The once and future GOP House Part II

or why Liz and Elise won't be Speaker

“I'm willing to lead but I'm not willing to preside over people who are cannibals.”

The words of Speaker Newt Gingrich after the1998 mid-term elections. The 105th Congress had not gone well for Gingrich. Brought up on ethics charges in January 1997, survived an attempted coup by disgruntled members of his caucus in July 1997, and in 1998, a misguided attempt by Gingrich to push the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob.

His lieutenants were seen as weak or hyper-partisan and the GOP caucus wanted blood so Gingrich resigned. The cost of being anti-Congress had a body count of exactly one.

Well, the body count was a bit higher than that, but the other victims of the Republican Revolution in the 1990s were not anti-Congress. A congressman from New York lost his leadership job in 1997 and the Chairman of Appropriations, Robert Livingston, resigned from Congress due to revelations about his extra-marital affairs…plural. In the latter case, it was noteworthy in that Livingston was the Speaker-designate and he resigned right after the House went ahead, post election losses, with its impeachment effort.

From the political wreckage rose a Speaker with little insitutional experience (12 years) and even less in the way of committee experience (8 years) — Dennis Hastert of Illinois. Sensing his moment in late 1998, Hastert got everyone’s backing and became Speaker.

With Robert Livingston, the GOP would have had a Speaker with 22 years in Congress and much of that time as a member of the powerful and influential Appropriations Committee. With Hastert, the GOP got another leader obsessed with power.

And he even had a rule name after him that further devalued the GOP brand — the Hastert Rule.

Oh, and that meeting where Gingrich was talking about political cannibalism…not a woman in the room.