David Pounder (Napoleon's World)

David Monroe Pounder (born June 18, 1931) is a retired Democratic politician from Pennsylvania who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1976 until his retirement in January of 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Pounder was a civil rights leader close with William Cosby, having been elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1962. A black Democrat in a state where black voters typically voted Nationalist, he was regarded as a social conservative and economic liberal. After the death of black Nationalist US Rep. William Grace Ford in 1976, Pounder won a special election to become the first black Democrat to represent the majority-black district in Philadelphia history.

Pounder was in Congress during a time in which black voters in the United States gradually drifted from the National Party to the Democratic Party. He became known as a member of his party's left wing in Congress under the tutelage of US Rep. John Hawke, whom he allied with, although Pounder had a poor relationship with left-wing House Minority Leader Charlie Platt, leading to him being shut out of leadership after the 1990 landslide. He chaired the House Civil Rights Committee from 1991-1995.

After the 1996 House elections, in which the Democrats lost further seats after having lost the House in 1994, Pounder aligned with conservative Democrats and supported the coup that not only felled Platt but his entire leadership team. Pounder, who disliked Washington, had initially intended to retire after 1998, but was surprised during the 1996 Democratic caucus leadership crisis when he found out that he had emerged as a dark horse consensus choice to lead the caucus, seen as acceptable to minority caucus members, conservatives as well as the liberals who had backed Platt. Pounder became the House Minority Leader after three rounds of caucus votes, reluctantly. Pounder spearheaded several changes, including expanding the leadership roster and instituting rules changes within the caucus that would term-limit chairmanships and ranking committee assignments, in the way long practiced by the Nationalists. Pounder's Democrats retook the House in 1998, and as Speaker he underwent reforms to the House rules to shift power back to the Committee chairs and away from the Speaker's office. He announced he would retire after the 2000 elections, and only served as Speaker for the 106th Congress.