The Once and Future GOP House Part I

or the odious history of the last 4 GOP Speakers

On the House side of the U.S. Capitol are three House Office Buildings named after 3 Speakers of those House: Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon.

Sam Rayburn was the longest serving Speaker, 17 years, and did most of his Speakering in the 40s and 50s. By the time, he assumed the Speaker’s chair for the first time, he had been in Congress for 27 years. Similarly, Joe Cannon served for 30 years before becoming Speaker.

Nick Longworth had “only” been in Congress 23 years before becoming Speaker.

In modern times, the last 5 Speakers of the House have had 16 years, 12 years, 16 years, 30 years, and 16 years in Congress before becoming Speaker, respectively. Namewise, that’s Gingrich, Hastert, Boehner, Pelosi, and Ryan.

In case one might think I’m cherry-picking, the three speakers before Gingrich served 24 years (Foley), 32 years (Wright), and 24 years (O’Neill). Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that Longworth and Cannon were both Republicans.

Should Kevin McCarthy ascend to the Speaker’s chair in 2023, he will do so with a whole 16 years under his belt.

Does it make a difference how much time a person has in Congress? Ethically, probably not. Both Newt Gingrich and Jim Wright were accused of having their hands in the cookie jar. Wright regretted resigning amid allegations of ethics violatons until the day he died. Texans, it seems, like to die with their boots on figuratively, too. In Gingrich’s case though, he was rebuked by the entire House with a public reprimand and had to pay for the cost of investigating him ($300,000). An attempted coup by some House Republicans months later looked might it might topple Gingrich, but his reign ended with the poor 1998 mid-term results instead.

The real question is why have Republican Speakers come into office with so little time in Congress?

The answer lies with Newt Gingrich and his life-long saber rattling against the U.S. House of Representatives. Gingrich, who had a Ph.D. in History (something about colonialism and the Belgian Congo), infamously requested Ethics and House Administration for his committee assignments when he was elected in 1978 on his third try. Judging other Members and counting their paper clip requests would be his legislative forte.

Gingrich, upon becoming Speaker, decided to destroy any independent power bases in the House. Gingrich despised what he saw as fiefdoms created by powerful Committee chairs and was determined that his Speakership would be the only source of power. Thus, the GOP leadership instituted a rule that Committee chairs could only serve for 3 consecutive terms. It’s called the “Gingrich rule” to this day.

Conceptually, it was Ginrich railing against what he saw as abuses of power by powerful Democratic Chairs. Pragmatically, however, it forced GOP Members who had risen to chairing committees being forced into retirement (no one wants to be another schmoe on a committee after chairing it for 6 years). And from a realist perspective, the GOP had jettisoned its institutional policy expertise for an “up and out” philosophy.

For a nihilist like Gingrich, it was just the beginning….