WASHINGTON – House Democrats are looking at big health care changes, including federal aid to help families earning up to $88,000 pay for insurance and a requirement that all must carry coverage.

A document obtained by The Associated Press shows the plan being developed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would also require employers to offer coverage to their full-time workers, or pay a percentage of their payroll to the government.

The committee summary is a first look at where House Democrats are headed as leaders try to meet an ambitious goal of passing a health care overhaul by the end of July. Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is expected to play a leading role in crafting the plan and steering it through negotiations with the Senate later in the year.

The three-page summary broadly tracks with the type of plan President Barack Obama outlined during the political campaign. The summary does not include any cost estimates, but independent experts have put the price tag for such a plan at $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, with some estimates ranging as high as $1.7 trillion.

Obama has said the final legislation must rein in costs, guarantee choice of health plans and medical providers, and ensure that all Americans have access to affordable coverage. The president has proposed a downpayment of $634 billion over 10 years to pay for expanding coverage. He’s also promising to hold hospitals, doctors, drug makers and other providers to their recent offer of $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.

The Energy and Commerce plan would build on the current system in which employers, government and individuals share responsibility for the cost of health insurance. But it would make major changes in the way Americans get and pay for coverage. Workers and employers would have new obligations to obtain coverage. Insurers would have to abide by new consumer protections to prevent sick people from being denied coverage.

The subsidies for health insurance would be offered on a sliding scale to those earning up to four times the federal poverty level, or $88,200 for a family of four, according to the document.

The House plan would set up a new insurance purchasing pool called an “exchange” to help make private coverage more affordable for individuals and small businesses. In its first year, the exchange would be open only to employers with fewer than 10 workers.

Health insurance plans that participate in the exchange would have to follow the same consumer protection rules. They would not be able to deny coverage to the sick, or charge them exorbitant rates.

The document also calls for creation of a new government insurance plan to compete with private companies. The government plan would probably be run by the Health and Human Services department, but it would have to compete on its own. The government insurance plan would be financed by premium payments, not taxpayer dollars.

By Erica Werner, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

WASHINGTON – The federal government would for the first time have regulatory powers over the tobacco industry under a bill the House approved Thursday after years of campaigning by anti-smoking forces.

The measure, passed 298-112, gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate — but not ban — cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The Senate could take up its version of the bill later this month, and supporters have expressed confidence they can overcome expected resistance from tobacco-state senators. The White House supports the legislation, a shift from the Bush administration which threatened to veto a House-passed measure last year.

President Barack Obama has spoken publicly about his own struggles to kick a smoking habit.

“This vote brings us closer to putting a deceitful and dangerous industry under the watchful eyes of government regulators,” American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said in a statement.

The bill was sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who in 1994 summoned the heads of big tobacco to a memorable hearing where they testified that nicotine was not addictive.

Waxman and his Senate counterpart, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have promoted legislation giving the FDA regulatory powers over tobacco products since the Supreme Court in 2000 ruled that the agency did not have that authority.

“We have come to what I hope will be an historic occasion, and that is finally doing something about the harm that tobacco does to thousands and thousands of Americans who die each year,” Waxman said Wednesday as lawmakers debated his Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

His bill wouldn’t let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright, but the agency would be able to regulate the contents of tobacco products, make public their ingredients, prohibit flavoring, require much larger warning labels and strictly control or prohibit marketing campaigns, especially those geared toward children.

Opponents from tobacco-growing states such as top-producing North Carolina argued that the FDA had proven through food safety failures that it’s not up to the job. They also said that instead of unrealistically trying to get smokers to quit or prevent them from starting, lawmakers should ensure they have other options, like smokeless tobacco.

That was the aim of an alternate bill offered by Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., who would leave the FDA out and create a different agency within the Health and Human Services Department. His proposal failed on a 284-142 vote.

“Effectively giving FDA stamp of approval on cigarettes will improperly lead people to believe that these products are safe, and they really aren’t,” Buyer said. “We want to move people from smoking down the continuum of risk to eventually quitting.”

