Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, said Monday the committee should determine whether any official resources were used in Weiner's Twitter postings, and whether any House rules were violated.

Pelosi said, "I am deeply disappointed and saddened about this situation; for Anthony's wife, Huma, his family, his staff and his constituents.

She said she was calling for an Ethics Committee investigation to determine whether any official resources were used or any other violation of House rules occurred.

Weiner denied at a news conference in New York on Monday that he used any official resources.

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Pelosi, a former House speaker, had been scheduled to hold talks with Italian officials, including the defense minister, but the ANSA news agency said she was briefly hospitalized Monday at Rome's Policlinico and then released.

ANSA said she suffered a minor ailment but did not give any details.

The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined comment. Pelosi's office in Washington repeatedly refused requests Monday for information.

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The break had its roots in the Iraq war, and Harman's role as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee when it was launched, and as the occupation turned sour. A "select" panel, Intelligence is unique from other House committees in that it's composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans; members are privy to sensitive documents and top-level security briefings, and the idea is that their work on the committee is above partisan politics.

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3:00 The first real thing Boehner's House is doing: Stripping non-voting delegates of their votes in the Committee of the Whole. Sorry, Eleanor Holmes Norton. You may represent more American voters than both of Wyoming's Senators, but the Republicans hate democracy.

2:30 Boehner just banged the huge comedy gavel! That was probably the highlight of his life. Now the party conferences announce the officers. Jeb Hensarling announces that Eric Cantor is the new Majority Leader. John Larson says Nancy Pelosi is Minority Leader. Voice vote on a resolution naming the clerk and chaplain and sergeant at arms. Then swearing them in. Being the speaker of the House now seems like the most boring job in the world. And frankly I'm baffled -- Boehner's been the speaker for like twenty minutes but the deficit is still the same size! Where are the jobs?!?

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Pelosi said Tuesday she looks forward to leading a loyal but tenacious opposition in the House. She started by calling Republicans hypocrites for trying to repeal the new health care law, which would increase the deficit.

Republican John Boehner of Ohio will be sworn in as the new speaker on Wednesday, and Pelosi will be demoted to minority leader. Republicans have already scheduled a vote for next week on repealing the sweeping new health care law, an effort that is sure to fail in the Senate.

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Yet the flurry of activity this past week completes the work of the most effective Congress in a generation, one that has passed more historic legislation and transformed the American political landscape more than any since the 1960s. Like the Great 89th, the Congress that Lyndon B. Johnson swept into office with his 1964 landslide, this session re-wrote many of the fundamental rules of American life: eliminating barriers to full participation of gays and lesbians, subjecting the financial sector to regulatory oversight, and constructing a national health insurance program. And like its celebrated Johnson-era predecessor, this Congress has received little thanks for its achievements.

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"This bill is largely a mishmash of rejected Republican ideas that cost too much to accomplish too little," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas. "The Republicans will rule the House for the next two years; let's not give them an early start today."

Doggett made his comments as the House began debate, but the speechmaking was interrupted after an hour so leaders could reassess the legislation's prospects.

Numerous officials said a vote was still likely Thursday evening, but a postponement to Friday also appeared possible.

The bill provides a two-year extension of tax cuts enacted when George W. Bush was president, avoiding an increase at all income levels that would otherwise occur on New Year's Day.

It would also renew an expiring program of benefits for the long-term unemployed, and enact a reduction in Social Security taxes for 2011 that would amount to $1,000 for an individual earning $50,000 a year. The bill's cost, $858 billion over two years, would be tacked on to the federal deficit, a sore spot with deficit hawks in both parties.

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"I told Mr. Bishop on the way in that just because he inherited this suit from his grandfather didn't mean he had to wear it," House Republican leader John Boehner teased his friend Thursday. "But his hair looks good."

Thus sayeth the next speaker of the House, purveyor of a far more cheeky style than his proper predecessor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Boehner, one of a dozen children of their bar-owning father, is given to smoking, tanning, golfing and teasing people he likes most. He's also a weeper at key public moments and liked for his geniality by many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The famously composed Pelosi, in contrast, is not known to have used even salty language in public. In private, the California Democrat might express her displeasure with something by describing it as "doggy doo" or just "poo," those who know her say.

Boehner often comes right out with it, even when cameras are rolling.

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Pelosi, the nation's first female House speaker, will become minority leader when Republicans assume the majority in the new Congress in January.

She defeated moderate Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, 150-43, in secret balloting in a lengthy closed-door gathering of House Democrats in the Capitol.

Pelosi, 70, overcame a rebellion from party centrists, and even some fellow liberals, who argued that the party needs to offer a new face of leadership after losing at least 60 House seats on Nov. 2. She remains popular among the liberals who dominate the party's House caucus. But Shuler's level of support -- plus an earlier 129-68 vote against postponing the election that Pelosi wanted to wrap up quickly -- underscored the degree of discontent in a party that Pelosi had largely bended to her will in the past four years.

Republicans voted to keep John Boehner of Ohio as their top House leader. Boehner, who celebrated his 61st birthday Wednesday, had no opposition, and will become speaker in the new Congress. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., will become majority leader.

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Pelosi's mostly liberal allies were confident she would win then, particularly given the Democrats's 129-68 vote to proceed with the leadership election. Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, a close ally of Pelosi's, predicted she would win overwhelmingly.

Pelosi was a lightning rod in the midterm elections for Republicans who portrayed her as a leftist out of touch with mainstream Americans. Democrats lost more than 60 seats to Republicans in the Nov. 2 election.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite suffering near-historic election losses this month, House Democrats appear ready to keep their leadership team intact, with Nancy Pelosi of California still on top.

