Nancy Pelosi Re-Elected US House Speaker With Narrow Majority

House Democrats returned Representative Nancy Pelosi of
California to the speakership on Sunday for what may be her final
term, handing a tested leader control of the slimmest House
majority either party has faced in two decades.

Ms. Pelosi secured 216 votes, narrowly topping the 209 of
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, Republicans’ leader.
She managed to keep defections to just a handful, winning over
several Democrats who had opposed her two years ago when Democrats
had a more comfortable majority.

The nearly party-line vote punctuated an opening day marked more
by precaution than pomp, as the 117th Congress convened for the
first time under the threat of a deadly coronavirus pandemic that
has rattled its ranks and the country. Several House members sick
with Covid-19 missed the session altogether and others cast their
vote from behind a plexiglass enclosure specially constructed in a
gallery overlooking the chamber.

After two years as President Trump’s most outspoken Democratic
antagonist, Ms. Pelosi will now be responsible for trying to
shepherd through Congress as much of President-elect Joseph R.
Biden Jr.’s agenda as possible, while maintaining her party’s
majority ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

It will be no easy task. With her party in control of just 222
of 435 seats, Ms. Pelosi can afford to lose only a handful of
Democrats on any given vote and faces a Republican opposition
empowered by a better than expected showing in November’s election.
She will also have to contend with a health crisis that can
sideline lawmakers at any moment.

“I am confident that the Speaker’s election today will show a
united Democratic Caucus ready to meet the challenges ahead, and
that we are prepared to set our country on a new course,” Ms.
Pelosi wrote Sunday morning in a letter to colleagues. She limited
defections from her party to just a handful, winning over former
moderate and progressive critics.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate convened an even
more subdued opening day as both parties await a pair of runoff
elections in Georgia on Tuesday that will determine which of them
begins the year in control. The outcome could determine the fate of
Mr. Biden’s legislative goals on climate change, taxes and health
care; his response to the coronavirus pandemic; and his ability to
fill his cabinet and influential federal judgeships.

Republicans currently have an edge, with 51 seats to Democrats’
48. Democrats would have to sweep both races to draw the chamber to
a tie and effectively take control when Vice President-elect Kamala
Harris, who would cast tiebreaking votes when needed, is sworn in
with Mr. Biden on Jan. 20.

With the coronavirus circulating rampantly, members-elect
expected little of the pomp that usually accompanies Congress’s
initial convening. Lawmakers took the oath of office and voted for
speaker in small groups, rather than all together in the normally
boisterous hall of the House. The architect of the Capitol had even
constructed a small plexiglass enclosure in one of the galleries
overlooking the chamber so that three lawmakers in a protective
quarantine could vote in person but not mingle on the House
floor.

Nor was there much promise that the partisan warfare that has
seized the capital in recent years would soon subside with the new
session. After they are sworn in, a growing cohort of Republican
senators and House members plan to initiate a long-shot attempt on
Wednesday to try to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory and deliver a
second term to Mr. Trump. The attempt will fail, but only after it
cleaves the Republican Party in two and further erodes confidence
in Mr. Biden’s legitimacy among the president’s most ardent
supporters.

House Democrats returned Representative Nancy Pelosi of
California to the speakership on Sunday for what may be her final
term, handing a tested leader control of the slimmest House
majority either party has faced in two decades.

Ms. Pelosi secured 216 votes, narrowly topping the 209 of
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, Republicans’ leader.
She managed to keep defections to just a handful, winning over
several Democrats who had opposed her two years ago when Democrats
had a more comfortable majority.

The nearly party-line vote punctuated an opening day marked more
by precaution than pomp, as the 117th Congress convened for the
first time under the threat of a deadly coronavirus pandemic that
has rattled its ranks and the country. Several House members sick
with Covid-19 missed the session altogether and others cast their
vote from behind a plexiglass enclosure specially constructed in a
gallery overlooking the chamber.

After two years as President Trump’s most outspoken Democratic
antagonist, Ms. Pelosi will now be responsible for trying to
shepherd through Congress as much of President-elect Joseph R.
Biden Jr.’s agenda as possible, while maintaining her party’s
majority ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

It will be no easy task. With her party in control of just 222
of 435 seats, Ms. Pelosi can afford to lose only a handful of
Democrats on any given vote and faces a Republican opposition
empowered by a better than expected showing in November’s election.
She will also have to contend with a health crisis that can
sideline lawmakers at any moment.

“I am confident that the Speaker’s election today will show a
united Democratic Caucus ready to meet the challenges ahead, and
that we are prepared to set our country on a new course,” Ms.
Pelosi wrote Sunday morning in a letter to colleagues. She limited
defections from her party to just a handful, winning over former
moderate and progressive critics.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate convened an even
more subdued opening day as both parties await a pair of runoff
elections in Georgia on Tuesday that will determine which of them
begins the year in control. The outcome could determine the fate of
Mr. Biden’s legislative goals on climate change, taxes and health
care; his response to the coronavirus pandemic; and his ability to
fill his cabinet and influential federal judgeships.

Republicans currently have an edge, with 51 seats to Democrats’
48. Democrats would have to sweep both races to draw the chamber to
a tie and effectively take control when Vice President-elect Kamala
Harris, who would cast tiebreaking votes when needed, is sworn in
with Mr. Biden on Jan. 20.

With the coronavirus circulating rampantly, members-elect
expected little of the pomp that usually accompanies Congress’s
initial convening. Lawmakers took the oath of office and voted for
speaker in small groups, rather than all together in the normally
boisterous hall of the House. The architect of the Capitol had even
constructed a small plexiglass enclosure in one of the galleries
overlooking the chamber so that three lawmakers in a protective
quarantine could vote in person but not mingle on the House
floor.

Nor was there much promise that the partisan warfare that has
seized the capital in recent years would soon subside with the new
session. After they are sworn in, a growing cohort of Republican
senators and House members plan to initiate a long-shot attempt on
Wednesday to try to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory and deliver a
second term to Mr. Trump. The attempt will fail, but only after it
cleaves the Republican Party in two and further erodes confidence
in Mr. Biden’s legitimacy among the president’s most ardent
supporters.