Running impeachment proceedings — twice! — suits Nancy Pelosi to a T | Opinion

Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker of the House, made more history Wednesday — presiding over the first impeachment of a U.S. president who had already been impeached once before.

She wore the same dress for both impeachments.

Careful observers recognized the black, high-neck, two-piece suit Pelosi wore when the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday, having spotted her in it on Dec. 18, 2019, when the House also voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Her office confirmed it was the same suit.

Do we care?

I do.

Pelosi, 80, fascinates me: Her rise to the speaker spot — the highest government position ever held by a woman, before Kamala Harris was elected vice president.

The iconic image of her standing and gesturing at President Trump, surrounded by a table full of men discussing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria.

The time she tore up President Trump’s State of the Union speech.

The memes, inspired by everything from her burnt-orange Max Mara coat to her exaggerated, outreached applause after President Trump’s call for bipartisan unity.

During last week’s “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl, Pelosi recounted the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol just a few days prior.

“They were vocally saying, ‘Where’s the speaker?’” Pelosi told Stahl. “‘We know she has staff. They’re here someplace. We’re gonna find them.’”

The intruders found Pelosi’s office and her lectern, as we know from photos of the attack. But, thankfully, not her. A few hours after the siege, Pelosi and her colleagues returned to the building to finish their job.

Pelosi’s parents raised her to be a Democrat, but not in a public sort of way. Her mom wanted her to become a nun, Pelosi told The Washington Post.

“Tommy was groomed to be mayor,” Pelosi said of her older brother. “And I was raised to be holy.”

But she entered politics in California in the late ’70s and never looked back. In 2013, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, the site of the 1848 women’s rights convention.

And on Wednesday, when she selected her coat of armor to enter the impeachment battle once again, she went with the tried-and-true black suit.

Coincidence? I doubt it. Superstition? Maybe. A window into the million little thoughts and decisions that build up to our shared history? Definitely.We experience defining moments collectively, and we experience them visually. That’s never been more true as we sit in our homes, confined by a pandemic, glued to a screen or three. I’m always curious how the folks who loom large in those moments decide to present themselves to us.

Why does President Trump make his skin that color? Why does CNN host Chris Cuomo wear a black suit, white shirt, black tie night after night? Why does Chicago Bears coach Matt Nagy wear a visor every game, regardless of the temperature? Why did Kamala Harris wear a white pantsuit with a pussy-bow blouse at her vice presidential acceptance speech?

Those are details in their stories — stories we’re reading and watching and living alongside. And those details carry meaning. Sometimes it’s historic (Harris’ white suit was believed to be a nod to the suffragists who came before her; the blouse was thought to be a nod to working women, as the pussy-bow was long considered the female version of the necktie.) Sometimes it’s less weighty.

Almost always, I think, it tells us a little something.

In the case of Pelosi’s suit, I like to think of it as an exclamation point of sorts. An underline. Italics. We’re impeaching this guy. Again!

It’s a minor detail in a major event. The color of the ink on the Declaration of Independence, compared to the weight of the words within.

But I love a good detail. And Pelosi wearing the same suit to twice impeach a president leaves me thinking she does, too.

Heidi Stevens is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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