Both parties will hold closed-door House leadership elections Wednesday. But the main focus will involve the soon-to-be minority party, the Democrats.

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Nancy Pelosi clearly has the votes to remain as the party's leader, although it appears that Heath Shuler, a conservative Democrat from North Carolina, will go through the motions of formally opposing her. His move calls to mind the doomed bid that Charlie Rose, another conservative North Carolinian, launched against Dick Gephardt following the Democrats' drubbing in the 1994 midterms. Gephardt, who had been the No. 2 Democrat, was in line to move up to the top slot after Speaker Tom Foley failed to win reelection in his Washington state district. Rose ended up attracting 58 votes to Gephardt's 150; like Shuler now, his candidacy offered a way for Blue Dogs to tell their constituents they hadn't voted for the party's "liberal" leadership.

Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Blue Dog who backed Rose in '94, said of Gephardt at the time: "If we give the keys to the same drivers, then we know the destination is going to be the same. We will lose more seats in '96. There's not a doubt in my mind." Under Gephardt and his No. 2, Michigan's David Bonior, Democrats actually picked up nine seats. (Taylor, incidentally, was among the Democrats who lost their seats on Nov. 2.)

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The question is whether this dissent will disrupt her plans to slide into the minority leader's post when she hands in the Speaker's gavel in January.

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• Barack Obama is hardly the first president to suffer a midterm drubbing, and he'll have a chance in 2012 to do what the last two presidents to face his current predicament did: win reelection. (And he might get an assist from the Republicans, too.)
• Nancy Pelosi has apparently had no trouble lining up the internal support to remain as the party's House leader; the odds are long, but she'll have a chance to reclaim the speaker's gavel in 2012.
• Harry Reid caught one of the biggest political breaks in memory, drawing the one Republican in all of Nevada he had a chance of beating, Sharron Angle; instead of seeing his political career end, the 71-year-old Reid gets to stay on as Senate majority leader.
• Chuck Schumer would likely have succeeded Reid as majority leader had Reid lost, but Schumer may get another chance in 2012, when Democrats will have to defend an unfathomable 24 seats (compared to nine for the GOP); a Republican takeover in 2012 could prompt Reid to give up the top Senate slot.
• Dick Durbin also had his eye on replacing Reid, but he would very likely have lost to Schumer. At least this way, he was spared the indignity of having his roommate and old friend leapfrog him and grab the top slot.

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While Democrats’ historic loss of at least 61 seats (results are still pending in a handful of districts) can be traced to a diverse set of factors, the majority of the Democrats defeated were either elected to Republican-friendly seats in the wave elections of 2006 and 2008 or were long-term incumbents who represented heavily GOP districts. The seats in that latter category are likely gone for good, while many in the former are clustered in a handful of states where GOP state-level gains will ensure that they are fortified in next year’s redistricting trials, making them even more difficult for Democrats to take back than they were entering the '06 and '08 cycles.

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Driven by the urgency of creating jobs & protecting #hcr, #wsr, Social Security & Medicare, I am running for Dem Leader.

If she succeeds, and it's likely that she will, Pelosi will become the first speaker since Republican Joe Martin in 1954 to move from speaker to minority leader after an election. In the run-up to this week's midterm, in which Democrats lost at least 61 seats, it was widely assumed that the 70-year-old Pelosi would step down as party leader and retire from Congress if Democrats lost their majority -- the same course that her immediate predecessor, Republican Dennis Hastert, followed back in 2006.

So why is she staying? The obvious answer is that she's not ready to get out of politics. So if she wants to stay in the House, why not play a meaningful role? As I wrote on Thursday:

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The nation's first female speaker became a strong ally of President Barack Obama on issues such as health care. But dozens of Republican candidates attacked Democratic House members for their loyalty to Pelosi. Many Democratic moderates and some liberals said it was time for new leadership.

Pelosi made the announcement in a statement Friday. She said "our work is far from finished."

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But it's been two days since her party lost more than 60 House seats, and Pelosi hasn't made any announcement, nor has anyone moved to challenge her. By contrast, when Republicans lost control of the House in the 2006 midterms, Dennis Hastert announced the next day that he'd stand down as GOP leader, making way for John Boehner, who beat back a token challenge for the minority leader's post. So far, Pelosi has given one post-election interview, telling ABC's Diane Sawyer on Wednesday that when it comes to her future plans, "in our caucus, we always do things by consensus. And when we have that consensus, we'll have some announcement to make."

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But Nancy Pelosi wasn't interested in blending in. She was 66 years old when she finally claimed the top job in the House in 2007 and 68 when a president from her party came to power. Democrats in Washington had been playing defense since the Gingrich revolution, but finally, with Barack Obama's inauguration, they had the numbers to make things happen, and she was determined to lead the way.

Asked shortly after Obama's 2008 victory (in an election in which the Democrats' majority in the House expanded to 255 seats) what she wanted to achieve in the next two years, Pelosi identified "growing the economy, expanding healthcare, ending dependence on foreign oil and ending the war in Iraq" as her priorities. And she largely delivered.

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The assumption, depressing to many progressive activists, has been that she will be replaced by 71-year-old Steny Hoyer, who now serves as majority leader. This is as much a reflection of Hoyer's insider savvy as it is a testament to House Democrats' ridiculously thin bench. Pelosi has not exactly filled her inner circle with ambitious up-and-comers. The closest Democratic leader to fit that profile is 51-year-old Chris Van Hollen, who might be a decent prospect to replace Pelosi if he weren't currently chairing the party's House campaign committee. It's not that the party's showing next Tuesday will be his fault; it won't be. But like a baseball manager, each party's House campaign chairman gets too much credit for success and too much blame for failure. So Hoyer, the thinking has been, is poised to default his way into the Democrats' top slot in the House.

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