PHILADELPHIA — Some attendees of a liberal conference booed at least twice when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s name was mentioned.
The first round of boos came when Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley spoke about Congress passing a $4.6 billion border bill last month, in a setback for Pelosi. Merkley said Senate Democrats expected the House to go to conference on the bill, but the lower chamber didn’t after a revolt by centrist Democrats.
“We lost all the leverage that the progressives had worked so hard to get,” he said Friday at Netroots Nation, an annual gathering of liberal activists. “The House has to carry its weight to restore the values of America. It failed on this occasion. That’s very frustrating.”
“The complete assumption on the Senate side was that Speaker Pelosi would go to conference, and she didn’t,” he said, prompting boos from the audience.
There were more boos when Pramila Jayapal was asked about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s feud with the House speaker. Despite the boos, Jayapal defended Pelosi.
“I don’t typically find Pelosi to be somebody who disrespects members. I’ve never felt disrespected as a woman of color by Pelosi,” the Washington congresswoman said.
Ocasio-Cortez, a liberal firebrand congresswoman from New York, accused Pelosi of “singling out” freshman congresswomen of color after the speaker said four lawmakers, including Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts “didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”
“Nancy Pelosi is going to respond to where her caucus is,” Jayapal said. “We have not gotten to the place where we have 218 votes for [liberal priorities]. Nancy Pelosi is a vote counter, if nothing else. She is a master strategist, so she is not going to go there unless we are able to build the pressure for it. However, she is a negotiator.”
