Pelosi addresses rift

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has told her colleagues that they need to keep their internal disputes in the family and should avoid the impulse to blab to the press about any divisions — real or imagined — in the party, according to aides present at this week’s caucus meeting.

Pelosi’s 10- to 15-minute speech yesterday was an attempt to mend a party rift that many Democrats say exists more in the pages of newspapers than in the actual caucus.

Several weeks ago, caucus tensions flared over some lawmakers’ support for the bankruptcy reform bill. A handful of those lawmakers said the party’s progressives, including Pelosi, were insensitive to the realities of representing conservative districts.

“The two themes were, we are all family and that she didn’t want to read about this in the paper,” a Democratic aide said. “She basically said, if anyone outside this institution, or even another member, had a question of why one person is doing something, that I am always going to represent you and help you represent your districts.”

Hans Nichols