[R]ep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said he backed Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for the position of speaker of the United States House of Representatives Wednesday in a closed door House Democratic Caucus meeting to decide leadership for the next two years.
The decision came after weeks of indecision from Welch, who said his support would depend on some sort of guarantee from Pelosi that she would create a more open and transparent committee process.
“I will vote for Nancy Pelosi to be our next speaker because she has personally committed to me that she will reform the legislative process, make it more transparent, and allow the diverse ideas of all members to be considered,” Welch said in a statement.
After the midterm elections that saw Democrats regain control of the lower chamber, Welch said that he was more interested in how the Democrats were led and less concerned by who was leading them.
Welch said earlier this month that he was interested in “diffusing” the power of the speaker’s chamber and to reestablish the power and role of House committees when it comes to drafting bills and oversight.
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Welch said that during a conversation with Pelosi he urged her to return to normal order by having committees go through a transparent and bipartisan process when crafting legislation.
“Pelosi was responsive to that,” he said. “This was fundamentally about returning power to the committees.”
Pelosi’s road back to the speaker’s office faced some obstacles with members of the caucus calling for fresh leadership after the midterms. But it seems that most of the holdouts, like Welch, were waiting to have discussions with Pelosi on issues of concern to them before deciding to support her or not.
In the closed door nomination process, 238 Democrats voted for speaker. Of those, 203 supported Pelosi and 32 voted against her nomination — there were 3 blank ballots.
In an interview after the caucus meeting, Pelosi recognized there were House members who opposed her nomination.
“I’ve always had opposition,” she said, “today it didn’t materialize into an opponent.”
Pelosi said she plans to make sure House committees will be “like American town hall meeting” and that Democrats will work with Republicans when possible.
The vote on speaker of the House will now go to a floor vote, which is expected to take place soon after the next Congress is in session in early January. Pelosi said that if the the floor vote happened today she would have the 218 votes to become speaker.
“Are there dissenters? Yes, but I expect to have a powerful support going forward,” she said.
