At a small gathering in San Francisco Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) honored the 90th anniversary of national women's suffrage, saying she would like to see more women in positions of power.
"We celebrate today a great cause of equality," Pelosi said. "We honor the suffragettes who altered the course of history and ushered in a new era of progress for all Americans, not just women. Their story is essentially an American story. It is a crucial part of our history.
"Others told them to wait," said Pelosi of the suffragettes. "They had the courage to fight. Imagine the courage it took for those women to leave their homes unaccompanied by a male, which was unthinkable, and to go out and preach about equality for women."
Pelosi drew on her own experiences as a woman in politics, telling a story about when she was first elected House Minority Leader in 2003 and went to the White House for her first meeting.
She said she had been to the White House "a million times" so she "didn't have the least apprehension about going." But when she got there and saw the President, Vice President, and Democratic leaders gathered there she said she realized that this was unlike any meeting she had ever been to before at the White House. In fact it was unlike any meeting any woman had ever been to before in the White House.
"I was going there as an elected leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives," Pelosi explained, "not as an appointee of the President with my voice derived from the President's voice ..."
Pelosi said that as she sat down with President George W. Bush, who she described as "very friendly" and a "gracious gentleman" she said the chair felt very crowded, like she was jammed in. And that was when she felt Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth and Alice Paul on the chair, too.
"All the women who had worked to get the right to vote, and get women in politics were on that chair," Pelosi said. "So we were squeezed in and I heard them say, 'at last we have a seat at the table.' That's the only time that's ever happened to me. And then they were gone. My first thought was: 'We want more!'"
A reporter noted that there are two women -- Republicans Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman -- running for the highest offices in California, and asked Pelosi to comment on their candidacies.
"One of the reasons we want more women [in politics]," Pelosi said, "is because we want to remove barriers to participation and discrimination ... It doesn't mean that we support women who support Proposition 8. We're not indiscriminate as to who we support."
Those candidates weren't all she said she couldn't support. When the Huffington Post asked her if she favored extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent, Pelosi said doing so would be a mistake.
"The tax cuts for those people making over $250,000 per year that President Bush initiated only did one thing: increase the deficit," Pelosi said. "It did not create jobs. It increased the deficit. So for those who want to extend tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America -- make sure you understand that in our pay as you go world, we would practically be taking food out of our nutrition programs in order to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people in America if we're not going to increase the deficit. Or we could give them a tax cut and increase the deficit. I'm not up for that."
The debate will play out this fall, but Pelosi made it clear where she stands on the issue.
"The debate will happen," she told the Huffington Post. "We'll see where it goes, but that's how we enter that debate."