[DOCID: f:hd204.108]
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The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Changing Nature of the Speakership
Cannon House Office Building
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Speaker Joseph G. Cannon, circa 1909
108th congress, 2d session house document no. 108-204
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Changing Nature of the Speakership
Cannon House Office Building
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Compiled Under the Direction of the
Joint Committee on Printing,
Chairman Robert W. Ney
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2004
This conference was sponsored by the Congressional
Research Service, Library of Congress, and the
Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies
Center, University of Oklahoma; and funded in part
by a grant from the McCormick Tribune Foundation.
Walter J. Oleszek, the editor of this document,
gratefully acknowledges the production assistance
of Daphne Bigger and Karen Wirt of the
Congressional Research Service and Suzanne Kayne
of the Government Printing Office.
The Congressional Research Service has produced
six videotapes of the Cannon Centenary proceedings
for use by Members of Congress. The videotapes
cover, respectively, the O'Neill, Wright, Foley,
and Gingrich speakerships, as well as the
presentation of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and
Professor Robert V. Remini.
House Concurrent Resolution 345
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the
Senate concurring),
SECTION 1. PRINTING OF DOCUMENT.
(a) IN GENERAL.--The transcripts of the
proceedings of ``The Changing Nature of the House
Speakership: The Cannon Centenary Conference'',
sponsored by the Congressional Research Service on
November 12, 2003, shall be printed as a House
document, in a style and manner determined by the
Joint Committee on Printing.
(b) ADDITIONAL COPIES FOR HOUSE AND SENATE.--There
shall be printed for the use of the House of
Representatives and the Senate such aggregate
number of copies of the document printed under
subsection (a) as the Joint Committee on Printing
determines to be appropriate, except that the
maximum number of copies which may be printed
shall be the number for which the aggregate
printing cost does not exceed $65,000.
Contents
Page
The Cannon Centenary Conference
Part I
The Changing Nature of the Speakership
INTRODUCTION............................................
3
Daniel P. Mulhollan, Director, Congressional Research
Service, Library of Congress..........................
3, 6
Gary Copeland, Director, Carl Albert Center...........
4
THE O'NEILL SPEAKERSHIP.................................
9
Gary Hymel
...................................................
9, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31
John A. Farrell.......................................
11, 30
The Honorable Dan Rostenkowski
................................
22, 29, 30, 31
The Honorable Mickey Edwards..........................
24, 30
THE WRIGHT SPEAKERSHIP..................................
33
Janet Hook
.......................................................
..............
33, 48, 54, 56
Speaker James C. Wright, Jr...........................
34
The Honorable David E. Bonior.........................
48
The Honorable Tom Loeffler............................
54
REFLECTIONS ON THE ROLE OF THE SPEAKER IN THE MODERN DAY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES................................
59
Introduction, The Honorable Robert H. Michel..........
59
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.............................
60
THE FOLEY SPEAKERSHIP...................................
65
Jeff Biggs
.......................................................
.........
65, 80, 82, 84, 86
Speaker Thomas S. Foley
..............................................
69, 80, 83, 84
The Honorable Bill Frenzel............................
75
The Honorable Vic Fazio...............................
77
THE HISTORICAL SPEAKERSHIP..............................
87
Introduction, James C. Billington, Librarian of
Congress ...
87, 95, 97
Professor Robert V. Remini, Kluge Scholar.............
89, 96
THE GINGRICH SPEAKERSHIP................................
99
Donald Wolfensberger .................................
99, 107, 110, 115, 117, 118
Speaker Newt Gingrich
...................................................
100, 115, 118
The Honorable Leon E. Panetta
............................................
107, 117
The Honorable Robert S. Walker........................
110
Part II
Perspectives on the Speakership
Chapter 1: The Speakership in Historical Perspective, by
Ronald M. Peters, Jr....................................
121
Chapter 2: Speakers Reed, Cannon, and Gingrich:
Catalysts of Institutional and Procedural Change, by
Walter J. Oleszek and Richard C. Sachs..................
128
Chapter 3: The Speaker of the House and the Committee on
Rules, by Christopher M. Davis..........................
141
Chapter 4: The Speaker and the Senate, by Elizabeth
Rybicki.................................................
158
Chapter 5: The Speaker and the Press, by Betsy Palmer...
168
Chapter 6: The Speaker and the President: Conflict and
Cooperation, by R. Eric Petersen........................
181
Chapter 7: Speakers, Presidents, and National
Emergencies, by Harold C. Relyea........................
195
Chapter 8: The Changing Speakership, by Ronald M.
Peters, Jr..............................................
218
Part III
Appendices
Biographies.............................................
239
List of Conference Participants.........................
248
Part I
The Changing Nature
of the Speakership
The Cannon Centenary Conference
Introduction
Introduction
Mr. MULHOLLAN. I'm Dan Mulhollan, Director of the Congressional
Research Service, and it is my distinct pleasure to welcome all of you
to this first-ever conference on the changing nature of the speakership.
I say first-ever because never before has there been a conference at
which all living former Speakers--Jim Wright, Tom Foley and Newt
Gingrich--have participated with the current Speaker, Dennis Hastert, to
discuss their role as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
In addition, I am pleased to welcome the other important presenters
at this conference: the former House Members who will serve as
commentators on the various speakerships, the four moderators for each
speakership period, and, of course, Jack Farrell of the Denver Post, who
will start things off with an examination of the O'Neill speakership.
Professor Robert Remini, one of our Nation's most distinguished
historians, will present his views on the evolving speakership. I
believe all of us are in for a unique and historic opportunity. We will
listen to several of the most knowledgeable people in our Nation discuss
the variety of elements necessary to lead such a large and complex
institution as the House of Representatives.
This conference has been organized to commemorate the election on
November 9--3 days ago, but also 100 years ago, in 1903--of
Representative Joseph Cannon, Republican of Illinois, as Speaker of the
House. How fitting it is that we convene this conference in the Cannon
Caucus Room, after whom this entire building is named. Joe Cannon, the
first person ever to grace the cover of Time magazine, was one of the
most powerful and controversial Speakers in the entire history of the
House. When Cannon neared retirement from the House in 1922 after nearly
50 years of service, he modestly said, ``A hundred years from now people
will say it does appear that there was a man from Illinois by the name
of Cannon, but I don't know much about him.'' But we are here more than
100 years later and if ``Uncle Joe,'' as he was fondly called by some,
was still around he would find many books, articles, and Ph.D.
dissertations written about his long career and impact on the House.
This conference on the contemporary speakership is another reminder
that people still remember Speaker Cannon's significant influence on the
House and the course of the country at the dawn of the 20th century. To
expand upon this welcome I'd like to introduce Gary Copeland, director
of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the
University of Oklahoma with whom CRS is fortunate to be able to co-
sponsor this event.
Mr. COPELAND. Thank you, Dan. I'm pleased to be with you today
representing the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center
at the University of Oklahoma, which is a co-sponsor of this important
conference on the changing nature of the House speakership. It is
appropriate that we use the centennial of the Cannon speakership as the
occasion to hold this conference because his service reflects the
dynamic relationship between the Speaker and his colleagues in the
House.
The Speaker, as we know, must possess and utilize enough authority
to effectively lead a body of 435 individuals who are formal equals, yet
he must exercise that authority with enough discretion that Members
accept it as in the best interest of the Nation, the body, and
themselves.
As we look over the last 100 years, we see a constant shift on where
that balance is comfortably found. The balance will be affected by the
personality of the Speaker, the formal powers given to him at the time,
the character of the membership of the body, and the social and
political culture of the time. There is no magic point that guarantees
both effectiveness and widespread support. The Speakers we will consider
today each approached the office in his own way and each reflected the
times in which he served as well as dramatically affecting those times.
Understanding the changing nature of the speakership puts the records of
previous Speakers in appropriate historical perspective but also
provides guidance as we move forward into the future.
The Carl Albert Center is very pleased to serve as a co-sponsor of
this conference with the widely respected Congressional Research Service
[CRS]. CRS is, of course, uniquely qualified to put together a
conference of this sort and to contribute their expertise on the
changing nature of the speakership. On this topic, the partnership
between the CRS and the Carl Albert Center seems particularly
appropriate and Dan Mulhollan has allowed me to elaborate a little bit
on that.
The Carl Albert Center, named for the 46th Speaker of the House, has
played a role in the academic understanding of the House generally and
the speakership specifically for almost 25 years. The Carl Albert Center
was founded and directed for over 20 years by the leading scholar of the
speakership, Ron Peters. Ron's major work, The American Speakership, is
the foremost book on the topic, providing a thorough analysis and
interpretation of the speakership in historical perspective. Professor
Peters has published numerous other works on the topic, and he is with
us today contributing a paper to this conference.
Beyond the speakership, the Carl Albert Center faculty and graduate
students have researched a variety of other topics including campaign
finance, committees, the seniority system, and so forth. But the center
has multiple missions, which I will briefly mention to you, in addition
to the research function. We offer unique academic programs at both the
graduate and undergraduate level, including a congressional fellowship
for graduate students that includes a year working on the Hill in
affiliation with the Congressional Fellowship Program of the American
Political Science Association. And we have an undergraduate program that
matches our students one-to-one with faculty members to develop a
mentoring relationship. Many of those students have become partners in
the research projects with which they were originally assisting and have
gone on to present their research findings at professional meetings.
Third, and perhaps of interest to many of you in this room, is that
the Carl Albert Center serves as an important resource on the history of
Congress, primarily through our congressional archives, a collection of
20th century papers. We hold the papers of notable Oklahoma lawmakers
such as Speaker Albert, Representatives Mike Synar and Mickey Edwards,
and Senator Robert S. Kerr, as well as some out-of-state Members, such
as Representatives Millicent Fenwick and Helen Gahagan Douglas. Our most
recent additions include the important papers of two retired Republican
leaders: Congressman J.C. Watts and Majority Leader Dick Armey.
Finally, the center fosters a variety of programs to provide
outreach to the community at large. We are pleased to sponsor the Julian
J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture in Representative Government, and we
also frequently host speakers from Washington, including current and
former Members of Congress. The center is actively engaged in programs
aimed at students and young people, including being a partner in the
Project 540 Grant which some of you should be familiar with. We've
worked with the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers
University to develop a leadership program aimed at encouraging women to
become involved in politics. We've worked with the Close-up Foundation
on their Great American Cities Project to encourage teenagers in
effective citizenship skills and participation in political life.
Everything we do is aimed at reflecting the quality of life and
leadership practiced by our namesake, Carl Albert.
As we'll understand better as a result of this conference, Speakers
are unique and special individuals who have perhaps the toughest task in
our political system. Just as Speaker Albert led the House in a critical
period of change, each of his successors that we will discuss today had
unique circumstances and unique gifts. The Carl Albert Center is pleased
to present this conference with the CRS with the hope of promoting
better understanding of each of the Speakers and the special challenges
and opportunities of their position. I thank all of you for being here
today and, like the rest of you, I look forward to the proceedings.
Mr. MULHOLLAN. Thank you, Gary. Many people on Capitol Hill assisted
CRS in initiating and organizing this conference, including the joint
leadership of the House Administration Committee: Chairman Bob Ney and
Ranking Member John Larson, who just came in. John, thank you very much.
Thanks go as well to the leadership of the House Rules Committee. But I
especially want to thank Speaker Hastert and Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi for endorsing the organization of this conference. And last, but
certainly not least, I must acknowledge the critical support not only of
the Carl Albert Center but also the McCormick Tribune Foundation without
whose support this conference would not have taken place. John Sirek is
representing McCormick Tribune. Thank you, John, very much.
Now to some logistics. It's our plan that CRS will use the videotape
of this conference for the benefit of Members of Congress and their
staff. In addition, we expect that the transcript of today's
proceedings, along with several reports on various aspects of the
speakership, will be published and made available to Members of
Congress. One of these reports is by Professor Ron Peters, who was just
mentioned by Gary Copeland. Professor Peters is the noted scholar on the
speakership. His paper is available as a handout to everyone who is
attending this conference. At this point, in an effort to minimize
distraction in today's program, please turn off your cell phones. Should
today's program be preempted by an emergency or test alarm, all
occupants should exit the building and proceed to designated assembly
areas. If you don't know where your assembly area is, just ask a helpful
police officer in an orange vest.
Please direct any questions or concerns regarding today's program to
any CRS staff member wearing a tag. Further, most of today's panelists
will be available for questions following their presentations. A
wireless microphone will be circulating the room so if you have
questions, please raise your hand and we'll try to accommodate you. At
this point, before we begin, I must turn to the person who is the
originator, the conceiver, and implementer of this whole conference,
Walter Oleszek, a senior specialist in American National Government at
CRS.
Mr. OLESZEK. Thanks very much, Dan, for those kind remarks, but
there are a lot of people who helped put this conference together. Dan,
I'm sure, will highlight them at a later point. My job is to introduce
the moderators so we can get under way with the program at hand. Not
only do we have a whole group of wonderfully knowledgeable people about
the House of Representatives who we're all anxious to hear from, but we
also have a terrifically talented crew of moderators. I want to
introduce the moderator for this panel right now. He is Gary Hymel, whom
many of you may know from his time on the Hill. He served for 8 years as
administrative assistant to Majority Whip and Majority Leader Hale
Boggs. He also served for 8 years as administrative assistant to Speaker
Tip O'Neill. Mr. Hymel co-authored a book with Tip O'Neill called All
Politics is Local, a classic statement for which Speaker O'Neill is
famous. Currently, Mr. Hymel is senior vice president at Hill &
Knowlton. Gary, take it away.
?
U.S. House of Representatives photographer
Hon. Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., Speaker 1977-1987
The O'Neill Speakership
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The O'Neill Speakership
Mr. HYMEL. Thank you, Walter, and thank you for putting together
this excellent panel of people who knew Tip. It's been 10 years since
Tip was with us but a week doesn't go by that his name isn't in the
paper, usually associated with that saying, ``All politics is local,''
something his father taught him. It was used last Tuesday, in the
Kentucky election, for instance. The Democratic candidate was upset and
a consultant said afterward that Tip O'Neill was right--all politics is
local. Many Kentucky voters were angry with the previous Governor's
sexual escapades. I'm not so sure Tip meant that his saying should apply
in that context, but if it fits I guess it's all right.
Just last month I was talking to Lindy Boggs and she was telling me
about when she was at Tip's funeral. It was very crowded because it was
at Tip's parish church in Cambridge. And the fellow next to her said,
``They should have had this funeral at a cathedral where they could
accommodate everybody. This is too crowded.'' And Lindy said, ``I looked
at him and said, `All politics is local.' '' Two weeks ago in The Hill
newspaper, there was a cartoon strip about a Congressman who wants to
get all the benefits for his district but didn't want to vote for an
increase in taxes. The last cartoon panel said, ``Well, you taught me
`all politics is loco.' '' Another case when Tip was invoked occurred
when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California. The
reporters interviewed John Burton who is the president pro tem of the
California Senate, and they asked, ``How are you going to get along with
Governor Schwarzenegger?'' And Burton said, ``I'm going to treat him
like Tip O'Neill treated Ronald Reagan.'' He said, ``They had a
wonderful personal relationship and they fought over policy, as we
should.''
Tip ruled by anecdote and he ruled by humor, and I'm sure you all
know that. Senator John McCain, last week in a Washington Post story
about the disappearance of the real characters in Congress, said, ``To
be honest my favorite was Tip O'Neill.'' He said, ``One time I spent
five hours with him on a plane, and it was probably the most
entertaining five hours of my life.'' The other day I was taking a
client through the Rayburn Building. He said, ``I need a shoe shine.''
So we went in the barbershop and Joe Quattrone, the longtime barber
there said, ``Gary, I got to tell you my favorite Tip O'Neill story.''
And my client's listening, of course. He said, ``You know Richard
Kelly,''--some of you may remember the Congressman from Florida who got
in trouble for taking a bribe and was about to be sentenced. Quattrone
said to Kelly, ``I'm sorry for what happened,'' and Kelly said, ``Joe,
don't worry about it. I'm at peace with myself. I'm really feeling good
about myself. I was just on the House floor and Tip O'Neill put his arm
around me and said, `I'm sorry for what happened, and my door will
always be open to you.' '' That was Tip O'Neill.
I want to tell one last story, one former Congressman Joe McDade
told me about 2 weeks ago when I saw him at a book signing. Joe said,
``Gary, you don't know this story but one time we were traveling with
Tip through Europe and we stopped at the airport in Shannon,
Ireland,''--and if you ever took a trip with Tip, you always stopped at
the Shannon Airport because they have a great duty-free shop. ``So
everybody was getting off the plane and Tip said, `You know I'm not
feeling well. You go on and shop, I'm going to stay on the plane.' ''
Joe said, ``Tip, I'll stay with you and keep you company.'' So they're
sitting there shooting the bull--I'm sure talking sports and politics,
and the pilot, an Air Force colonel, came back and said, ``Mr. Speaker,
can I get you anything?'' Tip said, ``No, no. Everything's fine. On
second thought, could you take the plane up so we can see Ireland from
the air?'' And the colonel said, ``Sure.'' So Joe said they revved up
the engines and took this United States of America airliner up and
circled for awhile. Tip saw Ireland from the air, and then they landed
and got everybody on and went home. To me that typified Tip O'Neill.
Now let me tell you about some of the people who will speak about
him today. First is Jack Farrell. Now Jack didn't know Tip as well as
Danny Rostenkowski or Mickey Edwards or myself, but he got to know him.
Jack spent 6 years researching Tip's life. He did 300 interviews and
wrote a book called, Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century. It sold
38,000 copies. You can still buy it today. Jack did an excellent job.
Everybody co-operated with Jack because former Congressman Joe Moakley,
Tip's very dear friend, said you could trust Jack Farrell. Jack is now
the bureau chief of the Denver Post, and he will talk to you about what
he learned about Tip.
Next on the podium is former Congressman Danny Rostenkowski, who was
very, very close to Tip. They are very similar. They're both big
persons, their fathers were in politics, they are Catholic, ethnic, big-
city organization Democrats. Danny had a lot of ideas about how the
House could be run better and he was very generous about giving his
opinions to Tip O'Neill. And some of his ideas are still in place today.
For instance, Danny is the guy who came up with the idea to have weekly
whip meetings. They had never had them before. The practice of rolling
votes from Monday into Tuesday, which helped the ``Tuesday-to-Thursday
Club,'' also was Danny's idea. Dan could have been on the leadership
ladder. He could have been the whip for Tip, but he chose to be chairman
of the Ways and Means Committee instead.
Mickey Edwards, our final panel member, is a former GOP Congressman
from Oklahoma. He was sworn in by Tip when he was a freshman. He became
a member of the loyal opposition. Edwards was head of the Republican
Policy Committee, and chair of the American Conservative Union. In fact,
he now teaches a class in American conservatism at the Kennedy School at
Harvard, which he's meeting this afternoon at 2:30. We'll let each panel
member speak and then take questions from the audience. With that, I'll
turn it over to Jack Farrell.
Mr. FARRELL. Good morning. So a few months ago I got a call from
Walter, who has now slunk away somewhere, and he asked me if I would
give a talk about Tip O'Neill. And I thought I was going to be in a
small conference room with maybe a few members of the Congressional
Research Service staff. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I
actually got an invitation and noted that this was going to be a
historic event featuring all three living former Speakers and the
current Speaker. And it came to me that Speakers Foley and Wright and
Gingrich were all going to be here, appearing in person, giving first-
hand accounts with behind-the-scenes nuggets that historians would prize
forever. And if that was not daunting enough I had been selected to
stand in for one of the greatest storytellers of all time, Speaker Tip
O'Neill. So I was struck by one of those moments of stark panic.
Desperately, I came up with the idea that I was going to deliver this
speech in the first person, like Hal Holbrook doing Mark Twain. I would
dress up like Tip, comb my hair back, sprinkle some flour in it so I'd
have that grand O'Neill white shock of hair. Maybe strap a pillow around
my waist and speak through the stub of a cigar. I ran this by Gary and
Walter and got what I guess could be described as politely nervous
chuckles. But as always the sharpest perspective came from my wife
Catharina. She said, ``Jack, I love you. But you're a lousy actor and
you're a worst mimic. In all the weeks of your book tour, all the
stories you told, you never once gave a good impression of Tip O'Neill.
Your `dahlings' and your `old pals' were never persuasive. Your Boston
accent is unconvincing and when you sing it's off key. You barely need
the pillow and you can douse your head with as much flour as you want.
It's never going to make you look like Tip O'Neill, but a little bit
more like snow on Old Baldy. You just don't have enough trees at the
peak.'' So Tip remains to be played maybe in a one-man show by John
Goodman or Ned Beattie or Charles Durning. And having watched John
Goodman play a Speaker on ``West Wing'' this fall, I think he might be
the best bet even though he did play a Republican.
So now I get to talk about Tip, not to try and channel him. And the
sound that you are hearing is that of 1,000 C-SPAN viewers sighing in
relief. Though I spent 6 years on my biography of Speaker O'Neill, I'm
very modest about my ability to describe his motivation on many matters.
