Schumer and Pelosi Are Old Friends, But Can Chuck Play Second Fiddle?

They could finish each other’s sentences if they wanted. They’ve known each other that long. Between them, they have 70 years of experience as legislators. Charles Ellis (Chuck) Schumer was first elected to the House in 1980, then to the Senate in 1998. Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi won her House seat in a special election in 1987. They were key allies in the gun safety fights of the 1990s, the Brady Bill, and the assault weapons ban. They were in the same social group in the 1980s, when Schumer lived with three other congressmen in a brownstone on Capitol Hill dubbed “Animal House,” which was owned by then California Rep. George Miller, another Pelosi pal. Now Chuck and Nancy are directing the fight to align their party’s priorities to ensure a Democrat is elected to the White House in 2020. “So they’re very close, very tight,” says a House Democratic leadership aide. “They talk every day, they talk at night on their cell phones. They talk a lot.” About what? “Anything, everything, all of it.”