PHILADELPHIA — Summer Lee’s swearing-in wasn’t the celebratory moment her family envisioned. Instead of watching Lee take the oath as the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress, her mother and grandmother were dozing off in the House gallery as a Republican standstill over electing a new speaker dragged into its eighth hour.
“I said to the man next to me, ‘This is taking a while, huh?’” said Lee’s mom, Shelda Lee. Later, she realized he was Paul Pelosi.
Unable to wait out the stalemate, Lee’s family drove back to Western Pennsylvania, and four days later, Lee took the oath in a quiet ceremony around 3 a.m.