As he once said, ``You cannot look into a man's heart. Human beings keep
great secrets.'' But I do believe--I do know that Tip would have
approved what we're doing here today. He revered the House and the
Speaker's Office and, this may come as a surprise to some in the room,
he was a life-long student of history. Many of you may travel to Boston
for the Democratic Convention next summer or to New England to see the
leaves of autumn, and if you pause at Minuteman Park and follow where
the Redcoats were chased by the Rebels down the road from Concord to
Lexington, or you go to Charlestown to walk the decks of Old Ironsides
or you visit the Old North Church or the Paul Revere House or many of
the other carefully preserved historic sites on the Freedom Walk in
Boston, you should tip your hat to Tip, who was responsible, or at least
shared in the responsibility, of winning Federal protection and funding
for these sites when he served with great enthusiasm on the National
Historic Sites Commission. Tip's ability to bring home the bacon for
matters of historic preservation is part of a pattern. For one of the
things I discovered when doing the research for my book was that in the
days before he entered the House leadership he was a colossal collector
of ``pork'' for Massachusetts. From a junior seat on the Rules
Committee, according to one reputable academic study, Tip's share of
Federal postal, health, welfare, anti-poverty and education funds was
demonstratively greater than those claimed by the chairman of the
authorizing committee or the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee
that had jurisdiction over those matters. And I see heads nodding among
the cognoscenti in appreciation of that particular trick. Congressman
Jim McGovern wherever you are, eat your heart out.
If you go to Massachusetts to visit those historic sites, you'll no
doubt travel on roads that Tip played a major role in building. Not just
the multibillion dollar Central Artery Project which is rightly known as
Tip's Tunnel in Boston, but also the aging elevated Fitzgerald
Expressway that they're tearing down to make way for the new artery. Tip
helped build it when serving as the first Democratic speaker of the
Massachusetts House after World War II. In those days, before the
creation of the interstate highway system, the States paid for their own
roads and the Massachusetts government cut corners in the form of exit
and entrance ramps to save money when building the expressway. Soon it
would take 45 minutes to get from one side of Boston to the other. So
when he came to Congress, Tip set about solving this. In a way, he
inherited his own problem and the way he solved it 40 years later was by
tapping the U.S. Treasury to the tune of $12 billion, and Massachusetts
thanks you.
As he raked in the Federal largesse for his State and district,
O'Neill also took the time to make sure that the Minuteman Park and the
Old North Church were protected. It's a small but perhaps telling
indication that in Tip O'Neill you have a somewhat more complicated
character than the popular image suggested. He was a wardheeler to be
sure, but one of the first to be blessed with a college diploma from
Boston College. No one was better at swapping favors, but when he first
ran for office, and in his years in the Massachusetts State House, he
had the tiniest bit of a hint of a sheen of a middle-class reformer
about him. He was certainly no James ``Take a Buck'' Coffey, that
memorable State rep from Beacon Hill who so eloquently summed up the
code of a certain class of Massachusetts politicians. Coffey publicly
announced, ``I'll take a buck. And who the hell doesn't know it? I'm
probably the only one who has guts enough to say I'll take a buck. I'd
like to see the guy who doesn't.''
Tip knew the ways, and could throw a mean elbow, but he appreciated
youth and idealism and was able to change with the times. He had street
smarts and Jesuit schooling. Representative Barney Frank, a Harvard
graduate, once told me that he thought Tip was smart enough to teach
history on the faculty at Boston College. It was only after leaving the
interview and upon some reflection that I began to worry that Barney was
playing with me and that his comment said more about how Harvard views
Boston College than it does of Tip's particular gifts and abilities. But
I brought it up with him later and Barney assured me that he meant it as
a compliment to Tip, not a knock at BC.
Tip's ability to bridge the gap between the new and the old would
prove to be an invaluable asset as he rose to the speakership. He and
his predecessor, Carl Albert, are rightly known amongst students of
Congress as the key transitional figures in the development of the
modern Speaker. And, in fact, I have my own thanks to give to the Carl
Albert Center and to Mr. Peters for much of the analysis that I'm about
to present, and for also preserving and sharing a remarkable oral
history by Carl Albert in which Carl laid it down as he saw it, with
absolutely no reservations, when commenting about the character of his
peers in all those years in Congress.
Albert and O'Neill presided over the transition from old to new,
there's no doubt. Consider what preceded them for most of the 20th
century--a rigid seniority system with tyrannical old southern chairmen,
and a closed-door leadership characterized by Speaker Sam Rayburn's
``board of education.'' The board was located in a high-ceilinged room
one floor below the House Chamber and Tip visited when he was invited by
his patron Speaker John McCormack, who was then majority leader. Tip sat
around with Mr. Sam's closest buddies drinking hard liquor, and using
the small sink that, as D.B. Hardeman and Donald Bacon so memorably put
it, ``served as a public urinal for some of America's most famous
political figures.'' It was from that room that Harry Truman was
summoned to the White House to be sworn in as President when Franklin
Roosevelt died. And Mr. Sam routinely invited a few up-and-comers like
Albert, Hale Boggs, and Tip O'Neill to listen as he and Lyndon Johnson
and John McCormack or House Parliamentarian Lewis Deschler discussed the
day's events and struck a blow for liberty.
That was the House as Tip knew it when he arrived in Congress in
1953. Even the arrival of Jack Kennedy did not change things. The
southern chairmen remained in control, and Tip found it particularly
frustrating because--though JFK was from Massachusetts--political rivals
on the President's staff kept O'Neill away from the new President. When
he turned 50, he took his daughter Rosemary to dinner.
``That's it. My career is over,'' Tip told Rosemary. ``We had a
President from my own State, from my own district and I can't get in to
see him.'' Well, as someone who's just a few months from turning 50, I
hope that the next 35 years do for my career what the next 35 did for
Tip. The war in Vietnam turned out to be his great opportunity. He was
an early foe, representing a district that turned against the war before
much of the rest of America. His stance against the war gave him
credibility, and a following, among the flock of young representatives
who were then beginning to arrive in Washington. Like them, he was
frustrated by the way that the tough old southern chairmen refused to
allow recorded votes on the war. Out of sympathy, and expediency, he
joined many of their attempts to reform Congress.
Though a northerner, Tip was a veteran Democrat who could appeal to
the South; he could also appeal to both the ``old guard'' and the ``new
turks.'' So he was selected by Albert and Majority Leader Boggs to
become the Democratic whip. Then, of course, came the stroke of fortune
that put Tip just a step away from the Speaker's Office. Boggs' airplane
took off in unsettled weather in Alaska and he was never seen again. So
it was Tip who faced off against Richard Nixon. He found himself the
leader of the House Democrats in the turbulent years of Watergate. And
it was clear throughout the early seventies that his strength in the
House came from his ability to span this gap between North and South,
young and old, new suburban representatives, and the lingering captains
of the old city machines. It was a very delicate balancing act but it
got him where he wanted to be--the Speaker of the House in 1976, just in
time for the return of a Democratic Presidency.
But as he took the oath of office, O'Neill looked out on a House
that was far different from the one he had joined in 1953. ``The group
that came in 1974, the ``Watergate babies,'' were a bunch of
mavericks,'' said Jim Wright. ``All of them had run on reform platforms
intent on changing anything and everything they found that had needed
changing.'' Indeed, while the turbulence of the sixties, the Vietnam
war, and the years of Watergate had led millions of young Americans to
abandon the political process and turn inward, those who persisted in
politics--in Democratic politics--were highly committed activists who
had cut their teeth on civil rights, the anti-war movement or the
Kennedy, McCarthy and McGovern campaigns. They viewed Washington as a
capital in need of purging.
Tip recalled that ``these youthful, able, talented people, they
didn't like the establishment. They didn't like Washington. They didn't
like the seniority system. They didn't like the closeness of it and they
came down here with new ideas. They wanted to change the Congress of the
United States, which they did.'' The old politics had fallen into
disrepair. The Democratic Members of the classes of 1970, 1972, 1974,
and 1976 were prototypes of a new kind of Senator and Representative.
They were comfortable with their ideological allies in the press corps
that was undergoing similar changes. They were conversant in the
politics of televised imagery and campaign commercials and generally
beholden to few party leaders. They were independent political
entrepreneurs who raised their own funds, hired professional advisors,
and reached out to the voters using direct mail appeals, single-issue
interest groups, radio, and television advertising. Said Tip, ``About 50
percent of these people had never served in public life before. When I
came to Congress the average man had been in the legislature, had been a
mayor or district attorney or served in the local city council. They
grew up knowing what party discipline was about. These new people came
as individuals. They got elected criticizing Washington. They said,
`Hey, we never got any help from the Democratic Party. We won on our own
and we're going to be independent.' They started in 1974 and they broke
the discipline.''
The House was thoroughly remade from the sleepy institution of Tip's
early years in Congress. The southern autocracy was broken; the
shuffling old bulls swept from the Capitol's halls. Of 292 Democrats
when Tip took over as Speaker in January 1977, only 15 had served in
Congress longer than he had. The average age in the House had dropped to
49.3, the youngest since World War II. The regional distribution of the
two parties had begun to reflect the transformative success of the
Republican southern strategy. And the old urban strongholds of ethnic
white Democrats had been washed away by the great post-war migration of
black Americans from the South and the subsequent white flight to the
suburbs. The new breed of Democratic office holders, Tim Wirth, Gary
Hart, Paul Tsongas, Michael Dukakis, and the rest, were neoliberals who
sold the notion of political reform and their own personalities to
suburbanites who gathered political information from television, not the
local block captain. Ticket splitting was far more common. The
percentage of voters who chose the party line dropped in House elections
from 84 percent to 69 percent in the 20 years after 1958. Without an
old-time party machine to distribute winter coats and turkeys, those new
political entrepreneurs invested considerable resources into
sophisticated constituent service operations, answering mail and
telephone calls, staffing satellite mobile field offices, chasing down
wayward Social Security checks.
Between 1971 and 1981 the volume of incoming mail to Congress more
than tripled. Watts lines, word processors, and computerized mailing
systems became commonplace features in congressional offices. Members of
this new Congress depended on televised imagery and telegenic forums.
The number of committee and subcommittee chairmen had doubled to some
200 during the time O'Neill had been in Congress. The duties of
constituent service and the work of these subcommittees fueled the
demand for more staff. The 435 Members of the House had 2,000 employees
on their payroll when O'Neill arrived in 1953. There were 7,000 such
employees in 1977 and another 3,000 working for committees,
subcommittees, and the party leadership. The Rules Committee served as a
prime illustration. Chairman Howard Smith (D-VA), had two committee
aides in 1960 when Tip served on Rules. Twenty years later there were
42. Congress was now a billion-dollar business with a commensurate
demand for more lobbyists, special interest groups, trade associations,
and journalists.
The average number of days in session jumped from 230 in the
Eisenhower years to 323 in the 95th Congress. And the number of recorded
votes went from 71 in O'Neill's first year to 834 in 1978. Gone were the
days when Carl Albert, following Sam Rayburn's advice, would spend his
days in the House Chamber soaking up knowledge and forging collegial
relationships. Gone as well were the hours when Harold Donohue (D-MA),
and Phil Philbin (D-MA), would slump in the soft leather chairs of the
House Chamber each afternoon like aged hotel detectives, whiling away
the hours with gossip and the occasional rousing snore. A 1977 study by
a House Commission found that Members worked 11-hour days of which only
33 minutes were spent at contemplative tasks like reading, thinking, or
writing. The House became a place to cast a vote and flee, not as much
to mingle, converse, or enjoy the debate.
For many it was hard not to hearken back to George Washington
Plunkett, the legendary sage of Tammany Hall who asked in 1905, ``Have
you ever thought what would become of the country if the bosses were put
out of business and their places were taken by a lot of cart-tail
orators and college graduates? It would mean chaos.''
And so, in the early years of Jimmy Carter's Presidency, O'Neill
pioneered a process by which he would govern the House for the next
decade. It came to be known as the ``politics of inclusion.'' The idea
was to rope your colleagues in to secure their allegiance by giving them
a stake in the results, to share the responsibility as well as the
spoils, and to co-opt resistance. Did the new breed of congressmen and
congresswomen--the political entrepreneurs--demand a piece of the action
and a ticket to the 5 o'clock news? Then O'Neill would give it to them
in return for their loyalty. Starting with an Ad-hoc Energy Committee
and three energy task forces, soon every major issue had a task force
and bright, young Members to chair it: willing to trade their
independence for the power and celebrity of serving in the leadership.
``O'Neill didn't direct his colleagues to do his bidding,'' said Phil
Sharp (D-IN). ``He entrusted them.''
The rise of Representative Richard Gephardt, elected in 1976, was
illustrative. Soon after taking office, the Carter administration had
discovered that the cost-of-living increases were soaring in a time of
high inflation and threatening to bankrupt Social Security. The
Democrats ultimately concluded that a massive hike in the payroll tax
was the best way to keep the system solvent. To head the Social Security
Task Force, O'Neill selected the 36-year-old Gephardt, and they pushed
the bill through the House before the 1978 election season. It passed in
1977 by a 189 to 163 margin, the largest increase in payroll taxes in
history--$227 billion over 10 years--but Gephardt and his task force had
gotten it done. He moved into the leadership's favor and was soon being
hailed in the press as a force to be reckoned with because of his
ability to deal with a cross section of House Members.
O'Neill aide Irv Sprague later wrote a memo to Tip about the task
force system, saying it triumphed because it ``involved as many people
as possible and gave them a personal stake in the outcome.''
``We have the Policy Committee. We have the Whip Organization
working. We got the Rules Committee working and we got the Chairmen all
working together,'' O'Neill told the National Journal. ``They're part
and parcel of the organization. They're part and parcel of making
decisions. There are more people in the decisionmaking. That's the way I
like it and I'm sure that's the way the members like it.''
It wasn't enough. The Carter years were a political disaster for Tip
O'Neill's Democrats and justly so. When handing the Democrats control of
both the White House and the Congress in 1976, the voters had looked to
the party for competence, resolve, and the promise of national revival.
Handed the opportunity the Democrats staged a thoroughly miserable
performance. They had been petty, selfish, and spiteful. They had looked
beholden to oil companies, the health care industry, and other special
interests. They had refused to curb their insistent liberal base and
chosen to fight a destructive and self-indulgent civil war in the
Presidential primaries. They were intellectually clueless, politically
inept, and O'Neill stood as the symbol of their failure. I don't know
how many here remember, but the Republican television commercials showed
a white-haired burley actor who ran out of gas on a highway. It clicked
not because it represented just any generic big-city pol, but because it
lampooned the Speaker of the clownish House in Washington.
After a fine first year as Speaker with the passage of ethics and
energy packages, O'Neill's performance had lapsed to adequate in 1978
and piteous in 1979 and 1980. There were good reasons for the disaster
and few in Washington were more adept than Tip at deflecting the blame
toward the White House, the centrifugal effects of congressional reform,
or the ideological incohesion of his party. But at a time of economical,
international, and political crisis when his party and countrymen looked
at Tip, he had failed. His was the party of Tongsun Park and CETA
[Comprehensive Education and Training Act], of 18 percent inflation and
gas lines. When they could have been addressing the problem of America's
economy, the Democrats had spent their time squabbling. The electorate's
retribution had been just and severe. It was not just that the
Republicans won--the White House, the Senate and the 33 seats gained in
the House of Representatives in 1980--it was who won: Ronald Reagan.
``Until such time as we nominate a new Presidential candidate you
are the leader of the Democratic Party as well as the highest public
official of the party,'' leadership aide Burt Hoffman wrote the Speaker.
``You are also more than ever the only person in a position to continue
representing the ideas of justice and compassion.''
It would be the final battle, the defining historic moment for this
bruised, old, white-haired guy, and O'Neill knew it. He would sit alone
in his darkened office brooding over each day's reversals. He would be
betrayed by captains, scored by old foes, challenged by young rebels in
his rank. His name and his pride were on the line, but so, more
importantly, was what he believed. If Tip O'Neill bungled this job, if
he failed to hold the bridge, the hill, the last foothold, he knew his
place in history would suffer, but so would Roosevelt's legacy: the
elderly whose fears of poverty and illness had been eased by Social
Security and Medicare; the working class kids carrying their families'
dreams of going to college with the help of Pell grants; the water and
the air that were getting cleaner and the wilderness preserved from
development.
Tip was no saint. Win or lose there would be no canonization of
Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. In a lifetime in politics, he'd gouged eyes,
thrown elbows, bent the law, and befriended rogues and thieves. He could
be mean and small-minded. But at his core there lay a magnificence of
spirit, deep compassion, and a rock-hard set of beliefs. He had a sense
of duty that he refused to abandon for those whom Heaven's grace forgot.
He would sooner die on the floor of the House or watch his party be
vanquished and dispersed than desert them.
``You know you're right?'' his wife Millie would ask him as she
adjusted his tie at the door in the morning. ``Yes,'' he would say and
he knew it. He knew it like he knew the sidewalks of North Cambridge,
the liturgy of the Sunday Mass, or how to stack a conference committee.
``Then do your best,'' Millie would say and off he would go. He may not
have had the looks of a movie star but he had great instincts and sound
judgment and a joy for life that could match Reagan's charm. And like
the new President, he had an innocence that had survived many years in a
cynical game, and given time and exposure, would allow Americans to come
to love him.
Indeed, Reagan and O'Neill had much in common. They were broad-brush
types who liked to joke and never let the facts get in the way of a good
story. They would take a punch and come back swinging. They prized their
downtime, loved to be loved, and bore without complaint, or much
interest in correcting, the liabilities of their parties. They each had
spectacularly talented staffs. Most important, despite their acting
talents, they stood out among the sharpies and trimmers in the Nation's
Capital as men of deep conviction. Each was sustained in much the same
way by his own distinctive mythology. Reagan was the son of the small-
town Midwest, a lifeguard and radio announcer who had made his way to
the Golden State and become a wealthy movie star. He revered individual
liberty, and his icons were the cowboys, the entrepreneurs, the singular
heroes of sporting fields and war. His speeches never failed to cite the
American Revolution, which had thrown down the government of a rotten
tyranny and claimed the freedom and rights of man.
O'Neill was the product of the East. Of the great crowded cities. He
reveled in the collectivity of purpose and the fruits of charity,
neighborhood and fellowship. His was the creed of Honey Fitz and Jim
Curly, Roosevelt, and the Sermon on the Mount. He, too, revered the
Founding Fathers--but for the magnificent system of government they had
built which had proven so adaptable and addressed so many social ills.
Tip O'Neill versus Ronald Reagan. This was no sophistic debate: these
were world views clashing--hot lava meeting thundering surf. And good it
was for the country to have the debate--to stake the claim of a ``more
perfect union'' against the demand for ``life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness'' once again. History was happening. The heritage of the
New Deal, a philosophy of governing that had lasted for half a century
was at stake. Reagan didn't want to trim the sails. He wanted to turn
the ship around and head back to port. For more than 50 years
Republicans had argued that the country had taken a horribly wrong turn
in the thirties, that Roosevelt's social insurance programs and the
taxes that supported them were seductively undermining the American way:
breeding lethargy, dependence, and corruption of the spirit. Nor was
there ambivalence at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, in the
Speaker's lobby.
As Reagan proved himself so formidable a foe, the Democrats
scrambled to reinforce their Speaker. Tony Coelho (D-CA), was recruited
to take over as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, and he raised a lot of money. One of his first acts was to
put Chris Matthews on the payroll: detached to the Speaker to help, as
O'Neill put it, with ``the media stuff.'' Once again O'Neill's great
sense of timing extended to his selection of staff. Leo Diehl was his
indispensable pal and protector who had notified the wise guys that
times had changed. Gary Hymel had been a bridge to the southern barons
and envoy to the pencil press, and he helped Tip run the House when
O'Neill was majority leader. Kirk O'Donnell was hired in 1977 when the
post-Watergate era called for a legal counsel with well-honed political
instincts. Ari Weiss was the Speaker's chief policy analyst. ``I've
never seen a staff like Tip O'Neill's. There's not even a close
second,'' said journalist Al Hunt. It said a lot about O'Neill--that he
was an incredibly secure man.
Matthews found that O'Neill was self-conscious about his looks, and
dubious about competing with the movie star in the White House. ``He was
scared to death of it because it was live television. He was so afraid
he would say something wrong. He was afraid of being embarrassed. He
lacked confidence. He was never sure of his looks. He was always talking
about his cabbage ears and his big nose. He was mean to himself,''
Matthews remembered.
Television news liked simple stories. Reagan was a skilled performer
and his media advisor, Michael Deaver, and his colleagues were
exceptionally good at crafting scripted moments in which the President
could perform. Deaver recalled that cable TV had not yet arrived. You
could target the three networks and talk to 80 percent of the public.
O'Neill could never hope to match such superb Reagan moments as the 40th
anniversary of the D-day landings or the President's rallying address to
the stunned Nation after the space shuttle Challenger exploded.
But there was a sturdy journalistic imperative--``get the other side
of the story''--that provided O'Neill with an opening, as did the
media's unquenchable thirst for controversy. Reporters from the networks
and other national news organizations needed a Reagan foil, someone to
whom they could go and get the other side, and that was a role the
Speaker could play. But it was a tough, evolutionary process, especially
for a man who had just endured 3 years of pummeling from the press.