Major public health groups, including the American Lung Association and the American Medical Association, wrote to lawmakers asking them to oppose Buyer’s bill, contending it would leave tobacco companies without meaningful regulation and able to make untested claims about the health effects of their products.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., also was unsuccessful in changing a provision that allows the FDA to tap its general fund for about six months to get the new program started. He argued that money would be diverted from the agency’s already overstretched food inspection and disease research budgets. Waxman countered that the user fees from the tobacco industry would pay for the new FDA office and that any money borrowed from the general fund would be paid back without affecting other programs.

Buyer pointed out that Waxman’s bill is supported by the nation’s largest tobacco company, Marlboro maker Philip Morris USA. Officials at rival tobacco companies contend the Waxman bill could lock in Philip Morris’ market share.

Kennedy plans to introduce his version of the legislation after Congress returns from a recess later this month. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., is expected to lead the opposition, but supporters are confident they can clear the 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster.

Kathleen Sebelius

WASHINGTON – Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama’s choice to head the Health and Human Services Department, said Tuesday she backs his call for giving Americans the option of government-run health insurance as an alternative to private coverage.

The proposal for a public plan that would compete with private insurers has emerged as the most divisive issue as Obama seeks to overhaul the health system to reduce costs and shrink the ranks of 48 million uninsured. Republicans fear that the competing plan would drive some private insurers out of business.

“If the question is do I support a public option side-by-side with private insurers,” Sebelius said, “yes I do.”

She faced questions on the issue as she testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Sebelius said she didn’t support fully government-run health care.

An exchange with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., over the Obama proposal was perhaps the most heated in a low-key 2 1/2-hour hearing. Sebelius pledged that if confirmed, “health reform would be my mission.”

“Inaction is not an option. The status quo is unacceptable, and unsustainable,” said Sebelius, citing high health care costs that she said were hurting families and crippling the economy.

Sebelius was welcomed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who has been battling brain cancer. His hands shaking slightly, Kennedy said that over the past 10 months, he has experienced the health care system up close. “I’ve benefited from the best of medicine. But we have too many uninsured Americans,” said the committee chairman.

Toward the end of the hearing, Kennedy asked Sebelius to affirm her support for cancer research. She did.

Sebelius was introduced by former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the one-time Senate Republican leader and 1996 presidential nominee. Dole echoed Sebelius’ call for quick action to overhaul the health system and praised her as a bipartisan leader who could pull it off. He sat next to her at the witness table for most of the hearing.

While Obama has pushed for health care overhaul, lawmakers have questioned how the administration would pay for the plan. Sebelius didn’t offer a specific solution, but said the approach must be comprehensive.

Sebelius cited Kennedy’s home state of Massachusetts, where a pioneering 2006 law requires nearly everyone to carry insurance or face fines. Policy makers there decided to extend coverage first, and deal with costs later. Now costs are ballooning.

The lesson, Sebelius said, is costs and coverage must be dealt with in concert.

Sebelius also said it was premature to discuss whether the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety functions should be split into a separate agency, as some have suggested after recent salmonella outbreaks.

“Step one is restoring FDA as a world-class regulatory agency,” Sebelius said.

She sought to reassure senators that she wouldn’t allow Obama’s plan to spend $1.1 billion on health effectiveness research to result in bureaucrats rationing care based on cost.

“Providers should make medical decisions,” Sebelius said.

Sebelius is Obama’s second pick to head the department. Former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration while apologizing for failing to pay $140,000 in taxes and interest.

Daschle was supposed to lead the health overhaul effort as HHS secretary and head of the White House Office for Health Reform. When he dropped out of consideration the job was split and a separate White House health czar was named.

Sebelius would still play a major role in health legislation efforts. Her background on health care includes blocking an insurance company merger in Kansas while insurance commissioner in 2001. She has faced opposition from conservatives over her support for abortion rights, but senators didn’t raise that issue Tuesday.

