Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich Essay, Research Paper

Newt Gingrich’s political career actually started in the 60’s, but I am going to spend more time on the events from the late 1980’s onwards, because it affects us more.

In 1994 on November eighth, there was a gigantic shift of power. For the first time in forty years, there was a Republican controlled Congress. In one year nine million more people voted for the Republicans across the country. Thus putting the first Republican majority in the Legislative Branch in forty years, even though the Executive Branch was still Democratic. This would lead to some big changes, and even bigger political wars between parties.

The first 6 months were easy. Gingrich had big ideas, a slew of agressive young freshmen in Congress, and ideas for expansion and improvement everywhere. The problem was, he didn’t realize what he was going to face soon, being the man that is almost solely responsible for changing a large part of politics that have been steady for four decades.

The first problem he had was with the Medicare Budget and the Balanced Budget programs he wanted to put in use. This started with a slew of negative and degrading media, basically calling him a crybaby for complaining how the president treated him like he was unimportant and not negotiating the Balanced Budget proposals on Air Force One when they went to Israel to mourn for the Assassinated Prime Minister. There were also political difficulties stemming from the same set of bills. The Republicans assembled and voted in a new budget, but Clinton had a completely different budget in mind. This created a stalemate, where the decision would be left to the people. Gingrich assumed Clinton would pass the bill, since Republican presidents under Democratic Congresses usually did (Reagan and Busch), but Clinton had a shaky first two years in office, and needed to regain his popular status. Clinton vetoed the bill, and then utilized the media to make the Republicans look like a bunch of aggressive wild lunatics, and people expect the officials to be mature and organized in their debates. One of the Senior Representatives, Bob Dole, said that this was because the Republicans were inexperienced, cocky, and arrogant and none of them could negotiate good. This was the first of many hardships the new Congress would face.

One of Gingrich’s major political philosophies, is his sometimes extreme hate of corruption of power. His first experience was a Georgia official in 1978, John J. Flint Sr.. Mr. Flint owned a large lot of land, which part of was used for a parking lot for a nearby Ford Automotive plant. Mr. Flint then passed a bill with new pollution regulations, which happened to coincide perfectly with the Ford Factory nearby. Gingrich couldn’t do much with that incident, though.

The first case Gingrich ever went all the way with involved a member of the House, Charles Diggs. He learned that Charles Diggs was a felon who was convicted on 29 counts of theft by demanding salary kickbacks from other house members, totaling $70,000. To Gingrich, it was outrageous that a convicted felon was still voting in the House of Representatives. Gingrich was not a lawyer, so he consulted someone whose reputation was kept clean during WaterGate, Paul Butler. He advised Gingrich of what he could and could not do about it, and Gingrich asked Diggs to abstain from voting, and explained why. When Diggs refused, Gingrich moved for him to be expelled from the House.That was the first time in fifty years when a motion for expulsion has occured. This of course outraged the Democrats (Diggs was one), but it also outraged the Republicans, because a southern white congressman getting a black democrat expelled would be big trouble. Naturally, Diggs was not expelled, but after his term was over he was thrown in jail, and now no congressmen convicted of felony crimes may vote in affairs.

The next big scandal involved the United States Chairman of Banking in 1987. Gingrich found that Ferdnand St. Jermain was paid by several institutions that were threatened by the banking committee to let them off easy. But at the time people were too celebratory about Reagan’s success to bother.Gingrich also found out that Jim Wright, the Speaker of Savings & Loan and a friend of St. Jermain was in on it too. Before he jumped into anything he couldn’t handle, Gingrich went around for a year giving speeches and talking about the violations. This was a BIG risk for Gingrich, because he could be interpreted as an instigating antagonistic hothead. He was at a junction where he could either lose his integrity or make a lot of enemies. I don’t know if it was a matter of pride of just arrogance, but he went through with the prosecution of Jim Wright. He sent a formal complaint to the Ethics Committee, which in turn made Mr. Wright resign. The same month a representative of California also resigned, presumably to avoid investigation. This created bad blood between the Democrats and Gingrich.

