How Does Nancy Pelosi Compare to History’s Greatest House Speakers?

Speaker Pelosi leaving the White House after meeting with President Trump in December 2018

In a recent essay, I evaluated President Trump’s claim that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “will go down as the absolute worst Speaker of the House in U.S. history!”

By comparing her record to those of her most regrettable predecessors, it became clear that Pelosi does not belong in the worst-ever conversation.

How, then, does she compare to the best Speakers in American history?

As Speaker from 2007–11, Pelosi mitigated the damage done by the 2007 Financial Crisis, engineered recovery from the Great Recession, and passed Obamacare. Since reclaiming the gavel in 2019, she has passed 400 liberal bills, renewed NAFTA, blocked Trump’s border wall, and impeached the most corrupt president in US history. (For more detail, see “Is Nancy Pelosi the Worst-Ever Speaker of the House?”)

Does all of that qualify Pelosi as great? To find out, we must review the achievements of her greatest predecessors.

Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, later stabbed by his brother-in-law over a foreign policy vote

Frederick Muhlenberg (1789–91, 1793–95), the first Speaker, helped President Washington organize the first effective federal government. Muhlenberg’s House passed the Bill of…