When she picks up gavel again, Pelosi will preside over a very different House

After the November elections, when Nancy Pelosi was still working on winning over Democrats who opposed her for speaker, incoming Congresswoman Donna Shalala met with her to talk about what committees she could be considered for.

The once-and-future speaker of the House recognized a teaching moment:

“Ask for the moon!” she said, according to Representative-elect Shalala. “Don’t come in here and tell me you’re going to support me no matter what. Ask for the moon!”

It was a lesson from a master negotiator, woman-to-woman. As a former cabinet secretary in the Clinton administration and a university president in Florida, Shalala knows her power. But not as a legislator. Not in the maze called Congress.

So what did the Floridian ask for? “A lot!” she laughs. “A lot!”

In Representative Pelosi’s 2008 memoir, “Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters,” the country’s first female speaker of the House says she learned from other women – and men, too, including her politician father and brother. But she emphasizes her mother, friends, pioneer female lawmakers, and women in political organizing. Now she’s on the verge of a historic

The political education of Nancy PelosiSpeakership – Act IIA different era