The health committee won’t actually vote on sending Sebelius’ nomination to the full Senate. That job falls to the Senate Finance Committee, which will hold Sebelius’ confirmation hearing Thursday.

The Health and Human Services Department oversees the giant Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, and also includes the Food and Drug Administration. The department has a budget of more than $700 billion and a work force of more than 65,000 people.

Associated Press Writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.

BLM staff told to ignore problem

WASHINGTON – The government has endangered the public’s health and safety by failing to clean up abandoned mines on federal land in the West, according to a scathing audit released Friday.

The Interior Department’s inspector general found dangerous levels of arsenic, lead and mercury, along with gaping cavities, at dilapidated hard-rock mining sites easily accessible to visitors and residents.

Bureau of Land Management supervisors told staff to ignore the problems, and employees who tried to report contaminated sites were threatened with retaliation, the audit said.

At least 12 people were killed in accidents at abandoned mine sites between 2004 and 2007, and “the potential for more deaths and injuries are ominous,” it said.

The mines are mostly in California, Nevada and Arizona. The California Department of Conservation estimates there are about 47,000 abandoned mines in California. Other surveys have estimated about 500,000 such sites nationwide, where gold, silver, copper, lead and other minerals were mined, often decades ago.

Environmentalists have estimated cleanup costs as high as $72 billion. But the inspector general’s audit noted that simple precautions could be taken, such as fences and warning signs. So far, the audit indicates, the Bureau of Land Management has hardly been up to the job.

“BLM’s abandoned mines program has long been undermined, neglected and marginalized by poor management practices and insufficient staffing and resources,” said the report.

In response, BLM issued a statement defending its abandoned mine program as “highly effective.” The statement did not address specific circumstances raised in the audit.

“The BLM has an active program in place to identify and address (abandoned mine land) hazards on its lands,” said spokesman Matt Spangler. “The agency worked closely with the IG audit team over the last year in examining the abandoned mine site challenges that it faces. The BLM accepts the IG’s recommendations and will work diligently to implement them.”

BLM is part of the Interior Department and administers 258 million acres of public land primarily in 12 Western states. The majority of abandoned mine sites within Interior Department jurisdiction are on BLM land.

Last year, 13-year-old Rikki Howard died and her younger sister was injured after they accidentally drove their all-terrain vehicle into an open 125-foot mine shaft near BLM’s Windy Point Recreation Area in Kingman, Ariz.

The mine shaft is on a small piece of private property surrounded by BLM land. Only after the accident, BLM provided a fence and warning signs for the site. Yet when auditors visited the area, they found two other deep mine shafts nearby, one unfenced and one only partially fenced, and with no warning signs.

One BLM official told auditors that fencing a site could lead to BLM liability, because it was an acknowledgment that BLM knew about the site. An employee was told not to identify abandoned mine sites because it got in the way of other duties. Several employees reported management threats against their careers for raising abandoned mine issues.

“The findings of this audit paint a picture of compelling urgency, which should trigger a quick call to action by both the department and Congress,” the audit concluded.

Congressional action may not be fast to come.

For years lawmakers have tried but failed to rewrite the General Mining Law of 1872, which was meant to settle the West by letting prospectors stake claims and mine gold, silver and other minerals for free. The law contains negligible cleanup requirements but has survived essentially unchanged through today.

Last year the House passed a reform bill to create an abandoned mine cleanup fund and force mining companies to pay royalties, like coal and other extraction industries already do. But efforts have stalled in the Senate. The main obstacle is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a gold miner’s son who has long protected the gold-mining industry in his state.

Reid has said he opposes the House bill, and though legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., it has not advanced.

“Sen. Reid has been an advocate for responsible mining law reform and will continue to be,” Reid’s spokesman, Jon Summers, said Friday.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said the audit “underscores the need to pass meaningful reform of the law before additional tragedies occur.”

