As House Democrats return to Washington on Monday for the beginning of their lame-duck session, the question remains: will any Democratic Representative challenge Nancy Pelosi in leading the party in the House for the next two years?

In an interview with NPR on Friday, Pelosi said the Democrats "shellacking" wasn't because of her:

We didn’t lose the election because of me,” Pelosi said. “Under any circumstance, when you have 9.5 percent unemployment, any party that cannot turn that into political gain, should hang up the gloves. I said that before the election.”

But on Saturday, Politico reported that though there isn't a declared candidate against her, there is considerable angst among many Democrats about having the San Francisco representative maintaining her position as the leader of House Democrats.  One of her leading centrist critics is North Carolina's Heath Shuler, who was featured in Sunday's New York Times.

Tampa area Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor has always been seen as a loyal supporter of Pelosi since her election to Congress in 2006, but she expressed surprise last week when she heard that Pelosi intended to stay on as House Democratic leader.  Speaking with CL on Saturday, she elaborated on who should lead the caucus going forward.

"Frankly I was surprised that Speaker Pelosi wanted to return as the Democratic leader.  Right now, she's secured enough support that nobody is going to challenge her, but we're going to get back up there and have a discussion amongst all of the Democrats about how we move forward.  I think it's a distraction, ultimately," Castor said, claiming that the real issue is jobs and economic recovery in the country and in the Tampa Bay area.

This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.