``You had to beg him to do interviews and when you did your butt was on
the line. If you strung two bad interviews in a row, you were dead,''
Matthews remembered. ``And I wanted desperately to say to him, I let the
reporters in because I came here to help you become what you can become.
And the way to do it is to be publicized. And the only way to be
publicized is to let people write about you and the only way to let them
write about you is to let them take some shots at you. That's the only
way to become a figure in American politics. You cannot customize it.
You cannot come in and tailor it. All you can do is go in, let them see
who you are and let them make their own judgments.''
The Speaker, who railed against the Reagan tax bill in July, was a
far better tailored, scripted and prepared politician than the befuddled
bear who had opposed the Gramm-Latta budget cuts in May 1981 or who had
replied, ``What kind of fool do they think I am?'' when House Democrats
urged him to seek network time to respond to Reagan's triumphant spring
attack on the Federal budget.
Said Representative Newt Gingrich, ``If you were to study Tip in his
last year as Speaker and compare him to the first year as Speaker, you
saw a man who had learned a great deal about television as the dominant
medium in his game.'' Democratic pollster Peter Hart remembered, ``At
the beginning he was the perfect caricature of old-time politics. The
Republicans took advantage of it. And he was compelled to take a
position to which he was ill-prepared and ill-equipped, which was the
voice of the Democratic Party.'' But by 1986 not only was he more
comfortable with his stature and his feel for the role, but as much as
the President represented an ideology and a purpose, the public saw that
Tip represented an ideology and a purpose as well, and it was a purpose
that as we moved through the eighties, Americans began to see as pretty
important--that it was an important set of values that this man
represents. He's not going to allow Congress to cut the safety net or
the environmental programs or Social Security or education.
In no small part due to Ronald Reagan, the United States would
embark on a new entrepreneurial era, claim triumph in the cold war,
reach giddy new heights of freedom and prosperity, and command both the
attention and the obligation of greatness at the end of the century. But
in no small part because of Tip O'Neill, the country would reach that
pinnacle without leaving its working families and old folks and sick
kids and multihued ethnic and racial minorities behind. Reagan had
turned the country in a new direction. The changing world with its
disorienting pace of economic, scientific, and technological advancement
would inevitably demand that the mechanisms of the New Deal be
reexamined and rebuilt. But in 1981 Tip O'Neill drew a line for his
party and his country and the core of Roosevelt's vision was preserved.
It was a stirring rear guard action worthy of Horatius at the bridge or
Kutuzov at the gates of Moscow.
The final point I'd like to make about the Albert and O'Neill
speakerships is how many of these changes that were made in this
period--television, the rise of committees, huge numbers of staff,
televised sessions of the House--all were seen as liberating, creative
adjustments by progressives at the time. But they helped bring on the
end of the Democratic era. The shattering of the seniority system, the
successful attack upon the old, southern chairmen, the advent of
television and its effect on the House all helped Republican as well as
Democratic young turks: Republican names familiar to us now--Jack Kemp,
Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich. The Democratic reformers had shown the way
and left it open for a group of real revolutionaries, the young
Republican entrepreneurs who finally triumphed in 1995 and took back
control of the House.
But that's a story for the rest of the day. I'm here to talk about
Tip O'Neill and to sum up by quoting from Rev. J. Donald Monan's eulogy
at Tip's funeral. ``Those of us who have lived through the decades since
the 1930s of dramatic change in the moral dilemmas that modernity
brings, in the crisis of wars and the threats of war . . . realize that
Speaker O'Neill's legendary sense of loyalty, either to old friends or
to God, was no dull or wooden conformity. It [was] a creative fidelity
to values pledged in his youth that he kept relevant to a world of
constant change.'' And that, in my opinion, was his greatest genius.
Mr. HYMEL. Congressman Rostenkowski.
Mr. ROSTENKOWSKI. I guess what you expect from me today is a
personal view and, also, a legislative view of Tip O'Neill. I think Tip
and I had a great deal in common.
We both came from an urban area. We saw poverty first hand. But, you
can't look at Tip O'Neill's speakership without first looking at what a
really unique challenge had been created for him by having Ronald Reagan
in the White House.
Reagan was a wonderful public speaker; a classic ``outside''
politician who had good sound bites but not creative legislative ideas
or interest in legislative detail.
Tip O'Neill was a classic ``inside'' guy. He looked like an old-
fashioned politician. Some people liked that image, some didn't. But,
there was no avoiding his physical structure. When Tip became the de
facto Democratic spokesman, it was not an uneven contest. He had a very
delicate balancing act. President Reagan was tremendously popular and
the question became how to moderate what he and the Congress were trying
to do without confronting the President head on.
In the first context, with the 1981 tax cuts, Democrats foolishly
got into a bidding war that made things worse than they otherwise would
have been. A lot of ``blow-dried'' Democrats elected post-Watergate
thought that O'Neill was the wrong face for the party at that time and
that it was their turn to govern.
So, even while Tip tried to present a united Democratic front, he
was challenged by plotting from within his own party. The fact that
there never was a public explosion is certainly to Speaker O'Neill's
credit.
Unlike today's situation, the committee chairmen in the House,
people like myself, had a lot of independence. The Speaker couldn't
order them to do anything because they wouldn't automatically all obey.
When Newt became Speaker, he centralized power, and was able to do
things, especially involving the scheduling of legislation in the House
of Representatives that Tip could never have accomplished.
Tip just didn't have the powers conferred on Newt. I should know. I
was appointed chief deputy majority whip by Jim Wright. As a matter of
fact, Tip didn't like the idea that I was going to be the deputy whip,
but Jim Wright insisted because of the fact that we had had a hell of a
fight for majority leader. Leo Diehl, a top O'Neill aide, who was
orchestrating it with the help of Jimmy Howard from New Jersey and Danny
Rostenkowski, had worked like the Devil along with people like Tony
Coelho to get Jim Wright elected majority leader. We had been the ones
who had talked Jim Wright into running for majority leader. Jim was very
comfortable on the Public Works Committee and, believe me, made more
friends in the Congress than anyone. But after the election and Tip's
ascension to the speakership it was kind of an intimate legislative
process.
Tip couldn't command Members to do things the way the Republicans
have done since. Instead, he had to convince them. Tip would put his arm
around you and give you one of these, ``Gosh darn, you gotta help me on
this.'' And, in most instances, Members of Congress would bend to the
wishes of Tip O'Neill. Tip O'Neill had a great deal of faith in the
system and he had tremendous respect for the individual legislator's
ability to govern.
It was in those days when committee chairmen were very powerful that
Speaker O'Neill recognized that he came from within that group of
representatives who wanted their voices to be heard. In contrast to the
present day leadership authority, O'Neill would wait for the legislative
process to work and come to the Speaker's office. What he did draw out
of you was a compelling competition to do the job. If you failed, it'd
be at dinner that night that he'd say, ``Jesus, you know Rosty, you're
not doing so well over there.'' And, it would really boil me just like
it would boil John Dingell or it would boil Jack Brooks.
Tip O'Neill had the ability to convince a legislator because he was
what was termed ``a legislator's legislator'' himself. He had come up
through the ranks and been in the trenches and that, I believe, was the
secret of the successes we had.
Certainly O'Neill competed with Ronald Reagan. You've got to
remember that Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, was probably one of the
most popular individuals who ever came to Washington. He broke all
precedents. He came to Capitol Hill as President-elect, visiting the
Speaker in the ceremonial office--never been done before. Came to the
House of Representatives for the State of the Union Message and violated
House rules by introducing people in the gallery--never done before. It
was this ``so-called'' warmth that Reagan expressed and brought through
to television. To his credit, and I just did a C-SPAN show this morning
about the creation of C-SPAN, during the time of this creation, no one
was more influential in having C-SPAN in the House of Representatives
than Tip O'Neill. Tip worked with C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb as hard as
I've ever seen anyone ever work to accomplish this.
I've got to admit that I was on the other side of the argument with
respect to C-SPAN. But, the day that we initiated C-SPAN, you couldn't
buy a blue shirt in Washington.
Tip, in my opinion, depended a great deal on staff, depended a great
deal on information that came through the legislative process, and tried
to make judgments based on the coalitions which he could put together.
He was good at it.
I'll never forget the first day as leadership when Tip; Jim Wright,
the majority leader; John Brademas, the majority whip; and Danny
Rostenkowski, chief deputy whip, went to the White House for an 8 a.m.
Tuesday morning meeting. We were ushered into a small dining room off
the East Room where then-President Jimmy Carter was hosting a
``breakfast'' for the leadership. There were little fingertip sandwiches
and small biscuits and Tip O'Neill looked at Jimmy Carter and said,
``Jesus, Mr. President, I thought we won the election for crying out
loud!'' The next Tuesday, and we were there every other Tuesday, you'd
have thought we were all ``Paul Bunyons'' at breakfast.
O'Neill, to his credit, came to the speakership at a time when I
think somebody up there liked us because it was very tough competing
with Ronald Reagan. I can say this personally. Ronald Reagan as
President made my job at the Committee on Ways and Means very easy
because all I had to do was try to bring Ronald Reagan to the middle and
he'd bring along the Republican votes that were necessary. That, coupled
with Tip O'Neill's coalitions, made it possible to pass legislation.
I've so many pleasant personal memories over the years with Tip and
Millie, with Silvio Conte, with Bob Michel. In summation, just let me
say this. Last night, I had dinner with Guy Vander Jagt, Bob Michel,
Leon Panetta, and Marty Russo. I wonder if in 10 years or 8 years, after
their service, the present majority and minority leaders will get
together for dinner. It's a sad commentary.
Mr. HYMEL. Thank you, Congressman.
Congressman Edwards.
Mr. EDWARDS. Well, first of all, I want to say that I probably feel
more comfortable in this room than some of the other people here, like
Jim Wright, Tom Foley, and Danny Rostenkowski, because we Republicans
always had to have our conferences in this room because the Democrats
were meeting on the House floor, so we couldn't use it. So I've spent a
lot of time in here.
I can't tell the personal stories about Tip because I wasn't
involved in the same way that the members of the Democratic Party were,
but I do have some reflections I'd like to share. I had great respect
for and friendship with the men who followed Tip as Speakers--men like
Jim Wright and Tom Foley--but when I came to the House they were just
``Mr. Chairman'' and every Democrat was Mr. Chairman of something. But
Tip was ``Mr. Speaker'' and he remained that. It was not only his
presence and the fact that he was the Speaker when I came to the House
and the man who swore me in, but he looked, he sounded, he acted the way
you would expect a leader of the Nation to look and sound and act. He
was that imposing and that impressive.
When I teach my classes at the Kennedy School, one of the things I
emphasize in the very first class period is the word ``passion.'' That
politics is about passion. Passion is what drives you to get up and do
the things you have to do to get elected and to go through the very
tiresome job of actually being a day-to-day legislator. You really have
to be driven by your beliefs. All politics is passion just like all
politics is local. And Tip was a very passionate person as those who
knew him realized. But he was a different kind of politician when he
first came to the Congress. He was, in fact, the quintessence of a local
pol.
He was passionate about issues, but he was passionate about issues
that mattered to the people in Cambridge and South Boston and the areas
that he knew. He was not a Massachusetts politician. He was strictly a
Boston politician, which is a lot different from Brookline or Wellesley
or Newton. It was inner city. It was neighbors. It was knowing the
people in the barbershop and the deli and the dry cleaners, and it was a
very personalized, localized, kind of bring-home-the-bacon politics. So
he was connected to the local highways and the local hospitals. What he
did when he came to Congress was to be the voice, the spokesman, for the
people of his area. Now I didn't realize until I started teaching at
Harvard that political scientists like to refer to what they call a
choice between being a ``delegate'' or a ``trustee.'' I had never heard
those terms before. But in the sense of being a ``delegate,'' somebody
who really represented the home people, that's what Tip O'Neill's
politics was about.
I am reminded of a story about one of my colleagues from Oklahoma,
Mike Synar, a really fine young man who died all too soon. Mike was once
interviewed by the New York Times and there was a little flap that
occurred as to whether Mike was an Oklahoma Congressman or a U.S.
Congressman from Oklahoma. He, of course, argued that he was a U.S.
Congressman from Oklahoma, which made people in Oklahoma very unhappy
because they wanted him to be an Oklahoma Congressman. Well, when he got
here Tip was a Boston Congressman. He was not a national Congressman in
that sense. He was very much a local kind of person.
And then something happened. I've got a photograph that I hope is
going to be passed out to the tables, something I found as I was going
through my files. Something happened to Tip that changed his life, that
changed his speakership, and to a large extent changed the country.
When Ronald Reagan was elected President, all of a sudden Tip became
not just the master of the institution which, as Danny said, he ran very
well by allowing various committee chairs to be powerful in their own
right. Suddenly, Tip O'Neill became the champion of progressive
politics. He became the national voice--the passion of the progressive
politics that had begun with FDR and had continued since and that Ronald
Reagan threatened.
What Reagan brought was not only a new vision, but if you were on
the other side of the aisle, an attempt to really undo a lot of what had
been done over the previous decade. So Tip O'Neill had thrust upon him
something he had really not prepared for. He had thrust upon him the job
of being the last bulwark of liberalism--becoming the champion of the
forces opposing the Reagan and Bush foreign policy proposals, preserving
domestic social programs.
All of a sudden it was Tip not just being in the Speaker's office,
but taking the floor, taking the microphone, and becoming the voice to
challenge Ronald Reagan.
Tip became the Democratic Party, and what happened as a result of
this was that we had these geniuses over at the National Republican
Congressional Committee who decided that the way for Republicans to take
control was to run against Tip, to demonize Tip O'Neill. That's where
those television spots came from that showed this actor playing Tip and
characterizing him, and, through him, the Democratic Congress as big,
fat, and out of control. It turned out that the voters really thought he
looked a lot more like Santa Claus. The public did not share the
antipathy toward Tip O'Neill that the Republican Congressional Committee
had anticipated, and the ad campaign didn't work.
There was also something else about Tip. I remember Tip, of course,
as an adversary, as the advocate of what we were trying to change. But
Tip's word was good. On the one hand, there was the public Republican
attempt to gain control, and so, those television spots attacking Tip
O'Neill. But in Republican leadership meetings, we all knew that Tip's
word was good. He was tough. He was a hard fighter, but he was fair.
Let me tell a little story. Actually Jim, the story is about you,
but also there is a lesson here about Tip O'Neill. I got an e-mail
recently from a political science professor on the West Coast. He said
he was watching a video of a debate on the House floor and since I was
very involved in that debate, he wanted my input about what had
happened. Jim Wright, who was then the Speaker, announced at the end of
the vote--Republicans, of course, were winning the vote--that he was
going to keep the vote open so people who had not yet voted could cast
their votes or people who wanted to change their votes could change
their votes. As it happened, of course, Jim Wright and his team being
very good at this, before time had run out, the Democrats were in the
lead on the vote. Then the gavel came down and the Democrats had won.
The political scientist wrote to me and said, ``I don't understand
what happened. The Speaker announced that he was going to keep the vote
open for anybody who wanted to change their votes, so why didn't you
Republicans do the same thing and say you wanted to continue this a
little longer while you tried to change people's minds.''
So I wrote him back and said, ``I don't think you understood. Jim
Wright was the Speaker. He had the gavel. He could determine when the
vote was over.'' The political scientist wrote back to me again and
said, ``Oh, I understand now. You didn't trust Jim Wright.'' And I wrote
back and said, ``No, you don't understand. We trusted Jim Wright. He is
a very honest, decent man, who believed passionately that what he was
doing was good for the country and that what we were doing was bad for
the country. And he would do everything that he could within the rules,
within the proper procedures of the House, to prevail on a cause he
thought was important.''
That, I think, is not only what Jim did, but it's also what Tip did.
What you always knew was that Tip O'Neill could be a tough adversary.
When we wanted to give Special Orders and make the whole world think we
were speaking to the entire Congress, he would order the TV cameras to
pan the Congress and show that we were giving these great orations to
nobody in particular except a couple of our Members and our staff. So
Tip was a very tough fighter, but he was always fair. He was always
decent. He was dignified and people on the Republican side liked him a
lot--we opposed him, but liked him a lot.
When he died, people said, ``Well, he was one of a kind. There will
never be another like Tip O'Neill.'' And I wrote a newspaper column in
which I said, I hoped that was not true. It would be a terrible loss to
America if there was never another like Tip O'Neill.
Mr. HYMEL. Thank you, Congressman. Before we take questions I'd like
to summarize by saying again that Tip ruled by anecdote and humor, but
there are four things he should be remembered for and only one has been
mentioned. First, Tip brought television to the House. A lot of
discussion had gone on before, and there was a lot of running up and
down hills by Members and staff. When he became Speaker he said, ``Turn
on the TV cameras.'' It was that simple and, of course, we wouldn't have
C-SPAN today if it wasn't for that decision which he made by himself.
Tip also destroyed the seniority system. One time in the Democratic
Caucus at the beginning of a Congress, we were doing reforms and Tip
offered an amendment that you could get a vote on a committee chairman
if one-fifth of the caucus wanted it. Before that, it was automatic that
the most senior person on the committee became the chairman--no
exceptions. Well, Tip's motion passed because you could always get one-
fifth of the Members. Two years later, three chairmen were thrown out.
Now, the committee leadership always had to run in the whole caucus.
Seniority didn't mean as much anymore. So Tip was responsible for
destroying the seniority system.
A third thing he did was eliminate the unrecorded teller vote. Some
of the oldtimers might remember that. Just like in the British
Parliament today, there was a procedure where Members walked through
lines and were counted and then the majority decided whether an
amendment wins or loses. Well, Tip and Charlie Gubser, a Republican from
California, had an amendment that abolished that procedure.
The other thing was a code of ethics. Tip established a commission
to write a code of ethics and Representative Dave Obey told me when
Members came to Tip and said, ``Tip, we have two versions--kind of a
soft one and a tough one. What do we go with?'' Tip said, ``The tough
one.'' Tip was linking that with a pay raise. By the way, the ethics
code did go through and it still exists today. So with that, I'd like to
ask the first question, if you don't mind, of Congressman Rostenkowski.
Please embroider a little bit on why would a Member of Congress, who has
a constituency and his own mind made up, and Tip would come over and put
that big arm around him and say, ``Can't you help us like a good
fella?'' And that's all he would say. Why would you then vote with Tip
O'Neill?
Mr. ROSTENKOWSKI. Well, we have to set the stage for that. We did
have a cushion. We had a lot more Democrats for a period of time,
certainly with Lyndon Johnson.
President Johnson could really work the room when it came to a whip
count. I think Tip credited Tom Foley and Danny Rostenkowski as probably
his best whip counters. Once you found out that a certain Member had a
problem with a particular vote, then you tried to figure out why. Was it
because he wanted something for his district, say a bridge? Was it
because he was mistreated by a chairman? Tip would do the groundwork and
then walk over the rail on the House floor and whisper in that
particular Member's ear, ``We're going to solve your problem. Now come
on, you've got to help us here. I mean, this is a Democratic vote. It
would be embarrassing for us not to pass it.'' And, with this big arm
around you, you'd cave. He had a natural, warm ability.
There are so many stories I could tell you about Tip as a person.
Tip O'Neill would enter a room with his ``God love you, darlin','' all
of a sudden, he'd take over the party. He was an empowering figure with
tremendous warmth. Every Democratic congressional campaign dinner, it
was Tip O'Neill's party, and you'd never leave that dinner without the
room joining him in singing the tune, ``Apple Blossom Time'' to his
lovely wife Millie. It was just a warm personality.
Mr. HYMEL. Thank you. Do we have any questions from the audience?
Mr. ROSTENKOWSKI. If I may I'd like to say one thing in response to
what my colleague has just pointed out. Over the years, Tip O'Neill
formed lasting friendships. One way he did this was that he honestly
believed that Members of Congress should visit overseas and that we
should have a legislative exchange with other countries. The most
outstanding congressional delegation trip that Tip O'Neill organized and
took was the one to Russia.
We were the first to be exposed to Gorbachev. Silvio Conte, myself,
Bob Michel, and Tip O'Neill sat with Mikhail Gorbachev. At that meeting
Mikhail Gorbachev suggested that we do this more often. You ought to
come here and visit us; we ought to come and visit you. We reported this
to President Reagan upon our return, and we told him we felt if there
was anybody in the leadership of the Soviet Union who was looking for
democracy, it might well be Mikhail Gorbachev. It was after that
congressional trip, which Tip O'Neill chaired, that we started to see a
so-called melting of the Iron Curtain. You can describe congressional
delegation visits however you want, but they are a very important
instrument in our democracy and friendship with other nations. Thank
you.
Mr. HYMEL. Anyone? Yes?
Question. Is there anyone in the House today like Speaker O'Neill?
Mr. ROSTENKOWSKI. The changing of the House of Representatives has
come so swiftly since I left it. I'm really not as close to the
membership as I'd like to be. I just don't know of anyone who has the
chemistry that Tip O'Neill had. Tip O'Neill, even as a liberal, had the
unique capacity to get votes from the southern Members of the Congress.
That's why he was able to work so well with people with very different
backgrounds, like Jim Wright.
