Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi evicted from her Capitol hideaway office on Wednesday with immediate effect by acting speaker Patrick McHenry following Kevin McCathy’s ouster.
Pelosi’s office received an email on Tuesday informing them that the “room will be re-keyed” and reassigned for “speaker use,” Politico reported.
Nancy Pelosi was evicted just hours after McHenry was named interim House speaker following the historic vote to oust Kevin McCarthy.
Pelosi said in a statement, referring to McHenry:
“With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker Pro Temper was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol.”
“This eviction is a sharp departure from tradition. As Speaker, I gave former Speaker (Dennis) Hastert a significantly larger suite of officers for as long as he wished.”
Pelosi is currently in California, where she is mourning the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and is unable to collect her belongings from her Capitol office.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ staffers cleaned out Pelosi’s office on Tuesday.
A TV and bags were spotted outside the office before they were hauled away.
“Office space doesn’t matter to me, but it seems to be important to them,” Nancy Pelosi said after being evicted.
“Now that the new Republican Leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on what’s truly important for the American people.”
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The former House Speaker was absent during the vote to remove McCarthy as House speaker.
Eight House Republicans led by Gaetz voted with the entirety of the House Democrats to remove McCarthy on Tuesday.
The Republican House voted on Rep Tom Cole’s (R-OK) motion to table Gaetz’s move, which was rejected.
Regarding his move to oust McCarthy, Gaetz said:
I take no lecture from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership, hollow out this town, and borrow against the future of our future generations.#MotionToVacate pic.twitter.com/PV52V5LVO2
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) October 3, 2023
McCarthy announced he would not seek reelection after losing a motion to vacate the chair.
He took questions after announcing his intentions to step down.
“I believe I can continue to fight, maybe in a different manner,” McCarthy told a packed Capitol room.
“I will not run for Speaker again; I’ll have the conference pick somebody else.”
McCarthy expressed no regrets over his choices in the days leading to Gaetz filing the motion to vacate.
“Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is necessary,” he said, smiling.
“I don’t regret standing up for choosing governing over grievance.”
McCarthy did have advice for whoever followed to take the gavel.
“Change the rules,” he said, referring to the traditional House rule reinstated earlier this year, allowing a motion to vacate the chair to be brought by an individual member at any time.
Former Speaker Pelosi had previously changed the rule, requiring a majority of the majority conference to agree to file the motion.
McCarthy also had stern words for the eight Republicans who opposed him.
“These are the same people that never voted for me, they thought it was big that they went to ‘present’ after we went 15 rounds [in January].”
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