, Pelosi's communications director, got wind that Moran would be on PBS's "NewsHour" and quickly called Moran's staff to command that he not go on the show and that he stop the threats.

Just weeks later, Pelosi pushed aside Jane Harman (Calif.), the highest-ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, then skipped over Alcee L. Hastings (Fla.), an African American and an impeached federal judge who was next in line, to name Sylvestre Reyes (Tex.) as chairman of the powerful Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The move was expected to cause an uproar, not only with the Congressional Black Caucus but also with the "Blue Dog" Democrats -- conservative and moderate lawmakers who backed Harman. It did not, however, because she has provided other key assignments to assuage those left out.

The next challenge came as House Democratic leaders tried to force a turn in the Iraq war through a spending bill, only to have Pelosi sideswiped by the man she had entrusted to end the war -- Murtha.

Senior Democrats had been huddling with different factions of the caucus, trying to reach a strong consensus before going public with a bill. Without telling Pelosi, Murtha laid out the bill's strategy on a liberal Web site, MoveCongress.org. The legislation called for such stringent readiness standards for deploying combat forces that the president's planned troop increase would be strangled by red tape.

Pelosi learned of Murtha's remarks from reporters. At that point, authority over the war-funding bill very publicly shifted to the House Appropriations Committee and Obey, its chairman, who was conspicuously not a member of her inner circle.

"Murtha said, 'I had my plans.' He couldn't get them done, so Obey took over," said a senior House Democratic leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not cleared to discuss internal deliberations.

By the time Pelosi met with the chairmen last month to finalize the House's energy bill, her grasp on the levers of power was nearly complete. It was at this meeting that she shut down Dingell's proposals as harmful to the environment, and thus to her caucus. According to participants, she virtually manhandled Dingell, the House's longest-serving member and, at age 81, still an imposing figure.

Dingell grew angry, but he directed his rage not at Pelosi but at Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who had tried to cool him down. If Emanuel wanted to get involved in energy policy, he should try to get on the committee, Dingell snapped.

Emanuel was happy to take the heat.

"I was never part of and still am not part of that Miller/Eshoo/Lofgren/Murtha circle," Emanuel said, "and I would consider myself a true Pelosi loyalist."

To be sure, the inner circle remains powerful, particularly Miller. His longtime chief of staff, John Lawrence, is now Pelosi's chief of staff. Another veteran Miller aide, Dan Beard, is the House's new chief administrative officer, responsible for everything from broken BlackBerrys to the Capitol's decrepit power plant.

But even Pelosi's closest confidants say their influence has been diluted by the demands of the speakership. Eshoo grew wistful as she spoke recently of her "pal" Pelosi.

"I went to a conference during Memorial Day," she recalled. "And I told George Miller, 'You know, I miss Nancy.' "