With respect to electing Jim Wright the majority leader, Tip O'Neill
stayed as far away from that election as he possibly could because we
had Majority Whip John McFall, we had Representative Dick Bolling, we
had Representative Phil Burton in the race. Our plan was to get all the
McFall votes for Jim Wright on the second count. Tip would stay away
from that and, I think to his credit, when Jim Wright was elected the
majority leader, he was relieved that he had as stable an individual as
Jim Wright for the position. I don't know of anyone like Tip today, and
I don't know that the times are the same now as they were then. There's
a lot of hate in the air in the House of Representatives and that's a
sad thing.
Mr. HYMEL. Congressman Edwards.
Mr. EDWARDS. I was going to make the same point that Danny did at
the very end. I don't know the Democratic Members as well as I should
and I'm not sure that the times have changed for the better, but I think
it would be very hard for somebody with Tip's approach to bringing
people together and to lining up votes to succeed today. The balance
between the two parties is very close. Since 1980, there has been more
and more of a sharp divide between what the Democrats want to achieve
and what the Republicans want to achieve, so I'm not sure that's exactly
what's called for at this time.
But if I can tell a little story here. I went by to see David Obey,
who was chairman of the subcommittee of which I was the ranking member--
the Foreign Operations Subcommittee on Appropriations. I've always liked
Dave, and we were sitting and talking and he said to me, ``Mickey, it's
not the same anymore. They don't talk to us. They don't let us in. They
don't let us in on the decisions. It's all very partisan.'' And I said,
``No, Dave it's not different. You just weren't in the minority then.''
Mr. HYMEL. Jack, you want to respond?
Mr. FARRELL. I asked that question of Mike McCurry, who was then the
press secretary for President Clinton. Mike's theory at that time was it
would not happen again until conditions were such that ``all politics is
local'' was again important. You need politicians coming to Washington
whose basic connection with the voters was on the level of providing a
winter coat, or that had a gut feeling for what people were thinking.
And Mike said the Democratic Party is never going to be that Democratic
Party again until the day that we actually get together and meet at
bars, or we go out and we do car washes to raise money, like the Kiwanis
Club, or you bring it down once again to the party of $50 contributions.
So I would never say that Howard Dean has any kind of personality
like Tip O'Neill's. I don't know what it is that Howard Dean has tapped
out there in the country with his Internet fundraising, with the ``Move
On'' phenomenon, but it's interesting to me that what Mike forecast has
evolved from out of nowhere. Progressives on that side of the Democratic
Party are getting together and actually finding that it reinforces their
values, and they feel that they have a voice by doing this kind of
small-dollar fundraising that is coming back.
And for Democrats, it may be interesting to know that any Republican
fundraiser will tell you that they've had just huge success with small
donors and with making average people feel part of the cause. Whether or
not that would ever produce somebody of the kind of charismatic
personality of Tip would just be a roll of the dice.
Mr. HYMEL. Thank you Jack. One more thing from Congressman
Rostenkowski. That will wrap it up.
Mr. ROSTENKOWSKI. I don't mean to say to you that I believe Tip
O'Neill was totally unique. It was the time and I think also that Tip
was blessed with the fact that he had a Bob Michel as minority leader.
Because, from the day that we opened the session, we were legislators
and it was not a sin to compromise. If you compromised and you weren't
satisfied with all you got in the bill, you were coming back next year.
You were going to get a little more next year.
Those of us who had programs, and Tip O'Neill had programs, were
patient. We knew eventually that the social change would come. I believe
that had Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton listened the first year that
they initiated comprehensive health reform and done it incrementally, we
would today have had all we need as opposed to the dissent that's taking
place today in both the energy and the health bills.
Mr. HYMEL. Thank you very much for your attention.
?
Hon. James C. Wright, Jr., Speaker 1987-1989
The Wright Speakership
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Wright Speakership
Mr. OLESZEK. To start the Speaker Wright years, let me introduce the
moderator for this segment, and that is Janet Hook. She is the chief
congressional correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she
covered Capitol Hill for many, many years with Congressional Quarterly.
Ms. Hook won the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for superlative
congressional coverage. She is also a graduate of Harvard University and
the London School of Economics. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to
turn the podium over to Janet Hook.
Ms. HOOK. Thank you, Walter. Walter's right. I have been covering
Congress for a long time. In fact at the very beginning of my career
working for Congressional Quarterly, I covered Congress when Jim Wright
was Speaker. It was in covering Speaker Wright's House that I developed
my now long-term affection for covering Congress. I've found it to be a
stimulating and tumultuous place to cover. And I first learned those
lessons covering Speaker Wright.
Jim Wright's career in the House spanned more than a quarter-century
of great change in Congress, the country, and the speakership. When Jim
Wright first came to Congress, Eisenhower was President, Sam Rayburn was
Speaker of the House, and, at that point, the baby boom was just a bunch
of babies. When Wright left Congress in 1989, George Herbert Walker Bush
was President, baby boomers were running around the House, and the
challenge of running the House as Speaker was far greater, or maybe it
was just different, than it was for Sam Rayburn.
Jim Wright began his career in the Texas State legislature and as
mayor of Weatherford, Texas. He was elected to the House in 1954 and
quickly found his legislative home on the Public Works Committee. He
unexpectedly leapt into the House Democratic leadership in 1976 when he
was elected majority leader in a hotly contested race, which in the end
was decided by a one-vote margin. That put him in position to rise
without opposition to become House Speaker in 1987 after Tip O'Neill
retired.
Jim Wright's role as Speaker was far broader than just being head of
the House. He was, like Tip, the leader of a Democratic opposition to a
Republican President. And he left his stamp on more than just House
procedures. He left his stamp on policy, particularly on U.S. foreign
policy in Central America where he played a key role in fostering the
peace process that eventually settled a decade-long conflict in the
region. He left the speakership and the House in 1989 in the middle of a
politically charged ethics investigation of the sort that was becoming
quite common around that time. And it was a trend in American politics
that Speaker Wright denounced as ``mindless cannibalism'' in his last
memorable speech to the House. Speaker Wright returned to Texas where he
has pursued an active life in business, education, and writing. He's
mined his Washington experience in teaching a popular course at Texas
Christian University called ``Congress and the President.'' He's been
writing newspaper columns, reviewing books and lecturing, and we're glad
he could come here to talk to us about his years as Speaker.
After we hear from Speaker Wright, we will hear a Democratic
perspective on Wright's speakership from David Bonior, who served in the
House for 26 years and rose himself to the upper ranks of his party's
leadership. He was first elected in 1976 and represented a blue-collar
district in southeastern Michigan for all those years. And one of his
first big steps into leadership came during Jim Wright's era when Mr.
Bonior was named chief deputy whip. In 1991 he was elected majority whip
by the House Democratic Caucus. He retired from the House in 2002 to run
for Governor of Michigan. Since then he's served on the boards of
several public service organizations and he teaches labor studies now at
Wayne State University.
After we hear from Mr. Bonior, we will hear from the Republican side
of the aisle, from former Texas Congressman Tom Loeffler, who was in his
day David Bonior's counterpart in the House Republican leadership. He
was chief deputy whip when Bob Michel was the GOP leader, and he helped
to round up the votes in 1981 for Ronald Reagan's tax and spending
policies. After leaving the House in 1986, he worked in the Reagan White
House and with Speaker Wright on resolving the conflict in Central
America. He's gone on to found his own law and lobbying firm, and he's
continued to be active in Presidential and party politics. Let's start
with Speaker Wright.
Speaker WRIGHT. Thank you for that gracious introduction. I can't
begin without commenting about the thoroughly sentimental attachment I
have to this occasion, this day, here in this gracious room. It was
exactly 31 years ago today--on November 12, 1972--that I had the
wonderful honor to be married to Betty. And it was right here in this
room, by the grace of Speaker Carl Albert, that we had our wedding
reception.
This has been a marvelous, even celebratory, occasion for me. I hope
that our collective recollections will be beneficial to all of us here,
and to those who view them on C-SPAN or read of them in the published
transcript. Looking back in retrospect and rejoicing in remembered
incidents that some of us shared together reminds me that to be chosen
by one's colleagues to serve as Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives is probably the greatest honor and among the highest
responsibilities that anyone could bestow, and I shall always be
grateful for that enormous privilege. The speakership provides fully as
much challenge as any Speaker is prepared to accept. Over the years, the
office has been what changing times and individual occupants have made
of it.
Sam Rayburn was Speaker when I entered the House in 1955. He
impressed me enormously. It was from his example, no doubt, that I
formed my basic concept of a Speaker's role. Rayburn was an effective
leader. He saw national needs and made things happen. Under his
guidance, the legislative branch was more creative than passive. During
the Eisenhower Presidency, it initiated most of the domestic agenda.
Mr. Rayburn was a stickler for polite and civil debate. He taught
that a lawmaker's greatest asset was the ability to disagree without
being disagreeable. He insisted that Members treat one another with
courtesy and respect. ``The Speaker,'' said Rayburn, ``always takes the
word of a Member.'' In his mind, we all were gentlemen--and ladies were
ladies.
One illustration of the way Rayburn led is vivid in my mind. It was
1957, my second term in Congress. The Senate, for the first time since
Reconstruction days, voted cloture on a civil rights bill and passed it.
Throughout the Old South, including Texas, there erupted a cascade of
editorial and vocal outrage. Several hundred letters of bitter
denunciation flooded my office.
As the bill came to the House, Speaker Rayburn sent a page to ask me
to come to the podium and talk with him. He didn't cajole and didn't
threaten. I remember exactly what he said: ``Jim, I think you want to
vote for this bill. I'm sure you're getting hundreds of letters
threatening you with all manner of retribution if you do. But I believe
you're strong enough to overcome that, and I know you'll be proud in
future years that you did!'' As things turned out, he was right on all
four counts.
That's the way he led. He appealed to the best in us. Never to fear
or hate, or negative motivations. That's why I loved him. And that's why
I wanted to emulate him.
From this, and from my personal friendships with Speakers John
McCormack, Carl Albert and Tip O'Neill, I had developed over a period of
32 years an exalted view of the Speaker's role, maybe even an impossibly
demanding conception of what a Speaker should be able to achieve for the
country.
Four Policy Changes
Challenges beset every Speaker. Perhaps my most difficult balancing
act lay in trying to advance a progressive domestic agenda that I
thought important, over the active opposition of a popular and
determined President, while trying to bridge the gap between that
President and his severest critics in matters of foreign affairs.
As I prepared to assume the Speaker's office in January 1987, our
government faced three problems of critical proportions: a historic
budget deficit, a threatening trade deficit, and a growing social
deficit. I firmly believed that all three deserved active attention.
Before I could implement a plan to address these problems, a fourth
challenge arose. We were suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with a
shocking constitutional crisis whirling around the Iran-Contra
revelations. That news exploded on the public consciousness just 6 weeks
prior to my election as Speaker.
These four realities of the historic moment would shape the thrust
and direction of my 2\1/2\ years of tenure. Although clearly related,
each of these problems represented a separate challenge and required a
separate strategy.
What we were able to do was far from a one-man effort. I discussed
these problems daily with Majority Leader Tom Foley, wise and more
cautious than I; Majority Whip Tony Coelho, brilliant and creative; and
my newly appointed deputy whip, David Bonior, a man of forthright
convictions and trusted implicitly by our Members.
Budget Deficit
The budget deficit, unattended, could doom any serious effort to
come to grips with the other two deficits. In the past 6 years, we had
doubled military expenditures (from $148 billion in 1980 to
approximately $300 billion in 1986) while cutting taxes by approximately
$165 billion a year.
As a result, we had almost tripled the national debt. In 6 years it
had skyrocketed from slightly under $1 trillion to almost $3 trillion as
I took the Speaker's chair. The annual interest payments on the debt had
skyrocketed from about $50 billion in 1980 to some $150 billion,
draining away that much more money from our Government's commitments.
President Reagan, with all his winsome wit, inspiring charm and
unshakable faith in what he called ``supply side'' economics, actually
seemed to believe that we could double military spending, drastically
reduce taxes for the top brackets, and still balance the budget simply
by cutting ``waste, fraud and abuse'' in domestic programs.
Unfortunately, by 1987, the total elimination of all discretionary
domestic expenditures would not have balanced the budget. The President,
however, refused to agree to altering course. Obviously, if a change
were to come, Congress would have to take the initiative.
It seemed clear to me that the costly drift could not be arrested
except by a combination of three things: more revenues (translate
taxes), and cuts in both military and domestic expenditures. No one of
these three could attain the result alone. Most Members of Congress
recognized this truth, but convincing them that the public understood
and would applaud heroic action on the budgetary front was a major
challenge.
What is a Speaker to do? He sees the Treasury hemorrhaging but is
aware of his colleagues' nervousness about applying the only tourniquet
that will stop the bleeding.
I knew how hard it would be to patch together any budget resolution
that would pass the House, let alone one with real teeth in it. And the
country sorely needed serious increases in several vital domestic
programs.
Bill Gray of Pennsylvania was chairman of the Budget Committee and a
gifted ally. Articulate, knowledgeable and patient, he led the committee
with skill and understanding as its members worked and groped their way
toward a realistic plan. Several times, at his invitation, I came and
sat with them as they talked their way to a logical conclusion.
The resolution that emerged in mid-spring called for $36 billion in
actual deficit reduction, half of this in new taxes and half in spending
cuts. The $18 billion in reduced expenditures was divided evenly between
defense spending and domestic programs. This budget package passed the
House by a comfortable margin.
Congress still was a long way from achieving the goal, but we had
made a beginning. Ultimately, I would learn just how hard it was to pass
any tax bill with the White House adamantly opposed.
Trade Deficit
The trade deficit, as 1987 began, was only starting to command
serious public attention. It had already stretched its fingers deeply
into American pockets. Six years earlier, at the end of the seventies,
we were the world's biggest creditor nation. By the time I assumed the
speakership, our country had become the world's largest debtor. During
1986, Americans spent $175 billion more for goods from other countries
than we sold abroad in American-made products.
A growing number of forward-looking American business, labor and
academic leaders, alarmed by the trends they saw, had begun to ask for a
concerted national effort to stem the tide. Our role had reversed from
seller to buyer and from lender to borrower. We were borrowing from
other countries not only to finance our purchases from them but to
finance our national debt. More and more of our Government bonds, and
more and more private domestic assets were held by foreigners--land,
banks, factories, hotels, newspapers. We were like a family which used
to own the community bank but discovered suddenly that it no longer did
and owed more to the bank than any other family in town.
The Democratic Leadership Council held its annual conference in
Williamsburg, Virginia, on December 12, 1986. There I addressed the
trade issue--the need to improve America's competitive position by
enhancing productivity, reviving the level of industrial research,
modernizing factories, updating job skills, and tightening reciprocity
requirements in our trade agreements with other countries, to include
fair wages for workers who produced goods in bilateral trade.
Afterward, I had a long conversation with Lloyd Hand, former White
House Chief of Protocol. He and I went to see John Young who, along with
other business leaders, had in the past year at President Reagan's
request conducted an intensive study of the trade problem. The business
group issued a report, which they felt had been generally ignored.
At their encouragement, I began to explore the possibility of a
national conference on competitiveness to be attended by distinguished
specialists in the fields of business, labor and academia.
Eager that our efforts should be bipartisan, I talked personally
with House Republican Leader Bob Michel and Senate Minority Leader Bob
Dole, as well as with Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd. All agreed we
needed such a meeting, and we made up a broad list of invitees. We sent
out invitations to this blue ribbon list jointly in our four names.
This conference was scheduled for January 21, 1987, here in the
Cannon Caucus Room. I talked with Treasury Secretary Jim Baker and U.S.
Trade Representative Clayton Yuetter, inviting their attendance.
A week later the invitations went out to the selected cross section
of experts, and I discovered how difficult it would be to perfect a
truly bipartisan approach to the trade issue. Both Republican leaders,
Bob Michel and Bob Dole, called to tell me they were under heavy
pressure from Reagan administration officials to withdraw from formal
sponsorship of the event.
The White House may have felt that we needed no change in our trade
policies, or possibly it resented congressional efforts to take an
initiative. I was disappointed but not discouraged. It just meant we
would have to work that much harder to achieve bipartisan accord.
The conference took place as scheduled, attended by many Republican
and Democratic Members of each House. The panel of distinguished
authorities included corporate executives, union leaders, university
presidents, and academic specialists.
So broad was the range of their constructive suggestions--from
improved job training for America's work force to a renewal of business
incentives for modernizing America's aging industrial plants, from
antitrust enforcement to renegotiation of copyright and intellectual
property rights agreements--that I knew it would require the active
cooperation of at least 12 House committees.
On the next day, I hosted a luncheon for House committee chairmen in
the Speaker's private dining room. In the first 2 weeks of the session,
the House, at my urging, had already passed a clean water bill and a
highway bill by votes easily big enough to override vetoes. We had begun
committee hearings on the first major bill to provide help for the
homeless. A spirit of ebullience prevailed. We discussed the agenda for
the year, the bills which would comprise our effort to surmount the
three deficits. One famous first: committee chairmen all accepted
specific deadlines for having their bills ready for floor action.
On the trade bill I promised to respect each committee's turf by
assigning separate titles of a composite work to the committees that had
jurisdiction over the varied segments. Chairmen Dan Rostenkowski of Ways
and Means, John Dingell of Commerce, Jack Brooks of Judiciary, and Kika
de la Garza of Agriculture each promised to give top priority to their
segments of this important centerpiece of our common agenda.
Five days later, following President Reagan's State of the Union
Message, Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd and I divided the 30 minutes
allotted by the television networks for the Democratic response. Senator
Byrd addressed foreign and military affairs and I the domestic policy
agenda.
From the cascade of mail and spontaneous telephoned response, I knew
within days that we had struck a vital nerve with the public and could
count on a lot of popular support if we stuck with our promises.
Eager for a bipartisan approach, I invited leading Democrats and
Republicans from 12 House committees to sit together around the tables
in the Speaker's dining room and discuss ways to improve our Nation's
trade balance. We agreed to incorporate the best ideas from our several
sources into an omnibus bill and to schedule it for action in the House
on April 28.
This omnibus bill, H.R. 3, passed the House with Democratic and
Republican support by the preponderant vote of 290 to 137. H.R. 3
represented the most important trade legislation since the thirties. The
Senate held the bill under consideration for more than a year, altering
and fine tuning several of its provisions, before finally passing it
largely intact in the summer of 1988.
One provision, requiring advance notification to the workers before
summarily shutting down an American plant, drew the ire of President
Reagan. He vetoed the big bill, protesting that such a requirement had
no place in trade legislation.
We probably could have overridden his veto. To avoid conflict, we
simply removed that provision, made it into a separate bill, and then
reenacted both bills simultaneously without changing so much as a comma.
President Reagan signed the two bills. What mattered to us was the
result, not winning a partisan fight with the President by overriding
his veto.
Social Deficit
The social deficit--a growing backlog of human problems and unmet
social needs here in our country--presented a different challenge
entirely. As hard as I tried to promote consensus on issues of
international trade, I knew it would be futile to try to conciliate the
position of the congressional majority on social policy with that of the
Reagan administration. Too wide a gulf separated us.
Since the Reagan budget amendments and tax cuts of 1981, a lot of
Americans at the bottom of the economic spectrum had fallen through the
safety net. For the first time since the thirties, an army of homeless
people had begun to appear on America's streets.
The level of funding had been cut for education and civilian
research. Several years of underinvestment had begun to rip holes in our
social fabric. There'd been a slow deterioration of America's public
infrastructure--the roads, bridges, airports, dams, navigable waterways,
underground pipes--all that lifeline network of public facilities on
which Americans depend. The cities of America, and their problems, were
being ignored.
Since 1980 our annual investment in America--public services such as
education, transportation, law enforcement, environmental protection,
housing and public health--those things that tend to make life better
for the average citizen--had declined by about one-fourth.
Something else, new and alien to the American experience, was
beginning to appear--the disturbing phenomenon of downward mobility. For
the first time since polling entered the American scene, a majority of
Americans were saying they did not expect their children to enjoy as
good a standard of living as they, themselves, had enjoyed.
As Kevin Phillips would point out in his book, The Politics of Rich
and Poor, the gap between rich and poor was widening, thanks in
considerable part to the conscious economic policies of the past 6
years--less for student loans to improvident youngsters, more breaks for
upper-income taxpayers.
Our spending priorities during the eighties, I was convinced, had
been badly skewed. A big majority of the Democrats in Congress were
eager to begin a reversal of the 6-year trend, to restore some of the
necessary social underpinnings. There was evidence that the public
supported this objective. Polls showed that 62 percent of the people
rated the economy ``not so good'' or ``poor'' and 72 percent believed
Congress must do more for the homeless, for affordable housing and
educational opportunities.
As Speaker, I felt a strong obligation to set in motion a reversal
of the trends that were moving so rapidly toward the concentration of
America's wealth into fewer hands. This meant confronting the
administration directly on a wide range of domestic priorities. Tom
Foley, Tony Coelho, David Bonior, and I agreed that we would have to
begin with a few identifiable and achievable objectives.
Getting the Congress and the public to focus on these specific
objectives was the challenge. In my State of the Union response in
January 1987, I named six action priorities. We had reserved low bill
numbers to identify these agenda items. One year later, at the beginning
of 1988, I was able to give a televised progress report. The clean water
bill, the highway bill and the trade reform bill were H.R. 1, 2, and 3,
respectively. Each was passed on schedule and each prevailed over a
Presidential veto.