No chance of repealing it this year

WASHINGTON – Democrats are convening the first congressional hearing on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy since its enactment 15 years ago. But they acknowledge there’s no chance of repealing it this year.

Indeed their only hope of success, they say, is if Democratic Sen. Barack Obama gets elected president.

“We need a new president in order to get this passed” — specifically, a President Obama, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., told reporters on a conference call Tuesday convened by the Human Rights Campaign and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Obama wants to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” and will work with military leaders to get it done, his campaign Web site says. Republican opponent John McCain supports “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Tauscher’s legislation to overturn the policy has 133 co-sponsors. But key Democrats including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., support the status quo, and there are no plans to bring the bill to a vote this year.

Tauscher said she has no interest in a “show vote” that her side might lose.

Instead, the hearing Wednesday in the Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel is meant to draw attention to the issue and to the growing public sentiment in favor of gay people serving openly in the military, Tauscher said.

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll over the weekend, 75 percent of respondents said openly gay people should be allowed to serve, up from 62 percent in early 2001 and 44 percent in 1993.

“We believe that this is a good first step to have this hearing, but we don’t believe that this bill will come forward until we have a new president,” Tauscher said.

Even if Obama wins, overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell” might not be his first order of business.

The policy was enacted shortly after Democrat Bill Clinton became president and sought to make good on a campaign pledge to open the military to gays. After a divisive debate that gave fuel to social conservatives and little political benefit to Clinton, “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the result.

It was intended to keep the military from asking recruits their sexual orientation, and to prevent servicemembers from declaring that they are gay or bisexual or engaging in homosexual activity.

If elected, Obama’s key task would have to be trying to end the Iraq war while maintaining military and public support. Despite the seemingly strong promise on his campaign site, in a recent interview with The Advocate, a gay newsmagazine, Obama stopped short of promising to lead the way for change, saying only that he can “reasonably see” a repeal of the current ban if elected president.

Wednesday’s hearing, convened by subcommittee chair Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., includes three former military officials who want to overturn “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and two witnesses who oppose gays serving in the military.

No current Pentagon official or military officer was invited to testify, Tauscher said, because “it’s a waste of time … They always have the same answer,” which is that they’ll follow the law, she said.

WASHINGTON – The head of the Southern California slaughterhouse at the center of the largest beef recall in U.S. history acknowledged Wednesday that cattle were illegally slaughtered at his plant and that cows too sick to stand were forced into the food supply.

Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. President Steve Mendell made the admissions after a congressional panel forced him to watch undercover video of abuses of cattle at his plant. Mendell watched head-in-hand as cows were dragged by chains, jabbed by forklifts and shocked to get them into the box where they’d be slaughtered.

Afterward he briefly bowed his head, then backed away from claims he made in his written testimony that no ill cows from his plant entered the food supply.

So-called downer cattle are mostly barred by federal regulations from entering the food supply because they have a higher risk of infection.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., asked Mendell whether it was logical to conclude from the video that at least two downer cows entered the nation’s food supply.

“That would be logical, yes sir,” Mendell said.

“Has your company ever illegally slaughtered, processed, or sold a downer cow?” Stupak asked.

“I didn’t think we had sir,” Mendell said.

It was Mendell’s first public appearance since the undercover video by the Humane Society of the United States led to his plant’s shutdown and last month’s recall of 143 million pounds of beef. Mendell was appearing under subpoena before the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee. He was a no-show at a committee hearing last month.

Pat Tillman’s brother accuses military of ‘intentional falsehoods’ in friendly fire incident

Tillman in 2003.

WASHINGTON – An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star was killed by friendly fire said Tuesday he was told by a higher-up to conceal that information from Tillman’s brother.

“I was ordered not to tell him,” U.S. Army Spc. Bryan O’Neal told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He said he was given the order by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman’s platoon.

Pat Tillman’s brother Kevin was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened, but didn’t see it. O’Neal said Bailey told him specifically not to tell Kevin Tillman that the death was friendly fire rather than heroic engagement with the enemy.

