Trailblazing

SAN FRANCISCO — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a trailblazing San Francisco Democrat who leveraged decades of power in the U.S. House to become one of the most influential political leaders of her generation, will not run for reelection in 2026, she said Thursday.

The former House speaker, 85, who has been in Congress since 1987 and oversaw both of President Trump’s first-term impeachments, had been pushing off her 2026 decision until after Tuesday’s vote on Proposition 50, a ballot measure she backed and helped bankroll to redraw California’s congressional maps in her party’s favor.

With the measure’s resounding passage, Pelosi said it was time to start clearing the path for another Democrat to represent San Francisco — one of the nation’s most liberal bastions — in Congress, as some are already vying to do.

“With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative,” Pelosi said in a nearly six-minute video she posted online Thursday morning, in which she also recounted major achievements from her long career.

Pelosi did not immediately endorse a would-be successor, but challenged her constituents to stay engaged.

“As we go forward, my message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she said. “We have made history, we have made progress, we have always led the way — and now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy, and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”

Pelosi’s announcement drew immediate reaction across the political world, with Democrats lauding her dedication and accomplishments and President Trump, a frequent target and critic of hers, ridiculing her as a “highly overrated politician.”

Pelosi has not faced a serious challenge for her seat since President Reagan was in office, and has won recent elections by wide margins. Just a year ago, she won reelection with 81% of the vote.

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However, Pelosi was facing two hard-to-ignore challengers from her own party in next year’s Democratic primary: state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), 55, a prolific and ambitious lawmaker with a strong base of support in the city, and Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a Democratic political operative and tech millionaire who is infusing his campaign with personal cash.

Their challenges come amid a shifting tide against gerontocracy in Democratic politics more broadly, as many in the party’s base have increasingly questioned the ability of its longtime leaders — especially those in their 70s and 80s — to sustain an energetic and effective resistance to President Trump and his MAGA agenda.

In announcing his candidacy for Pelosi’s seat last month after years of deferring to her, Wiener said he simply couldn’t wait any longer. “The world is changing, the Democratic Party is changing, and it’s time,” he said.

Chakrabarti — who helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) topple another older Democratic incumbent with a message of generational change in 2018 — said voters in San Francisco “need a whole different approach” to governing after years of longtime party leaders failing to deliver.

In an interview Thursday, Wiener called Pelosi an “icon” who delivered for San Francisco in more ways than most people can comprehend, with whom he shared a “deep love” for the city. He also recounted, in particular, Pelosi’s early advocacy for AIDS treatment and care in the 1980s, and the impact it had on him personally.

“I remember vividly what it felt like as a closeted gay teenager, having a sense that the country had abandoned people like me, and that the country didn’t care if people like me died. I was 17, and that was my perception of my place in the world,” Wiener said. “Nancy Pelosi showed that that wasn’t true, that there were people in positions of power who gave a damn about gay men and LGBTQ people and people living with HIV and those of us at risk for HIV — and that was really powerful.”

Chakrabarti, in a statement Thursday, thanked Pelosi for her “decades of service that defined a generation of politics” and for “doing something truly rare in Washington: making room for the next one.”

While anticipated by many, Pelosi’s decision nonetheless reverberated through political circles, including as yet another major sign that a new political era is dawning for the political left — as also evidenced by the stunning rise of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist elected Tuesday as New York City’s next mayor.

Known as a relentless and savvy party tactician, Pelosi had fought off concerns about her age in the past, including when she chose to run again last year. The first woman ever elected speaker in 2007, Pelosi has long cultivated and maintained a spry image belying her age by walking the halls of Congress in signature four-inch stilettos, and by keeping up a rigorous schedule of flying between work in Washington and constituent events in her home district.

However, that veneer has worn down in recent years, including when she broke her hip during a fall in Europe in December.

That occurred just after fellow octogenarian President Biden sparked intense speculation about his age and cognitive abilities with his disastrous debate performance against Trump in June of last year. The performance led to Biden being pushed to drop out of the race — in part by Pelosi — and to Vice President Kamala Harris moving to the top of the ticket and losing badly to Trump in November.

Democrats have also watched other older liberal leaders age and die in power in recent years, including the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another San Francisco power player in Washington. When Ginsburg died in office at 87, it handed Trump a third Supreme Court appointment. When Feinstein died in office ill at 90, it was amid swirling questions about her competency to serve.

By bowing out of the 2026 race, Pelosi — who stepped down from party leadership in 2022 — diminished her own potential for an ungraceful last chapter in office. But she did not concede that her current effectiveness has diminished one bit.

Pelosi was one of the most vocal and early proponents of Proposition 50, which amends the state constitution to give state Democrats the power through 2030 to redraw California’s congressional districts in their favor.

The measure was in response to Republicans in red states such as Texas redrawing maps in their favor, at Trump’s direction. Pelosi championed it as critical to preserving Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next year and checking Trump through the second half of his second term, something she and others suggested will be vital for the survival of American democracy.