Additionally, we passed the first bill to provide help for volunteer
groups offering shelters and meals for the homeless, and the first
important expansion of Medicare for catastrophic illnesses, a bill which
later would be repealed in a fight over funding. We increased amounts
for college student aid. We authorized a massive effort to combat drugs,
and this omnibus bill, like the trade bill, was crafted and passed with
bipartisan sponsorship and support.
In 1988, for the first time in more than 40 years, Congress passed
all thirteen major appropriation bills and delivered them to the
President for signing into law before the start of the new fiscal year.
The public responded enthusiastically to this activist schedule.
Polls showed the American people were giving Congress higher job ratings
than they had done in many years.
Of the first three, overriding challenges, the 100th Congress made
good on two of them--the trade deficit and the social deficit. On those,
Congress may have earned an A-.
We did less well on the budget. While the House passed a budget
resolution cutting the fiscal deficit by an appreciable amount and also
pushed through by a hard-fought one-vote margin a reconciliation bill to
carry out that objective, that level of deficit reduction, particularly
as it involved taxes, could not be sustained in the Senate.
Our House budget resolution had called for a net deficit reduction
of $38 billion. We had divided this figure equally among military
expenditures, domestic expenditures, and selective reductions in the
Reagan tax breaks of 1981 for some of America's most affluent citizens.
The House reconciliation bill remained true to this pattern, and
confronted me with the most legislatively confounding day of my
speakership. That day was mentioned in the prior discussion segment.
Looking back, I am not sure I made the right or wisest personal
judgments that day.
That was the first and only time in my speakership when our system
of vote counters failed us. Their composite report had showed we could
pass the rule for the reconciliation bill. To my great surprise, we lost
the vote on the rule. The unexpected controversy involved inclusion in
the bill of some reforms in the welfare system that many Members thought
should be handled as a separate bill. They prevailed, and the rule went
down.
Ordinarily, this would have meant we would have to wait for the next
legislative day to consider an amended rule. Meanwhile, the news media
would have had 24 hours in which to trumpet the news that the House,
confronted with the tough decisions on taxes and the budget, had been
unable to face up to the hard choices.
Eager to forestall that, I adjourned the House and reconvened it a
few minutes later. Technically, we now were in a second legislative day
and could take up an amended rule and the bill, dropping the one
disputed provision to be handled separately, on its own.
That was legal, but it was a rarely used tactic. A good number of my
Republican colleagues thought my decision heavyhanded. Maybe it was. To
make matters worse, later that afternoon, on the final passage of the
reconciliation bill, there was a [one vote--205 to 206--defeat of a
deficit reduction bill.] Told that Democrats Marty Russo of Illinois and
George Miller of California, who were recorded ``no,'' had changed their
minds and were returning from the House Office Building to change their
votes, I held the vote open for about 10 minutes to accommodate them.
And their changed votes, of course, would have resolved the vote in the
affirmative. They didn't return.
Just as I was about to rap the gavel and declare that the bill had
failed of passage, Democrat Jim Chapman of Texas did return. He went to
the well of the House and changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.'' That
flipped the margin. That vital reconciliation bill passed by that one
vote!
But the way I had handled it provoked a storm of protest among the
minority. Trent Lott, for one, hit the back of a seat so hard with his
open hand that I supposed he'd broken it. Others, too, were quite angry.
The bottom line is that what I'd done that day did not contribute to
harmonious relations. Although the maneuvers were legal and in keeping
with the rules, my mind was too determined, my attitude too insistent. I
believe that I offended a number of my Republican colleagues. I won the
vote but sacrificed a more precious commodity--good will. In the end, it
wasn't worth it. If that day were to do over again, I like to think I'd
do it differently.
Our ultimate performance on the budget was impressive only in the
sense that it kept things from getting much worse. Maybe we deserve only
a C+ on the budget. Maybe a B+ overall.
As Speaker, I spent a large piece of my political capital in the
effort to make the tax burden fall more fairly, only to discover that I
had overmatched myself!
Any tax bill, I learned to my dismay, was virtually unattainable
absent the President's agreement. It takes two-thirds to override
vetoes. We simply could not get public opinion focused clearly on the
issue of tax fairness and the unambiguous fact that, without more taxes
from somebody, the budget can never be balanced. Having failed to draw
that issue sharply enough, I believe my leadership was just not quite
equal to that particular challenge.
Iran-Contra
One major challenge remained--to head off the constitutional crisis
brewing over the newly revealed Iran-Contra scandal, and to settle the
bitterly divisive issue of our covert involvement in Central American
wars.
On three occasions, Congress had voted to discontinue all military
assistance to the Contras attempting to overthrow Nicaragua's
Government. In the previous year, we had voted to ban the selling of any
weapons to Iran.
Now we learned that a secret group, operating out of the White
House, had contrived, contrary to these laws, to sell U.S. weapons to
Iran. Perpetrators had turned over the proceeds, without notifying
anyone in Congress, to the military forces trying to overthrow
Nicaragua's Government. President Reagan vowed that he had not known
personally of this, and I wanted ardently to believe him.
This was the most shocking revelation since the Watergate burglary
and coverup. At least four laws--the National Security Act, the Arms
Export Control Act, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, and
the Anti-Terrorism Act--had been blatantly violated.
So flagrant was the flouting of law that a hot volcanic lava of
anger began boiling inside the Congress. First whispers, the audible
demands for impeachment proceedings growled in private conversations
wherever Democratic Members met. Congress was out of session when the
shocking news broke, but pressure was building. Soon word leaked out
that Lt. Col. Oliver North was systematically shredding all written
evidence relating to the illicit adventure before Congress could
reconvene and subpoena the documents. This fanned the flames to a higher
intensity.
This situation had explosive potential. During December, several
House committee and subcommittee chairmen contacted me, each wanting to
schedule hearings on some separate facet of the big story, which
dominated Washington news that month. Without a clear sense of
direction, the new Congress could degenerate into a ten-ring circus as
committees vied with one another for sensational confrontations with
various officials of the executive branch.
The last thing we needed was an impeachment outcry, or a frontal
challenge to the President's personal integrity. Like other Members and
millions of private citizens, I had agonized through the long weeks in
1973 that led to the impeachment hearing on President Nixon, culminating
in his resignation. I wanted no repeat of that scenario. The country
could ill afford it.
Determined that all of the pertinent facts must be disclosed in a
dignified way, preserving the congressional authority without
precipitating a full scale constitutional crisis, I met with Senate
Majority Leader Robert Byrd. He felt exactly as I did. We saw no
national purpose to be served by embarrassing the President personally.
Jointly, we announced that there would be one congressional hearing
on the subject, not several. It would be a joint meeting of select House
and Senate committees. Senator Byrd and I would appoint Democratic
Members; Minority Leaders Michel and Dole would select Republican
Members.
Anxious to protect the credibility and prestige of the special
select committee, I very carefully chose the most respected authorities
I could find: Chairmen Peter Rodino of Judiciary, Jack Brooks of
Government Operations, Dante Fascell of Foreign Affairs, Les Aspin of
Armed Services, and Louis Stokes of Intelligence.
To signal the importance I attached to this mission, I asked House
Majority Leader Tom Foley to serve as my personal representative and
appointed Edward P. Boland to the panel, the principal author of several
of the laws that had been violated. And I told each of them personally
that I thought it would be a disservice to the Nation if anyone
mentioned the word ``impeachment.''
I thought a long while before choosing a chairman for the whole
group and finally settled on Lee Hamilton of Indiana, ranking member of
the Foreign Affairs Committee and former chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee. He had a reputation for objectivity and a
judicious, non-inflammatory manner. I did not want the hearing to be, or
even seem to be, a witch hunt. As much as I disagreed with Mr. Reagan on
domestic priorities, I disapproved anyone with a private agenda of
personally embarrassing the President. To complete my list of
appointees, I named Ed Jenkins of Georgia, a good country lawyer. I was
not trying to prejudge the committee's findings. I was trying to
moderate their explosive potential to split the country apart.
Senator Byrd also chose a responsible panel. He and I agreed that,
to the extent of our ability to influence it, the hearing must not smack
of partisanship. It would be open to the media and nationally televised.
Byrd's chairman, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, was ideally suited by
temperament and conviction for his role. His demeanor was calm and
rational. He and Hamilton did their best to be impartial and
scrupulously fair to Republican colleagues appointed by Dole and Michel
and to hold down temptations to inflammatory rhetoric.
Hamilton wanted to agree in advance to an arbitrary date to
terminate the proceedings. Otherwise, he argued, they could go virtually
forever to the detriment of other business. He also proposed giving
limited immunity from prosecution to induce testimony from Lt. Col.
North, the individual most involved in handling a number of the details
of the covert transaction. At least two of the House panelists privately
protested, but a majority agreed to back the chairman's decision. As it
turns out, this may have compromised the efforts of the special
prosecutor, Lawrence E. Walsh. But our overriding concern in the
congressional leadership, frankly, was less in embarrassing the
administration and sending people to jail than in getting at the truth,
maintaining the Nation's equilibrium, emphasizing the rule of law, and
avoiding a bloody constitutional confrontation.
Additionally, I felt that we had to heal the malingering wound that
had festered for 5 years over our country's secret and sometimes illegal
sponsorship of the gory attempts to overthrow the Nicaraguan Government
by force of arms. More than 100,000 people had died in Nicaragua and El
Salvador. Congress itself had been closely divided, vacillating between
funding and rebuffing President Reagan's demands for military aid to the
Contras.
In July 1987, my friend and former colleague, Tom Loeffler, came by
my office to inform me that he had been appointed by the President as an
emissary to Congress. We talked about Central America. I told him I
thought the Iran-Contra revelations had destroyed any chance of the
President's getting renewed funding to resume the war.
Tom Loeffler was already a good friend, a fellow Texan, and I
trusted his word implicitly. He suggested something entirely new and
different: That as Speaker I join President Reagan in a bipartisan
initiative for peace. We would jointly call on the Central American
nations to negotiate settlements in Nicaragua and El Salvador based on a
cease-fire, political amnesty for those who had been in revolt, and free
elections to resolve the issues in dispute by popular will. In other
words, ballots instead of bullets, with assurances of U.S. support.
That idea appealed strongly to me. After talking with the White
House, Republican House leaders, and the bipartisan Senate leadership, I
was encouraged. Some of my fellow Democrats were skeptical of the
President's intentions, but most felt I should take the risk if there
were a chance it could lead to peace. I talked also with Secretary of
State George Shultz, who was instructed by President Reagan to work with
me in the drafting of a joint statement.
Before formally agreeing, however, I wanted to test the waters in
Central America. I had personal conversations with Presidents Duarte of
El Salvador and Arias of Costa Rica. Both of them rejoiced at the
prospect. They believed a united propeace front in Washington could lead
to a series of negotiated settlements throughout Central America and end
the bloodshed.
House Republican Leader Bob Michel and I asked Nicaraguan Ambassador
Carlos Tunnermann to meet with us in the Capitol to probe the Nicaraguan
Government's probable response to such an initiative as we had in mind.
``What would it take,'' we asked, ``for your country to get rid of Cuban
and Russian military personnel, live in peace with your neighbors and
restore the constitutional freedoms of your people that were suspended
in the emergency law?''
Tunnermann answered that his government would be quite willing to do
all of these things if we would simply ``stop financing the invasion''
of Nicaragua.
The President and I jointly issued the call for a regional cease-
fire, and peace negotiations on August 5, just 2 days before the five
Central American Presidents were to meet in conference in Esquipulas,
Guatemala.
The result was better than I had dared hope. The Costa Rican
Ambassador called me from the conference site to report the happy news
that all five Presidents had entered a formal agreement embodying almost
all the elements of the Wright-Reagan plan. The principal architect of
the Esquipulas accord was President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica. For this
work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
At my invitation, Arias stopped off on his way through Washington in
September and addressed the House. Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan Government
appointed a peace commission, opened newspapers and radio stations that
had been shut down, offered amnesty to those who had made war against
the government, and invited them to participate in the political process
including truly free elections, which ultimately would be held in 1990.
The same amnesty procedure was going on under Duarte's direction in El
Salvador. I was on cloud nine! From my point of view, everything was on
track.
At about this point, I discovered that the White House was far from
happy with the turn events had taken. While I fully expected our joint
statement to stimulate the movement toward peace, President Reagan's
advisors apparently anticipated refusal by the Nicaraguan Government to
comply. Negative comments emanating from the White House gradually made
it clear to me that highly placed people in the administration did not
actually want a peacefully negotiated settlement in Nicaragua. They
fully expected the talks to end in acrimony so they could use the
``failure'' of the attempted peace efforts as a justification for
renewing the war.
This confronted me with a moral dilemma. At the urging of the
administration, I had joined in the bipartisan call for peace. Overjoyed
at the initial success of our efforts, I had met, at the White House's
request, with leaders of the Contra directorate. Most of them, I saw,
had faith in the peace effort. I also met with the Sandinista leaders
whenever they came to my office. I was convinced that most Nicaraguans
on both sides were eager for peace. But some bitterness lingered.
Someone, aside from me, had to be a go-between, an honest broker who
could bring the two sides together. Ideally, a Nicaraguan.
The only Nicaraguan fully trusted by both factions, I had learned
from trips I'd taken to the region, was Catholic Cardinal Miguel Obando
y Bravo. Responsible people in both camps agreed that he was the one to
monitor the cease-fire and help arbitrate the differences. As Speaker
and co-author of the call for peace, I met with the cardinal, whom I
knew personally, at the papal nuncio's office in Washington, on November
13, 1987, and encouraged him to undertake that critical role. He agreed,
and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, at my personal urging, agreed to
give the cardinal a free hand.
The White House, bitterly resentful of my efforts in helping to keep
the peace process on track, began attacking me angrily in the press. The
President and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams considered my
endeavors intrusive and presumptuous. Perhaps they were. But having
committed myself in good faith to the effort to make peace, I was
unwilling to be a party to its deliberate unraveling or allow that
result if I could prevent it. Too many lives already had been lost. As a
percentage of Central America's population, their war dead would equate
to something like 5 million Americans--more than we have lost in all of
our wars combined.
On two occasions--in December 1987 and February 1988--the
President's forces tried to forsake the peace process altogether and
revive the war by renewing military aid for the Contras. On both
occasions, a majority in Congress voted down the request. At my personal
urging, Congress did appropriate funds for humanitarian assistance--
food, clothing, shelter and medical needs--for the Contra forces during
the cease-fire.
As a consequence of my unwillingness to abandon the effort I had
helped set in motion, I became a target for many personal attacks, both
in the conservative press and from some of my Republican colleagues in
Congress. It is ironic that, in bringing peace to Central America, I
unconsciously drove a wedge between myself and the congressional
minority, which ultimately inhibited my capacity to promote consensus on
other issues.
In retrospect, I firmly believe I did the right thing. We ended the
war and brought democracy to the region. One of the unavoidable
challenges of the speakership is determining when the end result is
worth risking one's own popularity, perhaps even one's moral authority,
with a segment of the membership. I do regret my inability to make peace
between Democrats and Republicans over this issue. Perhaps a more
cautious, more sensitive, more understanding person could have done
that.
Shortly before the inauguration of the first President George Bush,
the new President-elect and I had a long personal visit over lunch in my
office--just the two of us. We explored the areas in which we could find
agreement--including Central America and a balanced budget.
It was March 1989, with George Bush's blessing, that Secretary of
State James Baker and I, along with others of both parties in the
congressional leadership, issued a second statement which clearly
disavowed the use of American-supported military force, and put all the
influence of the United States behind the peace negotiation. This
culminated in the free and fair election from which Violetta Chamorro
emerged on February 25, 1990, as President of Nicaragua. In a broad
sense, the fourth goal of my speakership was attained, but its
attainment used up almost all that remained of my political capital.
What we did achieve is a result of the unstinting cooperation of
many dedicated and cooperative Members. I am indebted to Minority Leader
Bob Michel, as is the country, for his unstinting patriotism and his
personal kindness. I could have done nothing as Speaker without the
active advice and support of Tom Foley, Tony Coelho, David Bonior, and a
host of others too numerous to name here.
Today, almost 14 years after retiring from Congress, I look back in
amazement and look forward in hope, grateful to have been one of those
few privileged to serve our country in this capacity, and hopeful that
my colleagues and I may have contributed something worthwhile to the
ongoing success of the dream that is America.
Ms. HOOK. Thank you very much Speaker Wright. And now we'll hear
from David Bonior.
Mr. BONIOR. Good morning. How wonderful it is to be back with so
many friends to share our experiences and to listen to those who were at
the helm. Let me also express my thanks to the Congressional Research
Service, the Carl Albert Research and Studies Center at Oklahoma
University, and the McCormick Tribune Foundation for their commitment to
the study of Congress and, in particular, the speakerships we recognize
and we celebrate today.
In February 1999, I was accorded the honor of representing the House
of Representatives at the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan and the U.S.
delegation was led by President Clinton but it also included former
Presidents Ford, Carter, and Bush. As we waited in a very ornate palace
room for the funeral procession to begin, an aide entered the room and
announced for all to hear, ``Mr. President it is time to proceed.'' I
could not help but notice at the words ``Mr. President'' that all four
Presidents, as well as their staffs, moved forward. Despite the somber
nature of our roles that day, I was moved by the historic moment of
being with four Presidents--two Democrats, two Republicans. It was a
remarkable feeling. It was an affirmation of our democracy and I feel
that very same way today. It is such a privilege to participate in this
conference.
With wisdom and enthusiasm, Speaker Wright has just shared with us
his speakership. What I would like to do is comment upon his speakership
first by offering some thoughts about Jim Wright the man. Second, I want
to make some observations about the historic 100th Congress which he led
so magnificently. Finally, I want to reflect upon the role he played as
we have just heard in bringing about peace in Central America.
First, Jim Wright the man. Jim Wright has always had a commitment to
ideas, often big ideas. And his ideas spring from a rigorous
intellectual foundation. A serious thinker, a prolific writer, Jim
Wright is a man of letters--a wordsmith, an author of many books and
articles. He is a literary man. Jim Wright loves history and he
understands well the prerogatives accorded the Congress under our
Constitution. Like Senator Robert C. Byrd, Jim Wright appreciated our
Founding Fathers' fear of granting excessive power to the Executive. He
was a steadfast champion of the institutional power assigned to the
Congress. A serious student of Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, Jim
Wright could also expound upon the ideas of Henry Clay to whom some
scholars have favorably compared you.
Proverbs advise us that where there is no vision the people perish.
Drawing from his broad historical perspective, Jim Wright had a vision
and the ability and the will to pursue that vision. He rejected the
notion that the President proposes and the Congress disposes. Rather, he
believed as John Barry so very ably illustrated in his book The Ambition
and the Power that Congress is a body which can initiate, a creative
body which can lead.
The columnist Murray Kempton once observed about Walt Reuther that
Walt Reuther is the only man I have ever met who could reminisce about
the future. Well, I would likewise add Jim Wright. Jim Wright had an
unusual wisdom about the connectivity of our past and present to our
future, and he was famously determined and forceful in pursuing that
future. A plaque in his Capitol office read, ``Don't tell me it can't be
done. Show me how it can.'' He's always been a doer. And to be a
successful doer requires toughness. It requires daring qualities, which
marked his tenure as Speaker.
Jim Wright was smart enough and tough enough and daring enough to
take advantage of rule changes both in the Democratic Caucus and in the
House of Representatives. You may recall that the newly elected
Democratic Congress classes of 1974 and 1976 shifted powers away from
committee chairs and put them on notice that the caucus would not
tolerate separate committee fiefdoms at the expense of the caucus or the
House. The days of autocratic rule by the likes of Judge Howard Smith
(D-VA), on the Rules Committee, were over. The stage was set for a
Speaker to centralize power and to move a coordinated agenda forward.
That reality, however, would await the election of Jim Wright as Speaker
of the House in 1986. As the labor scholar Taylor Dark wrote, ``Speaker
Wright successfully concentrated power taking advantage of the
previously unrealized potential of congressional reforms of the previous
decade.''
Together with his loyal and dedicated staff, Speaker Wright
assembled a team which I was proud to be a part of, including Tom Foley,
Tony Coelho, Danny Rostenkowski, Dick Gephardt and others. We initiated.
It was the right time. The stars were aligned. President Reagan's
Presidency had lost the momentum of its last 2 years. The Democrats had
just regained the Senate and we had picked up seats in the House of
Representatives. For 40 years Jim Wright had prepared for this
opportunity. The previous 10 years were spent as a loyal majority leader
to Speaker Tip O'Neill's team. Seneca once said, ``Loyalty is the
holiest good in the human heart.'' Leader Jim Wright had shown that
loyalty to Tip O'Neill. Now, in turn, Tom Foley, Tony Coelho, and myself
would demonstrate a similar loyalty to Speaker Wright as he inspired us
with his passion and with his enthusiasm.