“He basically just said, sir, that uh, ‘Do not let Kevin know, he’s probably in a bad place knowing that his brother’s dead,”‘ O’Neal said. He added that Bailey made clear he would “get in trouble” if he told.

Kevin Tillman was not in the hearing room when O’Neal spoke.

In earlier testimony, Kevin Tillman accused the military of “intentional falsehoods” and “deliberate and careful misrepresentations” in portraying Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.

“We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,” Kevin Tillman told a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing. “Pat’s death was clearly the result of fratricide,” he said, contending that the military’s misstatements amounted to “fraud.”

“Revealing that Pat’s death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters … so the truth needed to be suppressed,” Tillman said.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., accused the government of inventing “sensational details and stories” about Pat Tillman’s death and the 2003 rescue of Jessica Lynch, perhaps the most famous victims of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

“The government violated its most basic responsibility,” said Waxman.

Lynch, then an Army private, was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. She was subsequently rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.

Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table and took a seat alongside Tillman’s family members.

“The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate lies,” Lynch said.

Kevin Tillman said his family has sought for years to get at the truth, and have now concluded that they were “being actively thwarted by powers that are more interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth and seeing justice is served.”

Lawmakers questioned how high up the chain of command the information about Tillman’s friendly fire death went, and whether anyone in the White House knew before Tillman’s family.

“How high up did this go?” asked Waxman.

Pat Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, said she believed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must have known. “The fact that he would have died by friendly fire and no one told Rumsfeld is ludicrous,” she said.

Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, after his Army Ranger comrades were ambushed in eastern Afghanistan. Rangers in a convoy trailing Tillman’s group had just emerged from a canyon where they had been fired upon. They saw Tillman and mistakenly fired on him.

Though dozens of soldiers knew quickly that Tillman had been killed by his fellow troops, the Army said initially that he was killed by enemy gunfire when he led his team to help another group of ambushed soldiers. The family was not told what really happened until May 29, 2004, a delay the Army blamed on procedural mistakes.

In questioning what the White House knew, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., cited a memo written by a top general seven days after Tillman’s death warning it was “highly possible” the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire and making clear his warning should be conveyed to the president. President Bush made no reference to the way Tillman died in a speech delivered two days after the memo was written.

A White House spokesman has said there’s no indication Bush received the warning in the memo written April 29, 2004 by then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to Gen. John Abizaid, head of Central Command.

“It’s a little disingenuous to think the administration didn’t know,” Kevin Tillman told the committee. “That’s kind of what we hoped you guys would get involved with and take a look,” he said.

Mary Tillman told the committee that family members were “absolutely appalled” upon realizing the extent to which they were misled.

“We’ve all been betrayed … We never thought they would use him the way they did,” she said.

The Tillman family has made similar accusations against the administration and the military before, but has generally shied away from news media attention. The family had never previously appeared together and summarized their criticism and questions in such a public, comprehensive way.

“We shouldn’t be allowed to have smoke screens thrown in our face,” Mary Tillman said. “You’re diminishing their true heroism to write these glorious tales. It’s really a disservice to the nation.”

“Our family will never be satisfied. We’ll never have Pat back,” she said. “Something really awful happened. It’s your job to find out what happened to him. That’s really important.”

Last month the military concluded in a pair of reports that nine high-ranking Army officers, including four generals, made critical errors in reporting Tillman’s death but that there was no criminal wrongdoing in his shooting.

Tillman’s death received worldwide attention because he had walked away from a huge contract with the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Pfc. Jessica Lynch is wheeled from the stage by her brother Spc. Greg Lynch, Jr. after making brief remarks from a wheelchair in the Elizabeth, W. Va. town park on Tuesday, July 22, 2003. A House committee has scheduled hearings on the string of misleading statements by the military following the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the kidnapping and rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch in Iraq.