On Tuesday, California voters resoundingly approved Proposition 50.

In her video, Pelosi noted a litany of accomplishments during her time in office, crediting them not to herself but to her constituents, to labor groups, to nonprofits and private entrepreneurs, to the city’s vibrant diversity and flair for innovation.

She noted bringing federal resources to the city to recover after the Loma Prieta earthquake, and San Francisco’s leading role in tackling the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis through partnerships with UC San Francisco and San Francisco General, which “pioneered comprehensive community based care, prevention and research” still used today.

She mentioned passing the Ryan White CARE Act and the Affordable Care Act, building out various San Francisco and California public transportation systems, building affordable housing and protecting the environment — all using federal dollars her position helped her to secure.

“It seems prophetic now that the slogan of my very first campaign in 1987 was, ‘A voice that will be heard,’ and it was you who made those words come true. It was the faith that you had placed in me, and the latitude that you have given me, that enabled me to shatter the marble ceiling and be the first woman speaker of the House, whose voice would certainly be heard,” Pelosi said. “It was an historic moment for our country, and it was momentous for our community — empowering me to bring home billions of dollars for our city and our state.”

After her announcement, Trump ridiculed her, telling Fox News that her decision not to seek reelection was “a great thing for America” and calling her “evil, corrupt, and only focused on bad things for our country.”

“She was rapidly losing control of her party and it was never coming back,” Trump told the outlet, according to a segment shared by the White House. “I’m very honored she impeached me twice, and failed miserably twice.”

The House succeeded in impeaching Trump twice, but the Senate acquitted him both times.

Pelosi’s fellow Democrats, by contrast, heaped praise on her as a one-of-a-kind force in U.S. politics — a savvy tactician, a prolific legislator and a mentor to an entire generation of fellow Democrats.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a longtime Pelosi ally who helped her impeach Trump, called Pelosi “the greatest Speaker in American history” as a result of “her tenacity, intellect, strategic acumen and fierce advocacy.”

“She has been an indelible part of every major progressive accomplishment in the 21st Century — her work in Congress delivered affordable health care to millions, created countless jobs, raised families out of poverty, cleaned up pollution, brought LGBTQ+ rights into the mainstream, and pulled our economy back from the brink of destruction not once, but twice,” Schiff said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Pelosi “has inspired generations,” that her “courage and conviction to San Francisco, California, and our nation has set the standard for what public service should be,” and that her impact on the country was “unmatched.”

“Wishing you the best in this new chapter — you’ve more than earned it,” Newsom wrote above Pelosi’s online video.

James E. Silcott, a trailblazing Los Angeles architect who, thanks to many gifts to his alma mater, Howard University, became the most generous benefactor to architecture students at historically Black colleges in the U.S., died July 17 in Washington, D.C. He was 95.

Silcott’s memorial service took place on Saturday at Howard; he will be laid to rest in L.A.’s Inglewood Park Cemetery on Sept. 6.

Silcott, who started in Los Angeles working for Gruen Associates alongside colleagues like Frank Gehry, made history as the first Black project architect for both Los Angeles County and UCLA. His successful legal battles with the county — he alleged that he had been unfairly terminated because of his race, and was later a victim of retribution for his lawsuit — shined a light on the entrenched barriers Black professionals faced in public institutions at the time.

Born Dec. 21, 1929, in Boston, to parents from the Caribbean island of Montserrat, Silcott grew up in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood during a time of limited opportunities for young Black people. Living in tenements and walk-ups, and making friends of all races and ethnicities, he learned self-reliance, resilience and cultural fluency, as he recounted in a 2007 oral history for Northeastern University’s Lower Roxbury Black History Project. After graduating high school, he worked as a hotel cook alongside his father. “I didn’t know what I wanted,” he said. But an aptitude test at a local YMCA pointed him toward architecture. After being rejected from several architecture schools, he received a lifeline via Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Silcott entered Howard — its architecture program was the first at a historically Black college to receive accreditation — in 1949. He came under the mentorship of Howard H. Mackey Sr., one of the most prominent Black architects and educators of the 20th century, known for instilling a sense of architecture’s civic purpose. Silcott’s studies were interrupted by three years in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. Returning to Howard, he earned his 5-year bachelor of architecture degree in 1957.

Those years were marked by constant financial strain — often forcing him, as he put it, to decide “whether to buy books or buy food” — an experience that would later drive him, as a donor to Howard, to ensure that future students wouldn’t face that choice. He would never forget the role Howard played for him.

“He felt like when nobody else would take him, Howard took him,” said his niece Julie Roberts. “He really credits them for laying the groundwork and setting the path and changing the trajectory of his life.”