And so we turn to the 100th Congress. In Jim Wright we had a
populist and an egalitarian as our Speaker. Seizing the moment, he
crafted an agenda that resulted in one of the most productive Congresses
in the history of the country. As the Speaker himself has recounted for
us all, parts of the legislative machine were finely tuned so that when
he started the engine in January 1987, our agenda would take off.
In preparation, Jim Wright gathered the committee chairs. He said he
would be fair with them but that certain priority bills must be reported
and reported on schedule. And, I'll tell you, I remember that meeting--
the first one--with each chairperson taking the measure of their new
leader knowing he was tough. There was no doubt about his expectations.
Yes, these committee chairs would parent their legislation, but they
would work with a progressive whip operation.
As a member of the Rules Committee appointed by Speaker Tip O'Neill,
I knew where my responsibility to the caucus rested, in my appointment
by the Speaker. Speaker Wright requested a meeting with each Democratic
Rules Committee member, individually seeking their interest in serving
another term and clearly conveying his expectations. This unprecedented
process was another expression of Speaker Wright's determination to get
off to a quick start.
Beside Speaker Wright, Tom Foley had the most experience in our
leadership ascending from whip to majority leader. He was a generous
source of counsel in helping us navigate the rules and the precedents
and the substance and the politics. And, of course, Tony Coelho brought
enormous talents to our whip operation, which met with stunning success
especially in the early months. As effective as Speaker Wright was
within the institution, he was equally impressive in rallying the
support of the outside. You've got to have an inside and an outside.
A very close relationship existed between Jim Wright and the AFL-
CIO, especially Lane Kirkland, its president; and Bob McLaughton, its
chief lobbyist on the Hill. The AFL-CIO saw the 100th Congress as a
moment of opportunity. Kirkland appointed McLaughton, an African-
American, and Peggy Taylor as his assistants, adding much diversity to
their operation. In addition, three important international unions
during the eighties returned to the AFL-CIO: the UAW, the Mineworkers,
and the Teamsters. A valuable symbiotic relationship developed. Our
leadership would reinforce the concerns of labor and working people. The
AFL-CIO would, in turn, support a broad array of issues. So there was
born a process of effective cooperation between Capitol Hill and the
``House of Labor'' on 16th Street. Bob McLaughton was able to speak
forcibly for a united labor movement and their growing army of lobbyists
on the Hill. Indeed, his virtual authority to make a deal on the spot
was crucial to our effectiveness in moving bills quickly and
successfully.
So no one in our caucus would mistake our priorities, Speaker
Wright, as he has just illustrated for us, reserved the first several
House bill numbers for the clean water bill, the highway bill, and the
omnibus trade bill. During the first 2 weeks, we passed the clean water
bill and the highway bill by enough votes to overcome a Presidential
veto. A few months later H.R. 3, the most significant trade bill since
the thirties, passed by a vote of 290 to 137, again enough to override a
veto. We inserted one of the most important labor provisions that the
Congress would enact in the eighties--the plant closing and notification
bill--into that trade bill, which Reagan vetoed in May 1988. We also
reported out the plant and notification bill separate from the trade
bill, and they both went to the President and became law. In 1981 the
AFL-CIO's rate of success in the House of Representatives during the
Reagan Presidency was 47 percent. Under Jim Wright, it went up to 92.8
percent in 1988.
In addition, the 100th Congress passed into law major bills to aid
the homeless, the first important expansion of Medicare for catastrophic
illnesses, and a welfare reform bill with progressive features to move
people from welfare to work. Amazingly, the Congress also passed all 13
major appropriation bills and delivered them to the President for
signing into law before the start of the new fiscal year.
There were sure to be some legislative disappointments for Speaker
Wright. When the budget deficit exploded out of control, as he has just
recounted for us, Speaker Wright early on in our caucus pushed hard for
tax fairness. But in his own words, he admitted, and I quote, ``I spent
a large piece of my political capital in the effort to make the tax
burden fall more fairly only to discover that I had over-matched
myself.''
Well, many also thought that he had overmatched himself in
challenging President Reagan in Central America, but his critics
underestimated Jim Wright's passion for peace. He was not about to
surrender his constitutional responsibilities. The right to declare war,
as written in Article I of the Constitution, rested with the Congress.
Henry Clay, who became Speaker in 1811, was the last Speaker to dominate
foreign policy. Too many subsequent decades of congressional
acquiescence had accompanied American foreign policy, none more
devastating and misplaced than during the Indo-China war in the sixties
and seventies.
A new crop of Vietnam generation legislators increased the
congressional role in foreign affairs from enacting the War Powers
Resolution to an aggressive human rights advocacy campaign. With the
Contra war and the war in El Salvador ravaging Central America, claiming
some 100,000 deaths, some of us were not going to tolerate it in silence
or without a legislative fight. The previous legislative abdication had
lasted 16 years and cost over 58,000 American lives and over 1 million
Vietnamese lives.
Ronald Reagan gave more speeches on Nicaragua than on any other
issue of his Presidency. During the eighties, we had 15 major debates on
the House floor on this contentious issue, voting three times to cut off
all military assistance to the Contras. Secretary of State Jim Baker
accurately noted, and I quote, ``The war in Central America was the Holy
Grail for both the left and the right in the United States. It was the
divisive foreign policy issue.'' Personally, I sometimes felt as if I
spent more time in Managua and San Jose and San Salvador than in my own
district.
The Reagan doctrine and the Monroe Doctrine were colliding with
self-determination and with liberation theology. The mix was volatile
and deadly and the region had spun out of control. Into this maelstrom
stepped Jim Wright. Once again he was the right person at the right
time. He spoke Spanish. He was a student of the region. He personally
knew the leaders. Speaker Wright has told us how he proceeded--the
meetings with Ambassador Tunnermann; the Wright-Reagan plan; the
Esquipulas accord; our meeting with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo; our
continued fight to keep military aid from the Contras; our furious work
to wind this all down while we had the momentum.
Before I close permit me to share one personal story that I'm sure
Tom Loeffler will elaborate on. When Tom came to see the Speaker about a
joint peace proposal, I was adamantly set against it. I did not trust
the administration. I thought it was another setup that would fail and
when it did the floodgates for more military aid would open up. I
strenuously pressed my point of view in a very emotionally charged
meeting. Finally, the Speaker said to me, ``People who are interested in
peace do something about it.'' I paused. I thought. I reflected. I went
along.
While I had lost faith in the administration, I had not lost faith
in Speaker Wright. It became my job, along with Tom Foley and others, to
sell the proposal to our caucus. You know, sometimes you just have to
take a chance for peace. You do not make peace with your friends. You
make peace with your enemies. This lesson I learned from Jim Wright. In
a handwritten ``thank you'' to Jim Wright, Secretary Baker wrote, ``But
for you there would have been no bipartisan accord, without which there
would have been no election.''
President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize, which many believe should have been shared with Jim Wright,
included in his ``thank you'' to Speaker Wright the following, and I
quote, ``Those [who advocated] peace will not forget you and thank you
for your vision and your deep commitment to the highest ideals of
justice, peace, and progress. The Esquipulas II process finally moved
forward and is showing visible results for 28 million Central
Americans.'' President Arias continued, ``The Wright-Reagan plan, the
bipartisan agreement between the Congress and the Executive, and finally
the change in policy of the Bush Administration toward Central America
are a testimony and confirmation that you were not mistaken. In truth,
you did more for us in Central America than many of those who here call
themselves standard-bearers of freedom. I feel that it has been a
privilege to know you. Count me among your friends,'' concluded
President Arias.
Wallace Stegner, one of our greatest American writers, wrote of
friendship in his fine novel, Crossing to Safety. He said this about
friendship. ``Friendship is a relationship that has no formal shape.
There are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or families.
It is held together by neither law, nor property, nor blood. There is no
glue in it but mutual liking. It is therefore rare.'' Jim Wright is my
dear friend. He has many friends in this room and around the country and
around the world. He has done marvelous good deeds in his life. With a
lust for life, he continues to live productively contributing to the
public dialog, teaching at TCU, enjoying his many friends and family.
John Barry captured my intense respect and admiration for Jim Wright's
speakership with these words, ``The ambition belongs to many men but
none more than Jim Wright. He would use the 100th Congress of the United
States, convened during the Bicentennial anniversary of the Constitution
to earn his place in history. He would rise up and fill the sky with
lightning bolts and he would become a target for them.''
Mr. Speaker, it was a high honor to be part of your team. Bless you
and Betty for your extraordinary service to our country.
Ms. HOOK. Thank you very much, Mr. Bonior. And now we'll hear from
Tom Loeffler.
Mr. LOEFFLER. Thank you, Janet. It is an honor for me to be included
amongst this distinguished group, and to be able to share my
observations concerning an individual I admire and respect, Speaker Jim
Wright. I'm delighted to appear with David Bonior. In one of the
highlights of Jim's career, David's career, and my post-House career, we
were able to work together to bring about something that was
extraordinary given the political climate of the time. In a moment, I
will go into more detail on the remarkable achievement, which would
never have been possible without the leadership of Speaker Wright.
As a Texan fresh out of law school and new to Washington, D.C., I
had the great opportunity to grow up under the tutelage of Senator John
Tower. I also had the privilege of working in the Ford White House,
where I met many of my senior congressional colleagues before I actually
served alongside them in the Congress. I can recall a moment in December
1976 after the election of Jimmy Carter when the newly elected Members
were convening to organize the new Congress for 1977-1978. The
tickertape in the East Wing of the White House was just going nuts. I
walked over to it, and I looked, and it says: ``Jim Wright wins by one
vote'' the majority leader position in the House of Representatives.
Little did I know that 2 years later I would be his colleague.
Before I speak of Jim Wright in a global way, I wish to share with
you the perception of those of us who served with him in the Texas
delegation. Whether we were Democrats or Republicans, we knew that
Speaker Wright had an incredibly tight rope to walk. Politically, he did
this in a very adroit fashion because Texas politics were changing. In
1971, when I was beginning my work with Senator Tower, Texas was
evolving into a two-party State.
It is important to understand that as Jim grew in leadership within
this body, his advocacy for issues didn't necessarily jive with the
evolving Texas political landscape. Through his astute political skills,
Jim was able to continue to grow in leadership within his party,
ultimately rising to the pinnacle of Speaker, while still having the
absolute stout support of all Texans. He did all this in spite of the
changing party dynamic back home. And remember in Texas, as we were
reflecting upon the O'Neill speakership, Texans liked to poke fun at
Tip. But that never transferred to Jim. Even before he was part of the
official leadership on the Democratic side, he was a capable leader in
the Texas delegation. Jim was always there to help on every issue that
was a Texas issue, whether it was in a Democratic congressional district
or a Republican congressional district. There was a bond among those of
us in the Texas delegation where we always knew that when there was a
day of reckoning and we needed help for Texans, Jim Wright would be
right by our side.
Jim Wright's word is his bond. He is one of the fairest people that
I have ever worked with. He is also one of the most articulate Members
that this Congress has ever had or will ever have in its body. Mr.
Speaker, I will never forget the time at a Texas State Society luncheon
when you and Senator Tower were speaking together, and, all of a sudden,
Tower became quiet. Never one to yield the floor, unless of course he
was good and ready, I asked the Senator why he had stopped talking. He
answered very strictly, ``Because I didn't want to take Jim Wright on. I
knew I'd lose.''
The final comments that I have concern the formulation of the
Wright-Reagan plan. I had left Congress to return to my home State and
run for statewide office, as David Bonior recently did in Michigan.
After my failed run for Governor, I had a call from Howard Baker asking
me, on behalf of the President, if I would return to the White House to
work with my many friends in Congress to bring about a unique and
unbelievable occurrence. It was President Reagan's hope that the
Congress and the White House would speak with one voice on American
foreign policy as it related to Central America. In my lifetime I could
not remember when that had been the case.
After I arrived at the White House, my first call was to Jim Wright.
I went to his leadership office and we sat down and began a frank
discussion. As we concluded, the only thing that we could give to each
other was the understanding that we would be honest with one another, we
would tell each other the truth, and if we could move it forward on
behalf of the President and the speakership, we would. And, if we
couldn't, we would shake hands and go about our business knowing that we
had done our very best.
Before returning to the White House, I stopped in to see Minority
Leader Bob Michel and reported that in our meeting the Speaker indicated
an extremely high interest in moving this forward. As one could have
expected, after our initial meeting a lot of things happened that nearly
derailed the process. I remember when David Bonior and Majority Leader
Foley and I were alone after one of Speaker Wright's meetings--Trent
Lott and Bob Michel had gone off, and Tony Coehlo and Jim had gone off--
and the two of them looked at me and said, ``Do you know what you're
doing to the Speaker? You're absolutely setting him up.'' All I could
say was, ``I hope not.'' They, obviously being very honorable and very
close friends with respect for me and knowing what a failed outcome
could mean, said, ``We pray you're not.''
During the course of this 10-day period, something rare and
significant occurred. Speaker Wright and Senate Majority Leader Bob Byrd
convened a meeting in H127. The room was full, 25 to 30 Members of
Congress on both sides of the aisle, along with Secretary of State
George Schultz and Colin Powell, Deputy National Security Advisor to the
President. Here the initial parts of what was being discussed between
the congressional leadership and the administration were laid out for
those who would be critical in seeing the legislation through. This
group consisted of such people as Congressman David Obey and Senator
Jesse Helms, and everyone in between. That meeting--and all of our
meetings for 10 days--never became public knowledge. If they had gone
public, I do not believe that the Wright-Reagan plan would have reached
fruition.
The night before the Speaker and the bipartisan congressional
delegation from the House and the Senate arrived at the White House for
the final stamp of approval on the Wright-Reagan plan, Jim Wright called
and said, ``You know, Tom, we've had a great run together. You know the
President and I are not the closest of friends. I would really like to
do something that would be meaningful to the President because I know
this is an unbelievable moment, and I know that he has shot straight
with me, been honest and fair, and this is going to be a big day. What
would you suggest?'' After some thought, the commonality of their
western influence struck me, so I said, ``Jim, why don't you wear your
black ostrich boots?''
Well, the morning that everyone was arriving at the White House, we
had a few little glitches that we had to iron out, and I was never able
to get to the President and give him the heads up on Jim's wearing of
cowboy boots as a friendly gesture. So, everyone went in, and I was the
last one into the Oval Office. The President was sitting with Jim at his
side, and I'll be darned if President Reagan didn't turn to the Speaker
to say, ``Jim, I sure like those boots.'' And I thought at that moment:
``We've made it!''
Jim is a rare breed in our business. A most distinguished gentleman,
master politician and negotiator, loyal and honest as the day is long.
Mr. Speaker, I'm delighted we've had a chance to play a role together.
And I'm honored to stand here today once again by your side. Thank you.
Ms. HOOK. Thanks very much Mr. Loeffler and Mr. Bonior, and I'm sure
many of you would like to ask questions of the Speaker. We're running a
little late though, but I'm sure Speaker Wright will be around and maybe
you can approach him and talk to him informally. I'd just like to close
by thanking Speaker Wright for traveling here to join us today and
thanks to the Congressional Research Service for making this whole panel
possible.
I want to close by recalling a line that I remember. I don't know
what the context was when Mr. Wright said this but it stuck in my mind
while I was covering him and it has stuck in my mind for many years. I
think it's something that summarizes Jim Wright's ambitious approach to
the speakership. He once said, ``We make a greater mistake when we think
too small than when we think too big.'' Thank you all very much.
?
Hon. J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker 1999-
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Role of the Speaker
Reflections on the Role of the Speaker in the Modern Day House of
Representatives
Mr. MULHOLLAN. It is my great pleasure and honor to introduce Robert
Michel, who served in the House of Representatives from 1956 to 1994 and
was the Republican leader from 1981 until his voluntary departure from
the House.
I think it is appropriate on this day after Veterans' Day to
acknowledge Mr. Michel's service with the 39th Infantry Regiment as a
combat infantryman in England, France, Belgium, and Germany from
February 10, 1943 through January 26, 1946. He was wounded by machine
gun fire, awarded two Bronze Star medals, the Purple Heart, and four
battle stars.
In 1993, Mr. Foley said of Mr. Michel, ``As prevailing political
philosophies have changed over the years, Bob Michel remains steadfast
in his commitment to consensus in the interest of the nation and the
institution of the House of Representatives.'' It is the esteem that Mr.
Michel holds for this institution of Congress for which we are all
grateful. Thus, it is so fitting that he introduce our next Speaker,
Dennis Hastert, who, on assuming the speakership of the House, was
quoted as saying that he would try to emulate ``the humility and grace
of his one-time mentor, Bob Michel.''
Mr. MICHEL. It was indeed a distinct honor and privilege to serve,
and what a fulfilling experience it was. I've enjoyed so much this
morning's session listening to the comments from all those who
participated. My role here at the moment is to introduce the current
Speaker and I relish that opportunity.
In times of crisis, the United States always seems to find exactly
the right leader--maybe we're just plain lucky. Maybe it's the
flexibility and the responsiveness of our political system. Or maybe
it's the working out of divine providence, although it is probably not
politically correct to say such a thing these days. The House of
Representatives in 1999 found in Denny Hastert exactly the right person
for the right job at the right time. In sports, we say about certain
players that they lead by example. In 1999, the House, where words mean
so much, was at a point where rhetoric could not do the job of healing
and renewal. The House needed a leader who would lead by example. The
House didn't need any more hype. It needed reason to hope. The House
needed a leader who was capable of walking the walk, not just talking
the talk. The House needed someone with a solid foundation of character
on which, over time, trust could be rebuilt.
The House found all of these things--yes, and much more--in Denny
Hastert. Winston Churchill once said short words are the best words. And
old words, when short, are the best of all. Churchill in this, as in so
many other things, was right. When we think of Denny Hastert, we think
of old words, simple words, strong words. Words like trust and strength,
fairness, faith, decency, honesty, integrity and courage. History will
say of Denny Hastert that in a moment of institutional crisis, the House
of Representatives was led by his example, strengthened by his resolve,
and renewed by his character. It is a distinct honor and high privilege
for me to introduce a man who continues to lead by example, my dear
friend, the Speaker of the House, Denny Hastert.
Speaker HASTERT. Bob, thank you for that very kind introduction. I
want to thank you, Bob, for what you've meant to me. You were my first
mentor here in Washington.
You, Bob, the man who should have and deserved to be Speaker, taught
me the value of patience. You took me under your wing when I first came
to Congress, and you showed me how Congress worked. You helped me with
my committee assignments, and gave me my first leadership responsibility
heading up the Republican leader's Health Care Task Force in response to
First Lady Hillary Clinton's efforts on health care. You taught me that
it is the workhorse who wins in the legislative game, not the show
horse.
Your cheerful demeanor hid a will of steel, and your abundant common
sense served your colleagues and your country well.
Bob, we know that you are going through a tough time with the loss
of your beloved wife Corrine. We share your grief. Know that our
thoughts and prayers are with you during this most difficult time.
I appreciate this opportunity to reflect on my current job. Clearly,
the role of the Speaker has changed over the years. It has changed
because of the times, because of those who have occupied the office, and
because of the nature of the institution.
Joseph Cannon, the man from Danville, ruled from the Speaker's chair
with iron power. Tip O'Neill ruled with Irish charm. Newt Gingrich
brought star power to the office. Sam Rayburn ruled for a generation,
while Joe Martin had only a fleeting chance to assert Republican
control.
Each used their principles to guide them in times of great
challenge. O'Neill was challenged by a popular President, Carl Albert
was challenged by a constitutional crisis, Rayburn through war, and Tom
Foley by a series of institutional crises.
I have my own set of principles that have worked for me.
I never thought I would be Speaker. I didn't run for the job. I
didn't campaign for it. I didn't play the P.R. game. I just did my job
as best I could for my constituents and for my colleagues. In fact, if
you had asked me to predict Newt Gingrich's successor, I wouldn't have
been on my own list.
My first principle is one I learned from my friend Bob Michel. To be
good at the job of Speaker, you must be willing to put in the time to be
a good listener. By this, I mean you must listen to the Members of the
House.
Before I became Speaker, I thought I knew the importance of paying
attention to Members' needs. I had served in the whip organization when
Bob Michel was leader and I served as chief deputy whip when Newt
Gingrich became Speaker.
When you are a whip, you need to listen, because to get and win
votes, you need to hear what the Members are saying. But when you are
Speaker, the sheer volume of voices is increased, and the problems
become more difficult to solve. I learned that the best way to find
solutions was to get people around the table to talk it through.
When you have a small majority, like I have had for pretty much my
entire tenure, you have to do a lot of listening. And when you talk, you
have to keep your word.
That brings me to my second principle. When you are Speaker, people
expect you to keep your word, and they will not quickly forgive you if
you cannot deliver. I learned that keeping your word is the most
important part of this job. You are better off not saying anything than
making a promise that you cannot keep. And you have to keep both the big
promises and the small promises.
My third principle is that a Speaker must respect the power of
regular order. I am a regular order guy.
I think it is important to rely on the committees to do their
hearings and markups. I don't like to create task forces to craft
legislation. The committees are there for a reason, and we should use
them. There are times when you need to establish working groups to
coordinate the work of standing committees when big projects cross
jurisdictional lines, but those working groups should ``coordinate'' not
supplant the committee structure. I have also found that it is easy to
find the problems in legislation through the committee process.
