Experts Rank Pelosi Among Greatest House Speakers

WASHINGTON (Nov. 4) -- Nancy Pelosi may be moving out of her spacious office in the Capitol, but the woman who broke the marble ceiling to become the first female speaker of the House has already moved into the ranks of the most effective legislators in history.

"While right now she is overshadowed by this thumping, she's going to rank quite high in the pantheon of modern speakers" of the last 100 years, said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Only Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving speaker in history whose parliamentary maneuvers cleared the way for passage of civil rights and social legislation in the 1960s, ranks higher.

Four years isn't much time to make it into the history books. The new House Republican majority, with Rep. John Boehner in the speaker's office, has vowed to undo much of what Pelosi and her fellow Democrats accomplished in the last two years under President Barack Obama. And her tenure has not been without controversy.

Few Republicans would give Pelosi even a passing grade. She has been caricatured as a monster, has been excoriated by right-wing bloggers as the mother of all federal deficits and has become the bete noire of conservative talk radio. Most would, and have, called her the worst speaker in history.

Yet historians and nonpartisan political observers who take the long view say Pelosi stands out among the 52 lawmakers who have held the job set forth in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. And not just because all the others were men.

"The last Congress in particular has been remarkable in its productivity -- in both the number of bills enacted and their scope -- and Pelosi shares much of the credit," said Matthew Green, a political scientist at Catholic University of America and author of "The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership."

Many speakers shepherded through big bills: Democrat Tip O'Neill guided major energy legislation though in 1978, and Republican Dennis Hastert twisted arms to create a new Medicare prescription drug benefit. But few, Green said, have passed more legislation than Pelosi.

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& in case you think it impossible for her to get the job back, note that several speakers did repeat. two of them even served three times each: henry clay between 1811 & 1825, and sam rayburn, who was ousted by the GOP's joe martin twice but came back 2 years later each time.