On December eighth of 1994 Gingrich made probably the single biggest mistake of his career. He signed a document which he had only partially read referring to his teaching a seminar to get the next generation of people involved in the Government. His error was that since teaching is tax free, he had to be careful what he tought. It ended up that he was charged with 81 small charges, eighty of which had small or no consequences, and ended up in $2.25 cents in fines for using an unauthorized fax machine. However, there was one charge that was the problem. It had to do with his teachings being questioned if they were for his campaign, or just government overall. If they were for his campaign, they were illegally tax free and if intentionally this way, he would be in big trouble. After much embarassment, scrutiny, investigations by an independent counsel, the charges were dropped, but he had to pay for the Ethics Committee’s legal fees to investigate him. Due to a tiny mistake in the wording of a Lawyer’s letter, he had to pay the $300,000 legal fees for the Ethics Committee. He could either make a Legal Defense Fund, a Campaign Fund, or pay it himself. Either by honor or big ego, he payed himself. Bob Dole offered to loan him the money, but he found banks to do the same so it wouldn’t be questionable. He payed $50,000 in 1997, $100,000 in two payments in 1998, and the rest in 1999.

The next problem practically ripped the whole Republican House apart. In Spring of 1997 the Red River flooded in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota. The towns were practically wiped off the map, literally. Clinton and Gingrich both promised to help the cities, and both payed visits there, as well as Dick Armey. It just so happened that at the same time there were debates about reformatting the Census for the year 2000 and the future, and overhauling the budget. This led to turmoil within the House itself. The problem with the Census is that every ten years from 1790 to 1980 they manually counted every person, which worked. But in 1990 they only counted 98.6% of the people. Bill Clinton argued that the minority (which mainly vote Democrat, mind you) were the ones that weren’t counted. This messes up money distribution, voting, and district re-apportionment form the number of Representatives from each area. The Democrats’ idea was to take 90% of the census, then use “Statistical Calculation” to calculate the rest. The Republicans wanted to keep the old style of voting. It was bad either way. Also, the budget and risking another government shutdown and the Republicans getting the blame was on the table. The Republicans as a whole wanted to attach either or both of these two on the Supplemental Appropriations Bill (for the flooding), but the Democrats would not like it. It ended up that the House had three or four different opinions, but anxious to end the whole deal, Gingrich wrote up the bill with no attachments and sent it off without any approval of the other Republicans. This was a very self-destructive move, although it did prevent a shutdown. Once again Clinton used the media and bashed the Republicans to smithereens.

By June of 1997, everyone in the Republican House has given up, except for the 1996 freshmen, which are full of vigor. Gingrich and the agressive “military sophmores” of 1994 had failed, and practically given up all hope. At this point Gingrich should have sat down one by one with each Republican and talked about their needs, etc. What he ended up doing was withdrawing and thinking about long term. Another mistake. The Military Sophmores picked up on this and started complaining to the Senior Representatives. The Seniors listened, and the Military Sophmores interpreted their listening as agreeing, without making sure it was. On top of this, Gingrich’s relationship with the Seniors was failing also. First defending Gingrich in his Ethics case, then him going behind their backs on the Supplemental Apportionment bill, they felt betrayed by him. The Military Sophmores felt useless, and wanted to be agressive and in control again. The main problem was an overall lack of communication in the House itself. But besides the Seniors and the Military Sophmores, the other 170 members were not mad really. It was too risky for the Military Sophmores to try to vote him out, without guaranteed support. The Military Sophmores had talks of moving to expel him, but just to get him to listen. On July tenth he asked Dick Armey to talk to the Military Sophmores and once again the media was all over it in a heartbeat.

On July eleventh Gingrich met the Senior Representatives to discuss what the Military Sophmores were going to do. Gingrich said there’s no way he would step down. By the Military Sophmores misinterpreting the Seniors as approving of their outlandish ideas, they had felt betrayed by Gingrich and the Seniors. Basically, there were lots of feelings just, lots of anger, and a big feeling of failure. Gingrich felt similiar to the Military Sophmores, but in the end they all resolved the conflicts and had a new vigor.

To sum it up, even though it was, and still is, a rocky road, the new Republican House did a rather good job considering the opposition they were up against. They lowered taxes a little, lowered crime, doubled the stock market, modified Medicare to go without tax deductions until they can figure out a way to get it to work, had a Surplus economy, rather than more deficit, and set up a path for Republicans in the future. On a personal note, Gingrich had a dream that the Government will undergo a political revolution, and through communicating to the public and doing a good part in society, as well as responsible and good governing, the Republicans hope to not govern under the “Democratic Machine”, but rather be thoughtful of everyone’s needs in Republicanism. He hopes that rather than giving people money, give them opportunities. But now he said he is resigning from office, so it is unknown where the future will lead the country. But for the time being and the recent past, the Republican Congress and president Clinton (even though they don’t agree) have done a good economical job of running the country. Even though he was thought of as a bomb throwing, antagonistic, egotistical maniac, he did something right, because the country is going very good right now.

1320 Braddock Place

Alexandria, VA 22314

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/newtchron.html

322