My fourth principle is that while a Speaker should strive to be
fair, he also is judged by how he gets the job done.
The job of the Speaker is to rule fairly, but ultimately to carry
out the will of the majority. Unlike some other parliamentary bodies,
the Speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives is the leader of his
party. He is not merely a disinterested arbiter of parliamentary rules.
This creates a unique tension within the Office of the Speaker. It is
not always easy to be fair when you have a vested interest in the
outcome. But if the chair is seen as being unfair, the likely result is
a breakdown in parliamentary comity. We take the job of fairness very
seriously.
We seek our best parliamentary experts to serve in the chair as
Speakers pro tempore, people like Ray LaHood, Doc Hastings, Mac
Thornberry, Mike Simpson and others. We also have professional
Parliamentarians who avowedly are non-partisan. Charlie Johnson and his
team play a critical role in advising me on jurisdictional referrals and
parliamentary judgments from the chair. This is traditional stretching
back beyond Louis Deschler, and it is a good tradition. We make certain
that those serving in the chair do not serve on the committees of
jurisdiction for the business on the floor.
And we try to be fair in the Rules Committee process. We guarantee
the minority the right to recommit the bill with instructions, giving
them one last chance to make their best arguments to amend the pending
legislation.
But while we strive to be fair, we also strive to get the job done.
We are not the Senate. The rules of the House, while they protect the
rights of the minority, also insure that the will of the majority of the
House will prevail.
So, on occasion, you will see us taking effective action to get the
job done. Sometimes, we have a hard time convincing the majority of the
House to vote like a majority of the House, so sometimes you will see
votes stay open longer than usual. But the hallmark of an effective
leadership is one that can deliver the votes. And we have been an
effective leadership.
My fifth principle is to please the majority of your majority. On
occasion, a particular issue might excite a majority made up mostly of
the minority. Campaign finance is a particularly good example of this
phenomenon. The job of Speaker is not to expedite legislation that runs
counter to the wishes of the majority of his majority. As in campaign
finance reform, our majority thought it was a bad bill that weakened the
party structure and promoted abuse by special interests. As a side note,
the emergence of 527 organizations in the next election will prove our
point that special interests, and not political parties, will have more
influence because of campaign finance reform. So we fought the efforts
by advocates of campaign regulation to pass it. They did what they
thought they had to do, getting enough signatures to sign a discharge
petition. I made them go through that process twice in order to prove
two points. First, I wanted my troops to know I opposed the bill.
Second, I wanted to let them know that I had no choice but to schedule
the legislation. I was not going to abandon my party's position under
any circumstances.
On each piece of legislation, I actively seek to bring our party
together. I do not feel comfortable scheduling any controversial
legislation unless I know we have the votes on our side first.
My sixth principle is the Speaker's job is to focus on the House and
nothing but the House. This is a big job. It is a time-consuming job.
And it is an exhausting job. I said that when I became Speaker, I would
focus only on running the House. And I found out that means more than
just sitting in the Speaker's chair. It means doing those things
necessary to keeping the majority, whether that means fundraising for
incumbents or campaigning for challengers. You don't see me spending too
much time on television shows, or giving big speeches. I have no
interest in running for President or making the jump to the Senate. This
is an important and big job. And it requires singular focus to get it
done.
My final principle is my most important principle: Never forget who
sent you to Congress in the first place--your constituents. I get home
to Illinois every weekend. Of course, it is nice to see my wife, who
inevitably gives me a list of chores to complete when I get there. But
it is also important to see my friends and my constituents.
It is very easy to get lost in the muddle of Washington, DC. The
world of amendments, campaign fundraisers, motions to recommit, and
jurisdictional battles is foreign to Yorkville, Illinois. As a matter of
fact, most of my constituents are none too impressed with the trappings
of power. My constituents sent me to Washington not to argue, not to
debate. They sent me here to get the job done. They are not content to
play the blame game, they don't want to hear about how this bill died in
the House or that bill died in the Senate. They want us to pass laws
that make their lives better.
When I go home, I am not Mr. Speaker. To my wife and friends and
voters, I am Denny. And I tell you, that healthy dose of humility does
me a world of good every time I come back here to Washington. It helps
me to connect to what the American people are really thinking about, and
it helps me to understand what concerns my colleagues are facing.
At the end of the day, the Speaker of the House is really just the
guy who stands up for the people of America. In our Constitution, the
Speaker of the House is the first officer mentioned, because in our
system of government, it is the people who rule. Since January 1999, I
have had the great honor and privilege to be that guy. Thank you for
inviting me here today and for this most fascinating symposium. I wish
you the best of luck the rest of the day.
?
Hon. Thomas S. Foley, Speaker 1989-1995
The Foley Speakership
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Foley Speakership
Mr. OLESZEK. It's my pleasure to introduce Jeff Biggs as our
moderator for the Foley speakership. Mr. Biggs was a long-time press
secretary to Speaker Foley. I want to point out that Mr. Biggs and
Speaker Foley co-authored a book on Mr. Foley's career in the House,
which I recommend to all of you, entitled Honor in the House. It was
published in 1999 by the Washington State University Press. Today, Mr.
Biggs is the director of the Congressional Fellowship Program of the
American Political Science Association [APSA]. With that, let me turn
the podium over to Mr. Biggs.
Mr. BIGGS. Thank you, Walter. All of us on the podium would like to
thank the Carl Albert Center, the McCormick Tribune Foundation, and
particularly the Congressional Research Service [CRS] for having
sponsored this special day. I would like to extend a special thanks to
the Congressional Research Service. For some 50 years, the CRS has
helped prepare the journalists, political scientists, RWJ [Robert Wood
Johnson] health policy fellows, a Native American Hatfield fellow,
domestic and foreign policy specialists from the public service, and
international congressional fellows for their 10-month congressional
staff assignments on the Hill. This year's 40 APSA congressional fellows
are part of the audience today. In fact, I believe that every Member of
Congress in the audience today hosted a fellow during their
congressional tenure.
Memories are short, and the two commentators on our panel did great
honor to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives during
their years in Congress. They deserve more than a cursory introduction.
My thanks to Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America and National
Journal's The Almanac of American Politics for their admirable
biographies of the Members of Congress. On my left is former Congressman
Bill Frenzel. Before arriving in Washington, DC, he was an executive in
his family's warehousing business, and served four terms in the
Minnesota State legislature. His moderate brand of Republicanism
appealed to his Third Congressional District constituents in 1970, and
they never tired of it. Over two decades, his Twin City supporters
always returned him to office with more than 60 percent of the vote.
While he would come to be regarded by his colleagues as one of the
intellectual guardians of GOP economic orthodoxy, he maintained his
moderate views on many social and foreign policy issues. Over the course
of his congressional career, Bill Frenzel became a senior member of the
Minnesota delegation and emerged as one of the hardest working and most
influential Republicans in the House.
Described by National Journal as ``loud and brainy, partisan and
thoughtful,'' he put his stamp on every debate in which he participated.
With intellectual ability, oratorical skills and the work habits of a
true legislator, Bill Frenzel left his mark in both policy and
institutional arenas. As the ranking member of the House Administration
Committee, he introduced a bill to create the Federal Election
Commission in 1974. His interest in congressional ethics led to his
participation in writing an ethics code in 1977. On the Ways and Means
Committee, he became the Republicans' leading voice on trade matters
and, along with Tom Foley, was an outspoken advocate of free trade.
But if he fared well as a Member of Congress, his party did not.
Frustrations began to emerge. He must frequently have recalled 19th
century Republican Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed, who was once asked by a
Democratic Member, ``What is the function of the minority?'' ``The
function of the minority, sir,'' the Speaker replied, ``is to make a
quorum and to draw its pay.'' Bill Frenzel's frustration with what would
become the 40-year Democratic majority in the House, from 1954 to 1994,
rose to the surface in early 1989 when he threw his political weight
behind Representative Newt Gingrich's effort to vault himself into the
Republican leadership. Bill Frenzel nominated Mr. Gingrich to be GOP
whip. As a respected senior member of both the Budget and Ways and Means
Committees, Frenzel was just the kind of legislatively-oriented, older
generation Republican who would have seemed a natural adversary of Mr.
Gingrich's confrontational, partisan style. But support from Members
such as Mr. Frenzel went a long way toward explaining Mr. Gingrich's
upset victory. Bill Frenzel was a formidable legislator and advocate
during his congressional career in the minority.
He retired in 1991 after 20 years of service. One can only imagine
what the talents of this moderate Republican could have achieved in the
majority. Bill Frenzel is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution
and, along with Messrs. Fazio and Foley, serves on the American
Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship Programs Advisory
Committee. I guess that's my third plug.
Former Congressman Vic Fazio is on my right. As was the case with
Speaker Foley and our Republican commentator, Mr. Frenzel, Vic Fazio is
one of that unfortunately diminishing breed, an institutionalist in the
U.S. House of Representatives. During two decades representing
California's Third Congressional District in the House, he carried an
enormous amount of water for his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
He took on responsibility for what most observers would characterize as
an insider's portfolio. He served in what one might regard as the
trenches of House politics. He did so without losing sight of how these
tasks also served to improve the operation of the U.S. House of
Representatives as the great deliberative body of our Nation. As one of
the so-called ``college of cardinals,'' the 13 Appropriations
subcommittee chairs, Mr. Fazio chaired the Legislative Branch
Subcommittee responsible for such unpleasant housekeeping chores as
defending congressional pay raises and congressional office budgets. His
willingness to bear those burdens warranted the respect and gratitude of
Members from across the ideological spectrum who were glad to have
someone else take the heat for what they wanted.
During an era of heightened public antipathy toward the Congress, a
phenomenon which seems ever with us, Mr. Fazio added to his burdens when
he chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, served as
the vice chair, and then chaired the Democratic Caucus. He accepted a
position on the House Ethics Committee during the period it reviewed the
case of Speaker Wright. In 1989, he co-chaired an ethics task force
under Speaker Foley which, among other reforms, eliminated speaking
honoraria for the Members of Congress. A strong, unapologetic partisan,
these were roles which unquestionably added burdens at home in what was
becoming a marginally Republican district.
To the end of his time in the House, Mr. Fazio was outspoken against
those Members whose electoral instincts were to vilify the House in
order to gain political advantage, particularly incumbents who ran for
reelection as purported ``outsiders,'' criticizing the very body in
which they served. At the same time, he was sensitive to the public
perceptions of Congress and its possible excesses. During the 101st
Congress, for example, he pushed for substantial reforms of the
congressional franking privilege despite the criticism of his
colleagues. He was a politician in the very best sense of the word. For
Vic Fazio, there is life after Congress. He is currently a partner at
Clark and Weinstock. And, according to his wife Judy, he is overly
involved in non-profit and charitable activities.
And now to the subject of this panel: Thomas Stephen Foley. Thomas
Foley would never have described himself as the predominant Washington,
DC, ``type A'' personality. He rose to the top of the leadership ladder
without displaying the type of vaunted ambition usually associated with
such success. Even his first candidacy to represent the voters of
eastern Washington's Fifth Congressional District in Congress was
reluctantly undertaken at the urging of others. In 1974, he chaired the
Democratic Study Group, which served as the strategy and research arm of
liberal and moderate Democrats. The next year, he became Agriculture
Committee chair under unusual circumstances. His predecessor, the
elderly and conservative W.R. Poage of Texas, was targeted for removal
by the huge bloc of reform-minded Watergate-baby Democrats. Ever the
institutionalist, Foley backed Poage. But when Poage was unseated
anyway, the Democratic Caucus turned to Foley and promoted him chairman
of the committee.
Foley continued to rise within Democratic ranks. After the 1980
election, the position of Democratic whip opened up. And when Mr.
Rostenkowski (D-IL), chief deputy whip and first-in-line, decided to
take over the Ways and Means Committee chair, Speaker Tip O'Neill and
Majority Leader Jim Wright, both looking for someone with parliamentary
skills, chose Foley as the party's whip. When Speaker O'Neill announced
his plan to retire at the end of the 99th Congress, there was no
guarantee Foley would ascend to the majority leader's spot. A number of
Members wanted a more partisan figure. In the end, no challenger to
Foley emerged and the same dynamic was there in 1989 when Foley rose
without opposition to the speakership.
It sounds like a happily-ever-after story. It wasn't. Not only was
Foley the first Speaker from west of the Rocky Mountains, he was a rare
Speaker who did not represent a safe seat in his marginally Republican
district. The higher his Democratic profile became, the greater his
vulnerability. Ultimately, he was the first Speaker defeated for
reelection since 1862. Maybe it could have been avoided. But he felt
putting your career on the line, and at risk on principled stands, was a
test of doing the job right. And he did so in favor of gun control and
in opposition to what he viewed as an unconstitutional Washington State
term limits referendum. Later, the Supreme Court after the 1994
elections confirmed his view. Foley had built his career and reputation
in part on being a facilitator and conciliator with the ability to
appreciate opinions on the other side of the aisle, and in part on
congressional reform initiatives.
As Speaker, Foley inherited a Democratic Caucus which had gotten too
used to big majorities and now struggled to find the discipline to
marshal tough votes. In the seventies, he had played a key role in the
reforms which opened up the Congress to the press and the public, and
challenged the power of committee chairs by making their appointment
subject to a secret ballot in the caucus. As Speaker, his reform
instinct was called forth to counter what emerged as decades-old
institutional abuses, such as the House bank. The abolition of the bank
led to the appointment of a House administrator, the elimination of long
cherished perks, and the appointment of a bipartisan panel to look at
more sweeping reforms. Foley initiated a program under the direction of
Representative Martin Frost to provide congressional assistance to the
emerging eastern European democracies. Most of these changes remain to
this day.
His long-admired bipartisan instinct was newly challenged under the
unified government of President Clinton. Foley undertook to pass a
legislative agenda, including a budget proposal that failed to receive a
single Republican vote, and comprehensive health care reform which
ultimately failed to make it to the floor of the House. These brief
illustrations highlight the value and importance of the qualities that
Foley brought to the House for three decades. He placed a premium on
governance following an election, whether the President be Democratic or
Republican. He stressed a legislative search for solutions, rather than
the perpetuation of the campaign. He urged a willingness to accept
bipartisan compromise. He recognized the international role of the
Speaker. These were qualities which remain essential to the institution
of the Congress and remain part of his legacy to the speakership of the
House.
Speaker FOLEY. Thank you, Jeff. I'd like to begin by repeating what
others have said about the Congressional Research Service, the Carl
Albert Center, and the McCormick Tribune Foundation for their support of
this wonderful day for me, and for many others. The day provides a
chance to see so many friends and associates of past years, and a chance
to reminisce over three or four decades of one's past life. It is a
special pleasure for me today to be with Jim and Betty Wright, my
predecessor in the Office of the Speaker. And later with Newt Gingrich,
my successor. The day prompts many pleasant memories of Carl Albert and
Tip O'Neill. I am also delighted to be here with Bob Michel, who was the
Republican leader all the time that I was Speaker and a man for whom I
have unbounded admiration as a model of congressional and public
service. And as Speaker Hastert said today, we all are saddened by your
wife's recent death.
Looking back at the time that I first came to Congress, I recall a
story I've told before. I hope those who have heard it may forgive me. I
joined the Congress in 1964 as a part of the 89th Congress. It was a
young and rather large Democratic majority. In those days and today, the
parties meet in December to organize their work and to offer newly-
elected Members a chance to familiarize themselves with their
responsibilities. Speaker John McCormack addressed us newly-elected
Members at that 1964 December meeting. He said that the leadership
probably would have to make a judgment 2 years later about whether we
had been elected seriously by our constituents or by accident. Members
are sometimes elected by accident, he said, and we won't really know
which you are until you are reelected, if you are. With that warm
greeting, we proceeded into the orientation program.
One of the speakers was Michael Kirwan from the State of Ohio, who
was a powerful member of the Committee on Appropriations. In fact, he
was ``Mr. Public Works.'' You couldn't get a footbridge built in the
United States without Mike's approval. He leaned forward to tell us that
he wanted to warn us about the single greatest danger that could occur
to a new Member of Congress entering his or her congressional service.
We leaned forward to hear what this was--an ethical problem or whatever.
He said that the danger was thinking for yourselves! Avoid that, he
said, at all costs. Avoid thinking for yourselves. You must follow the
subcommittee chairman, follow the committee chairman. Support the
chairman of the Democratic Caucus. Follow the majority whip. Support the
majority leader. And especially, above all, support, defend and follow
the Speaker.
I remember being quite outraged. I had gotten elected as a new
Member of Congress, I thought, to make some contribution to my time in
public life and perhaps even beyond. And the idea that I should
subcontract my judgment to the political leadership of the party was
really offensive. And Kirwan went on to say that in his experience, more
people had gotten into trouble in the Congress of the United States by
thinking for themselves than by stealing money. That unbelievably
shocking statement made me truly angry. Later on, it was my opportunity
to become a subcommittee chairman, a committee chairman, the chairman of
the Democratic Caucus, the Democratic whip, the majority leader under
Jim Wright, and, finally, taking the oath of office as Speaker of the
House of Representatives. And I recall that as I was taking the oath,
the wise words of Mr. Kirwan came back across a generation of time. How
right he was!
But fortunately, then and now, Members do think for themselves. And
they not only think for themselves on the Republican and the Democratic
sides of the aisle, they think for themselves inside each party. I had
an opportunity to talk a little bit with Speaker Hastert today at lunch.
We both recognize that one of the problems of the speakership is to deal
with very strong and powerful voices within one's own party. I came to
the speakership of the House as a former committee chairman, but not the
most senior of them. Dan Rostenkowski, John Dingell, Jack Brooks and
others had been powerful and wonderfully effective legislators and
committee chairmen. They had extensive knowledge and experience in their
fields. This is true not only with the committee chairmen, but with
subcommittee chairmen, who have proliferated dramatically over the
years. I think we had something like 160 Democrats in the House of
Representatives who were subcommittee chairmen. Sometimes there were
conflicting jurisdictions between Appropriations subcommittee chairmen
and authorizing committee chairmen or subcommittee chairmen. There is a
problem, sometimes, of managing strong, effective, and powerful
personalities. That's one of the jobs that I didn't really anticipate
when I became Speaker--how much time is required managing jurisdictional
disputes and trying to mediate between conflicts of approach. It's the
sort of kitchen work, as my former mentor Senator Warren Magnuson spoke
of, in terms of the day-to-day work of a Speaker--conciliating,
organizing, trying to move the tasks of the Congress forward.
As Speaker Hastert said, I had a particular notion that it was the
institutional responsibility of the Speaker, a special obligation, to be
absolutely, as far as humanly possible, fair in the judgments made from
the chair. The British model, the Westminster model as it's called,
takes the Speaker out of all party politics. My first opportunity to
meet a British Speaker after I became Speaker was Bernard Wetherow, who
moved from the House of Lords to become the Speaker of the British House
of Commons. He resigned even from social clubs that were overly
associated with the Conservative Party, so that his absolute
impartiality would never be questioned. By the way, Speaker Wetherow
asked me what number Speaker I was. I said, ``Mr. Speaker, I'm the
49th.'' He said that he was the 322d. I said, ``Sir, that's what we call
in the United States a put-down. I'm the 49th, you're the 322d, or
whatever.'' He said, ``Well, we started in 1277 or in 1388, depending on
how you count the speakerships in the House of Commons in the U.K.'' And
he said, ``And 10 of us were beheaded, 2 on the same day when the king
was in a particularly unhappy mood.'' We don't have that problem here,
at least physical beheading. We sometimes have political beheading. I
know something about political beheading.
But the role of the U.S. Speaker is a combination, as Speaker
Hastert said, of the party leader and the impartial British-type
judicial Speaker. It's not an easy task. You are pushed by your own
party to move legislation forward and you want to do it. You face the
problem that sometimes a motion to recommit with instructions if
proposed in a certain way may create great problems. There's a tendency,
sometimes, to perhaps cut a little too close on what others feel is the
absolute right of the minority. Those are tough decisions. I had,
however, the great benefit of having an impartial Parliamentarian, who
Speaker Hastert also talked about. The two offices that are voted on
that are usually without any controversy are the Parliamentarian and the
Chaplain. It is important that the rulings of the chair in critical
times can be depended upon by both parties.
We had a few occasions when there was an objection to the ruling of
the chair, and someone called for a vote on that decision. I don't think
any time that happened that Bob Michel didn't support the chair. He
felt, I think, that the chair's ruling had been correct and that it
should not be the subject of controversy in the House. On the other
hand, the price for that support was that, as Speaker, I had to ensure
that the rulings are fair so that they can elicit bipartisan support. In
many legislatures, appealing the ruling of the chair is a constant event
and takes place routinely. I think in 50 years, we may have had a dozen
or so formal challenges to the ruling of the chair.
During the time I was Speaker, I served with President George Bush
41, as we now say. President Bush was President for 3 years of my
speakership and President Clinton for 2. It was interesting to me that
there is a difference in whether you have divided or united government
between the congressional leadership and the Presidential leadership. We
have had, for most of the period after World War II, divided political
responsibility--generally Republican Presidents with Democratic
majorities in the Congress and those have a particular dynamic. There is
a tendency, frankly, for relations between the Congress and the
Presidency to be as good, and in some cases even better, with divided
government. For some, that might come as a surprise. But the fact is
that the need to make the system of government work leads to a kind of
elaborate, almost diplomatic, sensitivity between the White House and
the Congress to the reactions of the other.