Silcott began his career working for architect Arthur Cohen in Boston before moving to Los Angeles — he always hated the cold, said his friends and family — in 1958. Joining Gruen Associates, one of the era’s most influential firms, he, among other efforts, collaborated with Frank Gehry on the design of the Winrock Shopping Center in Albuquerque. He would soon work at UCLA’s architectural and engineering office, becoming the school’s first Black project lead on buildings like the UCLA Boathouse (1965), with its light-filled, maritime-inspired form — including porthole windows and an upper story deck for viewing races. Also at UCLA he collaborated with Welton Becket and Associates on the Jules Stein Eye Institute (1966), with its clean-lined facade of pale stone columns and glass walls that opened to natural light while maintaining shade and privacy.

He later joined Los Angeles County’s Department of Facilities Management, where he would become a senior architect and help oversee projects like the Inglewood Courts Building (1973, another collaboration with Becket) and Los Angeles County Southeast General Hospital (1971), eventually renamed Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital. As the only Black architect working in the county, Silcott’s good friend (and fellow Howard architecture graduate) Melvin Mitchell said he was not always welcome. “None of those men could ever imagine someone of Silcott’s race or color wielding that kind of power, despite the phony smiles and benign language used,” Mitchell said in his eulogy at Howard.

At the end of the decade Silcott was demoted and later laid off during budget cuts — a move he contended was racially motivated. The county’s Civil Service Commission eventually agreed, ruling in 1984 that he had been improperly terminated in order to preserve the jobs of white employees with less seniority, and ordering that he be reinstated with full back pay. “I had to fight for my job just to make sure the rules were applied fairly,” Silcott told the Los Angeles Times.

Chief County Engineer Stephen J. Koonce, left, gestured as he discussed with James Silcott the details of the architect’s return to work, on March 15, 1984.

(Steve Fontanini / Los Angeles Times)

But the reinstatement was short-lived: within months, Silcott alleged that the county had retaliated by stripping away meaningful duties, among other retributions. “They had him working in a closet at one time,” said Roberts. Later that year, the Board of Supervisors approved a roughly $1 million settlement offer to resolve his federal discrimination lawsuit. The Times noted that his case had “become a rallying point” for those seeking greater equity in public employment. As Silcott later reflected, “This was never just about me. It was about making sure the next Black architect who comes along doesn’t have to fight the same battles.”

Silcott would later work as an architectural consultant to public agencies and universities while serving on several public boards, including the South Los Angeles Area Planning Commission, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission, the Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals and the California State Board of Architectural Examiners.

He built a stylish home in Windsor Hills, where he would regularly host family, not to mention mayors, council members, and, later, former President Obama, said Mitchell.

In 1995 — retired as an architect — he took on minority ownership and a board seat at Kennard Design Group, one of the largest Black-owned architecture firms in the country, following the death of its founder (and Silcott’s good friend) Robert Kennard. “He didn’t hesitate,” said Gail Kennard, Robert’s daughter, who still leads the firm, and wanted to ensure the company’s stability at a difficult time. “He was always there to help. For advice, support, anything. Without hesitation he’d say, ‘I’ll do it.’ He just had that generous spirit.”

But Silcott’s greatest love, noted Kennard, was Howard — particularly its Department of Architecture — where he would go on to become a historically prolific philanthropist, and help mentor generations of aspiring architects.

“He would tell me stories about people who were coming up in the profession,” said Kennard. “He’d say, I found this new student and he or she’s my new project.”

Silcott’s ability to support the school financially grew out of skillful real estate investments, which began with a few buildings in Boston that he inherited from his mother. He managed and expanded numerous properties both in Boston and Los Angeles.

In 1991 he helped establish the James E. Silcott Fund, now valued at $250,000, offering emergency aid to Howard architecture students in financial distress. In 2002, he established the James E. Silcott Endowed Chair with an initial $1 million, bringing architects like Sir David Adjaye, Philip Freelon, Jack Travis and Roberta Washington to teach and mentor at Howard. And with a $1 million gift he funded the T. George Silcott Gallery, named for his late brother, providing a venue for exhibitions, critiques and public lectures. Silcott also made unrestricted contributions of hundreds of thousands more to Howard’s Department of Architecture, supporting scholarships, travel fellowships and capital improvements. By the end of his life, his contributions to Howard exceeded $3 million, making him, according to the school, the largest individual donor to architecture programs at historically Black colleges and universities in the country.

“Howard and its school of architecture was at the very center of his life,” said Mitchell, who noted Silcott’s gifts also helped keep the school afloat during difficult periods.

Silcott received the Howard University Alumni Achievement Award, the Centennial Professional Excellence Award and the Howard H. Mackey Dean’s Medal, named after his mentor. He also received the Kresge/Coca-Cola Award for philanthropy to HBCUs. In 2020, he was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows.

After a stroke in 2020, Silcott moved to Washington, D.C., to be under family care. He was placed in hospice in 2022, and put on a feeding tube, but lived three more years against the odds, noted Roberts, one of seven close nieces and nephews who called him “Uncle James.”

“He would not acknowledge that he wasn’t going to live forever,” said Roberts. Silcott remained engaged with Howard until his death.