Page 9 - NYLS Magazine • 2014 • Vol. 33, No. 2

Congresswoman Pelosi and Dean Emeritus James. F. Simon
Party. “Our Catholic teachings,” she said, “were in furtherance of respecting people.”
Pelosi, mother of five adult children
and grandmother to six (and counting), remembers a moment of disrespect during a House debate on abortion law, and how it conflicted with certain less inclusive Catholic doctrine. “They said, ‘Oh, that Nancy Pelosi—she thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope,’” she recollected. “Yes!”
In 2009 and 2010, a Democratic Congress passed a number of hard-fought measures to address the near meltdown of the American economy, including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Pelosi said Republicans now want to overturn Wall Street reform and return to policies that led to the crippling recession begun in 2007.
Suggesting that Republicans are willing
to manipulate statutory authority for the benefit of wealthy Americans, and to the disadvantage of everyone else, Pelosi said, “We don’t begrudge anyone their success. But we do resent the exploitation of working people, the environment, and consumers when that success springs from something very unfair in our economy.”
On the topic of women’s place in the nation’s affairs, Pelosi’s stance is resolute: “When women succeed, America succeeds. That is
a statement of absolute fact. It’s not about politics, it’s about values.”
To elect more women to public office, she said, “It’s really important to do everything in our power to reduce the role of secret, undisclosed special interest money destructive to our democracy and the middle class.
“If we reduce the role of money and increase the level of civility, I guarantee you this:
We will increase the number of women in politics, and that will be the most wholesome thing we can do,” said Pelosi. “Not only women, but younger people and minorities.”
From left to right: Sybil Shainwald ’76, Congresswoman Pelosi, and Dean Crowell
She added, with another laugh, “It seems inevitable to us that this has to happen, but inconceivable to Republicans.”
Pelosi was further resolute on the matter of responding to the ISIS threat: “I will not vote for troops on the ground. We cannot go down that path. There’s no evidence it would even work.”
She expressed firm support for President Obama’s expansion of air strikes in Iraq, and into Syria, in order to “degrade and ultimately destroy [ISIS],” as the president declared in a September 10 television address.
In 2002, Pelosi voted “nay” on bills authorizing then-President George W. Bush to make war on Iraq. But “aye” votes in the House and Senate prevailed. Air strikes against ISIS forces, ordered now by President Obama, are “a consequence of our going into Iraq in the first place,” said Congresswoman Pelosi, opining that the Iraq war “will go down in history as one of the most serious mistakes our country ever made.”
Pelosi said she strongly endorses the creation of international coalitions to deal with the newest terrorist threat because, “it’s not just the United States fighting ISIS; it’s the world. If there is a need for combat troops on the ground, they should not be combat troops of the United States of America.”
Turning to immigration policy, she said, “There are 11 million people who need legislation, and we have the votes in the House,” but “one person is standing in the way.” She referred to John Boehner, who controls the House agenda and refuses to allow debate.
“I’m very disappointed,” said Pelosi, whose mother, Annunciata Lombardi, came to the United States with her Italian parents in 1911. “Immigration is the constant reinvigoration of America. Immigration makes America more American.”
Sybil Shainwald and Congresswoman Pelosi talk with NYLS students.
Before her conversation with Dean Emeritus Simon, Pelosi met privately with a group of NYLS students to answer their questions.
Several city officials and dignitaries of the bench and bar attended this year’s event. They included Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York; New York State Appellate Court Justice Helen E. Freedman; New York City Deputy Mayor Richard Buery Jr.; New York City Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter; former New York City Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman; former New
York State Attorney General Robert Abrams; and former New York State Appellate Court Justices Milton L. Williams and
Ernst H. Rosenberger ’58. Justice Rosenberger is
a Vice Chairman of
the NYLS Board
of Trustees. The Chairman of the Board, Arthur N. Abbey ’59, was also in attendance. •
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