By Erica Werner, Scott Lindlaw

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., holds her grandson Paul Vos during the roll call vote to elect a New Speaker of the House in the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

WASHINGTON – It’s a glass ceiling no one else has even cracked, and Nancy Pelosi crashed through it Thursday, elected the nation’s first-ever female House speaker.

The 66-year-old San Francisco Democrat beamed and clapped as she heard the voice vote catapulting her to the House’s top post. She was surrounded on the House floor by her six grandchildren, including Paul Michael Vos, born to her daughter Alexandra in early November.

After her election, Pelosi stood holding the sleeping infant – who did not stir – and shook hands as she accepted congratulations from her fellow House members.

Pelosi had entered the chamber to prolonged cheers from fellow House members and the packed visitors’ galleries, where onlookers included actor Richard Gere and singer Tony Bennett, crooner of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

As the roll was called to seal her election and one Democrat after another shouted out her name, Pelosi sat smiling broadly, holding one grandchild and then another.

“This is an historic moment – for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years,” Pelosi said in prepared remarks. “Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights.”

“For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling,” she said.

Pelosi began her history-making day running into anti-abortion demonstrators as she went to a prayer service with her husband, Paul, and a daughter at St. Peter’s Catholic Church near the Capitol.

“You can’t be Catholic and pro-abortion,” read one placard. Pelosi and her entourage walked past the small group of protesters without saying anything.

Attending the service with her were Republican leaders that her party put into the minority in the November election: new Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Also there were new House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, a one-time Pelosi rival elected by House Democrats to be her No. 2 over her protests, and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean.

She also attended a ceremonial swearing-in of the Congressional Black Caucus, where the incoming leader of the 42-member group, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., made clear that they intended to have a voice in the new Congress. “She must deliver because black people delivered that we might have this majority,” Kilpatrick said of Pelosi.

The House convened at midday with Democrats rejoicing over taking control of Congress after 12 years in the minority.

But the spotlight belonged to Pelosi, and she was making the most of it with a whirlwind of festivities from the lavish to the sentimental. The week was her coming-out to the nation, and she was aiming to introduce herself not just as the San Francisco liberal decried by Republicans, but also as an Italian-American Catholic, mother of five and native of gritty Baltimore, where her father was mayor.

“We look forward to the rest of the country appreciating the real San Francisco values, of diversity and a city of dreamers, ” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said after attending a brunch in her honor. “You can only exploit the gay community so much … They’re going to see there’s so much more to San Francisco.”

Throughout, the symbolism of Pelosi’s triumph for women was center stage.

Outside a brunch Thursday at the Library of Congress, leaders from the National Organization for Women greeted her with a giant congratulation card. The message: Way to Go!

“This is a historic moment for women everywhere,” said NOW President Kim Gandy.

Thursday evening, Pelosi was being feted at a $1,000-a-head concert hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at the National Building Museum with performances expected from Carole King, Bennett, Wyclef Jean and others.

Pelosi attended Mass Wednesday at Trinity University, where she’s an alumnus, and dined that night at the Italian embassy.

Friday begins with an open house event across from the Capitol. Then she heads to Baltimore, where the street where she grew up in Little Italy is being dedicated in her honor: Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi Via.

Pelosi was raised there, the daughter of New Deal Maryland congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, who later became the city’s mayor. She didn’t run for the House herself until 1987 after marrying wealthy businessman Paul Pelosi, moving to San Francisco and raising her children.

In Congress Pelosi displayed the tough politicking of her childhood environment. She wrung loyalties, counted votes and muscled aside Hoyer to become Democrats’ second-in-command, and then Democratic leader in 2002.

Personal loyalty is key to Pelosi. She tried to block Hoyer’s bid in November to become Democratic majority leader, suffering an embarrassing defeat when her preferred candidate, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, lost badly.

Pelosi wins re-election by huge margins and stays true to her San Francisco constituency, voting against the Iraq war resolution and co-sponsoring legislation to end federal prohibitions against medical marijuana. Her liberalism makes some moderate Democrats leery, and she’s avoided campaigning in some conservative districts.