House Republicans tried in vain Thursday to block a proposed $200 million allotment for improvements to a park in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district.
The money would be part of a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill currently being debated on Capitol Hill.
GOP lawmakers proposed a half-dozen amendments to divert the $200 million to other needs but each Republican proposal was defeated by the Democrat-majority House, the Washington Times reported.
One Democrat, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, defended the allocation for the Presidio, the 1,500-acre park and golf course near the Golden Gate Bridge, claiming Pelosi deserves the money for her hometown because of the hard work she undertakes as speaker, the report said.
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“If it weren’t for her working 24/7, and she does, to keep this place going, we wouldn’t be going,” Cohen said, according to the Times. “She does more for America than any other member, I would submit in this Congress, times 10. So I support the proposal.”
Republicans, on the other hand, derided the budget line item as a “Pelosi payoff” and “an obvious giveaway” as the nation faced challenges such as taking in thousands of Afghan refugees, battling the coronavirus and addressing security issues at the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., said Democrat Cohen’s remarks were revealing.
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“It fully takes the mask off what this is all about,” Tiffany told the Times. “This is a Pelosi payoff. This is where somebody puts themselves before their office.”
“This is a Pelosi payoff. This is where somebody puts themselves before their office.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert also opposed the Presidio plan, proposing instead that the park upgrades be allocated just one dollar.
“Just because she is speaker doesn’t mean she gets to bloat this bill,” Boebert said, according to the Times. “This is an obvious giveaway to Speaker Pelosi and the powerful elites in San Francisco that support her, and the U.S. taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.”
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., noted that members of the Presidio Trust, which oversees the San Francisco park, had contributed nearly $19 million to Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, including $1 million in June, the Times reported.
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“I know the taxpayers in my district don’t want to fund Nancy Pelosi’s golf course,” Westerman told the Times. He noted that Pelosi’s San Francisco district includes some of the highest-priced real estate in America.
“I often feel sorry for my colleagues when I come home and think: They don’t have Chinatown. They don’t have the Mission. They … don’t have the diversity that is so strengthening and inspiring and just beautiful to behold.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meets with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Associated Press)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meets with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 22, 2021. (Associated Press)
Earlier this month, Pelosi told the Nob Hill Gazette in San Francisco that the Presidio was among her favorite places to visit when she returns home from Washington.
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“I’m a regular at the Presidio … It’s just so beautiful to walk and see the bridge and then walk back and see the city,” she told the publication.
Pelosi also lamented that her fellow members of Congress don’t get to enjoy the splendor of San Francisco when they return home to their own districts.
“I often feel sorry for my colleagues when I come home and think: They don’t have Chinatown. They don’t have the Mission. They don’t have a Hunters Point. They don’t have the diversity that is so strengthening and inspiring and just beautiful to behold.”