Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi was the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011. She was the first woman to hold the office and to date, has been the highest-ranking female politician in American history. A member of the Democratic Party, Pelosi has represented California's 8th congressional district, which consists of four-fifths of the city and county of San Francisco, since 1987. The district was numbered as the 5th during Pelosi's first three terms in the House. She served as the House Minority Whip from 2002 to 2003, and was House Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007, holding the post during the 108th and 109th Congresses. Pelosi is the first woman, the first Californian and first Italian-American to lead a major party in Congress. After the Democrats took control of the House in 2007 and increased their majority in 2009, Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House for the 110th and 111th Congresses. On November 17, 2010, Pelosi was elected as the Democratic Leader by House Democrats and therefore the Minority Leader in the Republican-controlled House for the 112th Congress. Pelosi is Italian-American and was born Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro in Baltimore, Maryland, the youngest of six children of Annunciata M. "Nancy" (née Lombardi) and Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., who was a Democratic party U.S. Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore. Pelosi's brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, also a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, when he declined to run for a second term. Pelosi was involved with politics from an early age. In her outgoing remarks as the 60th Speaker of the House, Pelosi noted that she had been present at John F. Kennedy's inaugural address as President in January 1961. She graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic all-girls high school in Baltimore, and from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C., in 1962 with a B.A. in political science. Pelosi interned for Senator Daniel Brewster (D-Maryland) alongside future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. She met Paul Frank Pelosi (b. April 15, 1940, in San Francisco) while she was attending Trinity College. They married in Baltimore at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on September 7, 1963. After the couple married, they moved to New York, and then to San Francisco in 1969, where Mr. Pelosi's brother, Ronald Pelosi, was a member of the City and County of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors. After moving to San Francisco, Pelosi worked her way up in Democratic politics. She became a friend of one of the leaders of the California Democratic Party, 5th District Congressman Phillip Burton. In 1976, Pelosi was elected as a Democratic National Committee member from California, a position she would hold until 1996. She was elected as party chair for Northern California on January 30, 1977, and for the California Democratic Party, which she held from 1981 until 1983.Pelosi was appointed Finance Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the U.S. Senate Democrats, in 1985. That same year, she ran to succeed Chuck Manatt as chair of the Democratic National Committee, but lost to then-DNC Treasurer Paul G. Kirk. Pelosi left her post as DSCC finance chair in 1986.Nancy Pelosi is among the richest members of Congress,with an estimated net worth of approximately $58 million, the 12th highest estimated net worth in Congress, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. While members of Congress are not required to disclose their exact net worth, organizations such as the Center for Responsive Politics prepare estimated ranges based on public disclosures. The CRP's midpoint estimate of the Pelosis' net worth is $58,436,537 as of 2009, the most recent year for which figures are available, with a possible range from $7 million to $124 million. In addition to their large portfolio of jointly owned San Francisco Bay Area real estate, the couple also owns a vineyard in St. Helena, California, valued between $5 million and $25 million.[citation needed] Pelosi's husband also owns stock, including $1 million in Apple Inc.[citation needed], and is the owner of the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League.She definitely made history. While I know there are a lot of people out there who love her or hate her, I feel pretty meh-- indifferent about her.
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