Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader-elect Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) talk to the media.
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Pelosi may now have to reconsider how she plans to deal with another rival, fellow California Congresswoman Jane Harman. Pelosi has already made it clear that she does not want to give Harman the top job on the Intelligence Committee when the party formally takes over in January. Harman, whose qualifications no one doubts, says she was promised it by earlier Democratic leaders; Pelosi says her term is up. But by shutting out Harman, Pelosi would be setting another trap for herself. The next in line after Harman is Florida's Alcee Hastings, who in 1989 was impeached and removed from his federal judgeship by Congress over allegations that he had conspired to take a $150,000 bribe (charges of which he was acquitted in court). If Pelosi passes him over, she is certain to infuriate the Congressional Black Caucus, with whom her relations are already strained.
The new Speaker will also be under more pressure to push through lobbying and ethics reform but may find that harder to accomplish. After an election in which exit polls showed that voters are more concerned about corruption than the Iraq war, Pelosi needs to recover the high ground she lost with her endorsement of Murtha, who said he thought her reform measures were "total crap." It was bad enough that Murtha's candidacy turned the cable-news networks into a film festival of the grainy tapes from the Abscam sting in 1980, in which the Pennsylvania Congressman told an agent posing as an Arab sheik that he couldn't be bribed "at this point." But on ethics reforms or any other tough issues that lawmakers like to publicly support and privately fight, Pelosi might now lack the backroom clout needed to get results. "When key votes like the budget come around, this will make it a lot harder for her to pressure members," said a Democratic Congressman who backed Hoyer over Murtha. "It's going to be a lot harder for that pressure to be as meaningful."
• THE FIGHT CLUB
Speaker of the House is one of the most treacherous jobs in Washington. Tip O'Neill was the last one to leave the big chair voluntarily, nearly 20 years ago. The four who have followed him have been ousted. Pelosi may have taken a different path to power than her predecessors--she was 47 and had raised five children before she ran for office the first time--but by rising rapidly in an institution where getting ahead has always meant waiting in line for your turn, she ensured that she would have a large target on her back. Now the qualities and impulses that fueled her rise--making bold moves, keeping and settling scores, trusting only a small circle of loyalists--could be disastrous in a new role that is all about building alliances that can get you to 218 votes.