Because once you're in the majority, you have the speaker, the majority leader and the majority whip. The number two Democrat, Steny Hoyer, wanted to retain that position as the Democrats move from the majority to the minority, but also one of the members of the black caucus wanted to move into that seat too. It was like a intraparty coup, but he stayed on in Congress for another 12 years.ĬONAN: There was another intraparty dispute within the Democratic Party. He was defeated in the primary years later.

The nearest precedent I could think of was Joe Martin of Massachusetts, who after the Republican's lost control of the House in 1954, stayed on. Newt Gingrich, of course, was still speaker when he stepped down. I mean, we did know that after 2006, Dennis Hastert quit Congress within a year. But, again, the vote was a 150 to 43, not really close.ĬONAN: Is there precedent for a speaker - whose party has been defeated to stay on and serve as minority leader? But given the fact that the party is considerably smaller, more African-American, more liberal than it had been prior to the November 2nd results, the fact that there were - 43 votes against her, and 68 Democrats in an earlier vote, Democrats wanted to postpone the elections until after Thanksgiving, not exactly a ringing win of confidence for Nancy Pelosi. There have been challenges in the past for the party leadership. But it's important to note that 43 Democrats did vote against Nancy Pelosi. And Ken, any surprises in the votes for the leadership? But joining us here in the studio is NPR political editor and our Political Junkie, Ken Rudin.

In just a moment, we'll be talking with the actor David Suchet about his portrayal of Hercule Poirot.

Detective poirot