Pelosi announces end of her tenure as House speaker

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on Thursday, announced her decision to pass the leadership torch to a younger generation of Democratic members in the lower chamber, stepping down after years of service in that role. She will remain in Congress, where the San Francisco Democrat was just easily reelected to another two-year term.

"I will continue to speak from the people of San Francisco as a member of the House," she said during remarks November 17, but "I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next caucus."

Pelosi, whose decision to step down comes weeks after her husband, Paul Pelosi, was brutally attacked in the couple's San Francisco home, reached an agreement with fellow Democratic members in 2018 that she would resign from her position in leadership by the end of this year.

While she did not address the question of who might succeed her as Democratic leader of the House, the website Puck reported on Thursday that Pelosi plans to throw her support behind Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).

"Never did I think I would go from homemaker to House speaker," Pelosi said from the floor of the House. Reflecting on her 35 years of service in the chamber, the congresswoman celebrated the work that she and the Democratic caucus have accomplished.

This included passage of transformative legislation under the administrations of three presidents, she said: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Pelosi, who became the first woman speaker of the House in 2007, also held that role under former President Donald Trump's tenure.