D San Francisco

Re "Madam Speaker? Pelosi Likes the Sound," Oct. 21 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) might become the new speaker of the House, but politics in America will not change. We have a divided country led by a selfish group of politicians. "Pelosi ordered her ranks to assail the Bush privatization plan while offering nothing of their own." This is the M.O. of our politicians. Their goal is not to find ways to benefit Americans but to guarantee themselves and their "friends" all the benefits and privileges we cannot access.

Re "Partisan Snub of Republican Katrina Inquiry Now Looks Petty," column, Feb. 19 It is amazing that Ronald Brownstein could reach the conclusion that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was petty in her semi-boycott of the Katrina inquiry. He thinks that chiding the president is sufficient oversight. Brownstein misses a big piece of the context that justifies Pelosi's actions -- that the administration may have lied again about what it knew and when it knew it! Given the track record of the Republicans brushing everything under the rug by relegating Democrats to basements and turning off microphones (talk about being petty)

This city once again saw the melding of the personal and political Monday when state Sen. Sheila Kuehl presided over the marriages of six couples who have long been active in the gay and lesbian community, including Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg. In back-to-back ceremonies on the steps of the City Hall rotunda, Kuehl, California's first openly gay state legislator, pronounced her close friends and political colleagues married to tears and shouts of jubilation.

This city ushered in a new generation of leadership Thursday, inaugurating the youngest mayor in more than a century and swearing in a 39-year-old woman as the state's first African American district attorney.

Democrats who think Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) is too liberal to be the House minority leader should look to the successful strategy of the Republican Party, which has integrated representatives from the far right to the moderate center in its leadership and grass-roots structures. Sens. John McCain, Lincoln Chaffee, Trent Lott and James Inhofe are all in the big Republican tent. Is Pelosi any further to the left than Majority Whip Tom DeLay is to the right? Democrats who urge further moves to the fuzzy center will fail to inspire party loyalty and voters will be at best confused and at worst disinterested in what the Democrats stand for. A revitalized Democratic Party should include popular mainstream issues like tax cuts for the middle class and effective national defense and also promote good ideas from the left like universal health care, ending corporate welfare and an aggressive renewable energy policy.

Several writers have recently opposed term limits on the basis that elected officials not doing their jobs could be voted out of office. That sounds inviting but doesn't work in practice. Consider the case of Willie Brown, the poster boy for term limits. In addition to serving his constituents in a small Assembly district in the Bay Area, he had a stranglehold on state politics for many years as speaker of the Assembly. As speaker he had far more effect on me and my family than my own assemblyman.

California's congressional delegation likes to travel--courtesy of private interests--to places ranging from Cleveland and Detroit to Budapest and Bangladesh, according to annual financial disclosure reports released Wednesday. The reports portray a 52-member House delegation that includes at least 10 millionaires who own blue-chip stocks, valuable real estate and rare coins. But there also are a few members, such as Rep. James E.

Come January thanks to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and his cronies the police will crack down on drivers who do not buckle up. If they really cared about saving lives they would crack down on the robbers and murderers among us. But that would take something more than signing your name to a document. MARGUERITE FREDERIKSEN Mission Viejo

(Los Angeles County Supervisor) Pete Schabarum's term-limit initiative is long overdue. The people of this state have seen too many powerful people in office for themselves, while the Legislature has done little or nothing about it. Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) wants to keep his cushy little job. That's why he raised $5 million to defeat the redistricting measures and will probably attempt to raise more to defeat Prop. 140 ("Brown Assails Initiative to Limit Terms in Office," Part A, Aug. 8)