In contrast, if there is united government with the White House and
Congress under control of one party, Congress expects that the new,
let's say, Democratic President is going to solve all the problems that
they want to have addressed and they now think it's possible to go
forward with a very energetic and effective legislative program. The
congressional majority Members expect all those they appointed in their
districts to be happy and satisfied with them. At the same time, the
President feels that his program should be taken up without much
question and enthusiastically passed by his congressional colleagues.
The disappointments that are possible on both sides of this united
government are great.
During the period of divided government, I was blamed, along with
then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, for having talked President
George H.W. Bush 41 into agreeing to some tax increases. Some attribute
his defeat in 1992 to his having allegedly broken his ``no new taxes''
promise. As I look back on that period, one of the things that I admired
most about President Bush was his willingness to confront internal
problems in the Republican Party by taking that decision. It was a
decision taken along with spending restrictions on the budget. But an
agreement on spending cuts and new taxes was obviously going to be a
problem for President Bush and it turned out to be.
I used to say, somewhat jokingly, that there are two sins in
politics--one is the obvious sin of not keeping your campaign promises.
But sometimes I think that's the more venal sin. The sometimes more
mortal sin is keeping your campaign promises. If they turn out to be
wrong for the country, wrong for the future of the Nation, then I think
whether we're in Congress or the White House, we have to reconsider
that. I had great respect for President Bush's willingness to take that
risk.
When President Clinton came to office, he was the first Democratic
President in 12 years. With George Mitchell in the Senate and me in the
House, there were many Democrats who wanted to see the new President
succeed and wanted to support his major legislative agenda. Looking back
on it, I think that perhaps we could have been more supportive of the
administration by, once in awhile, being a bit more candid with the
President. I think the new administration came in with great enthusiasm,
particularly on health care. The White House overstressed the
institutional support of the House. We had to decide, for example,
whether to put the President's health care reform bill through the
established committees of Congress, such as Ways and Means and Commerce,
or push the legislation through a task force. The task force idea I
rejected. I thought the legislation should go through the ordinary
committee structure. But that required multiple committee referrals.
Eventually, the Congressional Budget Office was overwhelmed by the
demands of individual Members to examine the cost of their amendments.
The system slowed down and was greeted on the Republican side with a
decision to straight-out oppose, rather than just try to modify, the
health care bill. We all know the consequence of that--the bill did not
proceed through the end of that Congress. I think this was a
contributing factor to the country's disillusionment with the Democratic
leadership and the 1994 defeat of the majority in Congress. In
retrospect, I think we would have been wiser, as Dan Rostenkowski
suggested today, with a more incremental approach such as the Kennedy-
Kassebaum bill, a step-by-step process, as opposed to trying to achieve
everything overnight in the way of health care reform. We might have
been more effective and successful.
Tony Coelho gave me good advice one time after he left Congress. He
said, ``Don't look back and don't regret.'' I think that's a good rule.
You may have made mistakes. There may have been opportunities you didn't
fulfill, but you did what you could while you were there.
In the session on Jim Wright, the question arises as to whether it's
better to be more assertive or more cautious. If I have a regret, it's
probably been on two or three occasions that I wasn't as assertive as I
think now perhaps I should have been. But one of the things that I hoped
we would see--and I'm disappointed we do not see today--is a
continuation of the kind of relationship between the majority and the
minority that existed when I was Speaker and Bob Michel was the
Republican leader. We met almost every day and the staff certainly met
every day. We went back and forth to the other's offices. I always felt
that Bob was an extremely effective Republican leader. It was necessary
to know exactly where we wanted to go and to see if we could compromise
or find an approach that would lead to some accommodation of the issue,
rather than a confrontation.
Our efforts in those times were sometimes rewarded with success,
such as was the case with most of our party members in different camps
on the 1991 Gulf war. Despite those differences, we had a debate which I
still think was one of the most thoughtful and impressive that I can
recall in the Congress. There was a full discussion of whether the
United States should authorize war and give the President authority to
enter the war. It's interesting to me that President Bush 41 wanted this
vote to come after the election so it would not be politicized. The vote
in the present case came before the election. In any event, I'll never
forget Bob Michel coming up to the Speaker's chair, where I was sitting,
wearing that combat infantryman's badge, which he won so well in World
War II. Here was a big tough guy with tears in his eyes. He said, ``This
is the hardest vote I think I've ever had to cast because I'm putting
young men and women at risk and I know it. But I think it's the right
thing to do.'' He and I voted differently on the bill, but it was a
sense of, I think, the mutual respect that Republicans and Democrats
throughout the House had with the differing opinions of their colleagues
on an issue of enormous importance to the country.
I regret that in recent years there's been a tension between
persons, as well as between parties and policies. There was even a
civility conference a few years ago at Hershey, Pennsylvania, where
Members of both parties came with their families to try and reconcile
those harsh personal relationships in the House and try to get a sense
of comity and friendship and a common effort.
The House of Representatives is the voice of the American people,
the Senate the voice of the States. That's the way we see it in the
House. Former Representative Richard Bolling was once accused of making
a derogatory comment about the House, saying it was made up of
``provincials.'' He defended his remark by saying that that is what the
House was supposed to be. It is intended to be the place where people
represent their districts, represent the differences in our country.
House Members represent the communities in which they grew up and where
they have their primary residence in life. I think Speaker Hastert
reflected that again today when he spoke of returning to his district on
weekends and his desire to keep always in front of him the origin of his
service in the Congress and his speakership.
Former Speaker John McCormack once said another thing that I'll
never forget. He said if the day comes when you look up at the Capitol
as you come to work in summer, in fall, in rain or in snow, and you are
not individually thrilled and heartened by the enormous honor of
representing 500,000 or 600,000 people as constituents, and if you don't
think that that is something that you should be deeply grateful for--he
said quit, just quit. Because if you don't have that sense of thrill,
that sense of great honor and opportunity, he said you've stayed too
long. I think that's good advice, and I think that those who have had a
chance to serve here will look back on that service, regardless of their
party, with a sense of first great obligation and thanks to their
constituents.
For over 30 years, my constituents sent me to Washington and allowed
me to represent them as best I could. Those of us who have held the
Office of Speaker have had a second honor bestowed on us. Speakers have
that special sense that they have been chosen by their fellow Members--
all of them representatives and delegates of a great national
constituency. To be elected Speaker is even a greater honor in many
respects than being elected to represent a constituency. And whether we
have done the job well or less well, whether we have achieved all that
we might or not--and none of us achieves everything we wish--I think we
can look back on being Speaker as one of the great opportunities and one
of the great honors of our lives. And I am happy today, regardless of
differences between individuals and parties and personalities, to join
with others who have had that experience. I thank you all for taking
part in this conference. Thank you.
Mr. FRENZEL. Thanks, Tom Foley. Thanks, Library of Congress. Thanks
to all of you for being here. And thanks to whomever was rash enough to
invite me.
Being asked to comment on the Foley speakership creates a real
temptation to deliver a eulogy while a body is still warm. And I'm going
to have to succumb to it, because it was my great privilege to serve all
my time in Congress concurrently with Speaker Foley and have had many
opportunities to interact with him.
I remember the first time I really met him was in the early
seventies on a trip to Japan. Tom was then a very ancient senior Member
of four or five terms, and I was just a rookie from the minority. He
showed me around and I remember being very impressed with his reception
by the Japanese and with his knowledge of that country and its political
system. And, of course, more than 20 years later, it was my pleasure to
dine in his house at our Embassy in Japan where he was representing all
of us with distinction as our Ambassador in Tokyo.
Of course, distinction has followed Tom wherever he has gone. Those
of us who served in the House are wont to say that he really gave
politics a bad name. He was forever thinking selfish thoughts about
integrity and decency and service and trustworthiness and about doing a
good job for the constituents. That really was Tom's hallmark.
I have served with only four Speakers, all of them Democrats, and
all of whom I consider friends. And so I'm not really anxious to get
into comparisons. But one of the things that I enjoyed about Tom and his
leadership--not just as Speaker, but as majority leader, as a committee
chairman--almost certainly from the time I came to Congress, was that he
could be a real Democrat, a ``big D'' Democrat, but still respect and be
respected by all of the Members of Congress, be they Republicans or
Democrats.
I don't know if that arose from the fact that Tom came from a fairly
competitive congressional district where you had to make friends with
everybody. Perhaps it did, or perhaps it simply originates from the fact
that he is that kind of a person, respectful and respected.
In watching him, I learned that you could be a party loyalist, but
still remember that you had representational responsibilities to the
whole country, to all the people within your district. And remember,
too, that you have to be fair to every Member of the House, especially
when you're the boss. As he spoke of trying to work compromises with my
great hero Bob Michel in the House, with whom I was also favored to
serve, I thought that with great men like that, compromise does not
represent weakness. On the contrary, it represents the strength of our
system. That made me terribly proud to be a part of the system.
The House is a very tough political environment. Compared to the
other body, it is like the difference between professional football and
chess. The majority has an important duty to move a program. Often, it
is moved over the dead bodies of the minority, or by stretching the
rules a bit. But that's not an easy chore, because the majority has to
put its troops together.
And I can imagine that when Tom got ahold of the gavel and got up
there on the Speaker's podium, he was praying that every one of his
caucus would follow the admonitions of Chairman Kirwan and follow the
Speaker's wishes. But sometimes they didn't. And that's one of the
reasons that it is rash to compare speakerships. The House is different
at all times. It has different Members. It has different issues. It has
different cross-currents. There are different coalitions. Everything is
different. And Speakers are different, too. And while their problems are
similar, they are by no means the same.
Tom presided over the House in what we now recognize was a period of
the decline of the Rooseveltian coalition, which was beginning to come
apart. It apparently had good, strong majorities. But, on the other
hand, after 62 years of ascendancy with two small imperfections, most of
its Democratic Members believed that they were born to rule and that
their rule was ordained by the Almighty.
That was a nice feeling, except for Tom. It gave him an army of all
generals and no foot soldiers. And it was not a really easy matter to
put all of those people together in a single place for any bill. He also
ruled at a time when the committees were manned by very senior ``old
bulls'' in the party. As everyone knows, when they are at full strength,
the Speaker is never quite at full strength.
Jeff touted him as a conciliator, a facilitator, a mediator, and so
do I. He was, for me, just a remarkable affirmation of what our system
should be. As a member of the minority, I trusted and respected Tom
Foley.
Now remember, I didn't vote with Tom Foley a lot. I thought he was
kind of squirrelly in his voting habits. But he was doing the best he
could. You remember Dennis Hastert gave us his admonition, which is
people expect you to keep your word. For me, you could put Tom's word in
the bank. And that's pretty hard to equal. That's about as good as you
can do in Washington in my judgment.
I saw Leon Panetta out in the audience and I was just remembering
that there was a time when Leon and I went to see Tom about a matter
that had to do with the Budget Committee. Leon was then chairman and I
was a flunky. Leon said, ``Mr. Speaker, can you help us with this
problem?'' And the Speaker said, ``Of course. I think you're right on
this.'' The Speaker made one phone call and resolved our problem
instantly.
The following year we were back with the same problem. I said, ``Mr.
Speaker, can you help us with this problem?'' And the Speaker said,
``No, I can't do that for you.'' Since I was the minority person, I had
to challenge the statement. I said, ``Why not, Mr. Speaker? You did it
last year.'' And he said, ``Ah, but I was new in the job and then I did
not know the limitations of my power.''
So if you think it is an easy job to be Speaker, forget it. But
also, if you think it's going to be easy for any future Speakers to live
up to the reputation and achievements of Tom Foley, abolish those
thoughts as well. As far as I'm concerned, he was the greatest.
Mr. FAZIO. Jeff, thank you and the Library of Congress for including
me in this discussion of the speakership. I think it is the most
important, most difficult, most under-appreciated and least-understood
leadership position in American Government, second only to the
President. There's no question that I tend to agree with a lot of what
Bill Frenzel has said. I'd like to concentrate on the question of
Foley's marginal seat and the impact it had. I think he's the last--not
just one of the few as Jeff said--but the last Speaker who will come
from a district that was evenly balanced and could go either way in any
election.
Tom Foley was elected to the House in the midsixties during a
Democratic ascendancy. He kept the district with some tight races for 30
years, largely because of the force of his own personality and his
effective representation of the wheatgrowers and all the other elements
of that district. He always put the needs of his constituents first.
That was his first and most compelling assignment and he always carried
it out well. But the speakership had evolved to a multifaceted, 24-7
job. It became not just the internal collaborative leadership that the
Speakers are required to provide, but also the ``outside job,'' the
fundraising, the Sunday talk shows, the speeches in faraway places--not
just to help your colleagues with their fundraising and their reelection
campaigns, but as a way of projecting the party on issue after issue and
raising money for the Congressional Campaign Committees. It means that
inevitably the district fades to some degree. And it's not just the fact
that you can't be there as much as you may have been, but it's also the
reality that you have to take more partisan positions than they are used
to hearing you express at home.
So inevitably, I think, Tom Foley's career in the eastern district
of Washington State ended when his speakership did because not only was
the Democratic Party in eastern Washington State weakening, but the
traditional Democratic Party that Bill Frenzel referred to as their
Rooseveltian coalition was disintegrating as well. The style of
leadership that Foley brought to the speakership was also changing. No
question it influenced how he ran the House. Tom Foley was like Tip--a
man of the House that he grew up in. That was why Speaker Foley was so
much a regular order kind of guy.
I was thinking earlier today about the health care legislation,
still referred to as the Clinton health care plan. Other names have been
attached over the years, but the bottom line is this Speaker felt
regular order needed to prevail in order to bring a health bill to the
floor that could pass. I am sure Danny Rostenkowski remembers meeting
after meeting in the Speaker's office when we tried to put together the
votes, either in the Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee,
to begin the process. We didn't have those votes and could not move the
legislation. I realize now what Newt Gingrich would have done, and we
did it regularly in the next speakership--put a task force together.
Denny Hastert earlier referred to them as, he said, a way of undermining
the committee system. But Speaker Gingrich would not have hesitated
about moving a bill of that importance to his party and his President
through by irregular order. He would have found another way to do it and
it somehow would have gotten to the floor and probably passed by a
couple of votes, as so often has been the case since 1995.
I respect Tom Foley's approach. He knew his caucus was not as
unified as it needed to be and most of all he respected the committee
system that had served the House so well. He was a product of that
tradition. It was also regular order for Speaker Foley when it came to
supporting the Clinton administration. Having observed the conflicts
between the O'Neill speakership and the Carter Presidency, Tom Foley
took a different, more supporting approach. You remember it was Hamilton
Jordan, Carter's Chief of Staff, who was frequently called ``Hannibal
Jerkin.'' There was real antipathy there. Most Democrats saw, in
retrospect, that the discord didn't necessarily aid the Carter
administration in their difficult reelection quest.
Speaker Foley, as he's already indicated, did all he could possibly
do to help implement President Clinton's agenda. All those who were
members of his last caucus look back with pride on that budget vote in
1993 which brought us, Democrats believe, a balanced budget and a decade
of prosperity. It also probably contributed significantly to the decline
and ultimate defeat of our majority. I remember later when we took the
crime bill to the floor, we had a very tough choice to make. Do we move
the assault weapons ban as a separate, stand-alone piece of legislation,
or do we make it part of the omnibus crime bill, however difficult that
would make it for many moderate and conservative Democrats with strong
NRA constituencies to vote for it? Parenthetically, we even had some on
the left voting against the crime bill rule because they didn't support
any provisions relating to the death penalty. It was a very good example
of how fragmented and diverse our Democratic Caucus had become, and how
difficult it was to bring it all together. We chose to, as I think my
friend Leon Panetta said, give the President a victory and pass that
bill with the assault weapon ban in it. But we also had tremendous
negative fallout for many of our Members just 1 year later.
Speaker Foley personally paid the price for the bill in his own
race. He lost the NRA's support for the first time in his career.
There's no question that Tom Foley liked to work with his fellow
committee chairs. He was one of them. He came through the Agriculture
Committee to be its chair, then moved into the elected leadership and
ultimately the speakership. He respected the diversity within the
bipartisan committee process. Remember, it was an era when you put out
bills with as broad a bipartisan majority as you could get. When
possible, you worked with the Republicans during those years in the
majority, in part because it gave us more impetus, more momentum when we
got to the floor. After all, we weren't always sure where all those
elements of that Democratic coalition were going to be at vote time.
Fragmentation had set in within our caucus, and the committee structure
normally gave the Democratic leadership the broader support it needed to
pursue its agenda on the floor.
Tom Foley's time in the leadership was already an era when we were
closely divided. But it was also the era when the one-party South, the
Democratic majority in the South, had totally disintegrated. It was also
a period where the diversity that had become one of the keys to changing
our caucus in the eighties and into the nineties, worked against us. We
didn't all know or empathize with each other. We didn't share common
experiences. And that certainly was true of the House in general as well
as the Democratic Caucus.
I remember hearing stories about Bob Michel and Danny Rostenkowski
driving to and from Illinois together through many of their years in
Washington. That sort of friendship, that sort of personal relationship
above and beyond party, had almost vanished during Tom Foley's
speakership. What existed was a more divided House with little
community. It's a trend that has continued to this day. Families live in
their districts, not in Washington. Two- and three-day weeks are common
with jet travel back and forth to the district. There is pressure on the
leadership from the Members to come in late and go out early. These
circumstances contributed to an incredible amount of disarray, not just
in one party, but in the House in general.
On top of that, we suffered greatly from the internal troubles
brought about by all of the so-called ``scandals'' that the House came
under scrutiny for--the bank, the post office, and so on. We had
elements of our caucus, generally older Members and those from safe
seats, who felt that if we would just hold tight, these problems were
transitory and they would all blow away. Other elements, people younger
and more marginal in their seats, were under such pressure in their
districts that they couldn't go home for a weekend without coming back
fully inflamed about what these problems that they didn't really know
much about, or hadn't participated in, were doing to their reelection
chances. So Tom Foley had a very tough time reconciling the generational
shift that was going on within his caucus--the large influx of people in
1974, plus the Members who carried over for 30 and 40 years, and a lot
of people who had been elected in the late eighties and into the
nineties whose tenure was quite tenuous.
And so I think Tom Foley epitomized modern collaborative leadership
in this very difficult environment. He worked very hard at bringing
people together, brokering compromises, working with State delegations
and the exploding number of informal caucuses, dealing with committee
assignments, and assigning legislation to one or more committees. These
kinds of one-on-one, small group gatherings are leadership requirements
that are really the hallmark of the speakership. It wasn't just that
other strength he has of being a great stentorian speaker and floor
leader. It was also the personal touch. The need to be putting your arm
around somebody, bringing together a compromise that might otherwise
have been lost.
There's no question when you ask Members to look back on their years
in the Foley House, they will relate to his ability to go into the well
and extemporaneously make remarks that actually moved votes, and, I
believe, probably on both sides of the aisle. He was also great in our
districts. For those of us who had him come by and speak to our
contributors and our supporters, it was always a positive experience. He
has wonderful rhetorical skills. I think back on all those stories that
I came to know almost so well that I could repeat them myself--the words
on Jefferson's tomb were the basis for one of my favorites. And Mike
Kirwan--a far more familiar figure with the American public today
because of Tom Foley's stories that you heard a version of earlier. This
was a man who could communicate in every sense of that term. He was
someone whom I was proud to serve with, and I look back on that time
very fondly. Thank you.
Mr. BIGGS. We still have some time and would welcome questions.
Question. How important is it for Congress to be more assertive in
foreign and defense policy? That concern has come up in a couple of
different speakerships, and I think in today's climate it is an
appropriate question.
Speaker FOLEY. I think it's obviously important for the House and
the Speaker to have their voices heard on foreign policy. The President,
by some constitutional opinion, inherited the powers of George III to
make foreign policy and to command the military services as commander in
chief. But the power of the purse, the power to implement foreign
policy, which is essential today in any foreign policy undertaking,
requires the House and the Senate to be involved. I think the Speaker
must be involved in that. We talked earlier here today about Jim Wright
and the work that was done with the Reagan administration. Looking back,
for example, on Tip O'Neill's service--I was a whip when Tip was
Speaker--I never saw a case where President Reagan called and asked Tip
O'Neill to do something that Reagan thought was in the interest of the
country's foreign policy that Tip didn't agree to do it. But he would
also tell the President what he thought about various foreign policy
issues. He told him privately and told him candidly. But, on the other
hand, Tip felt very strongly that the Speaker should be supportive of
the President on those issues where he could conscientiously support him
in the interest of the foreign policy of the country.
I want to take the opportunity again to express my regret at the
sort of permanent campaign we have under way now. It's a function of
both congressional and Presidential politics that the campaign never
really ends. Fundraising goes on constantly, and preparing for the next
election almost begins the day after the returns come in from the last
one. That has consequences for the ability of the House or the
government to work together after an election to move the country's
agenda and purposes forward. It can be a very critical problem,
obviously, in foreign policy.
So, how do we get over the political consequences of the permanent
campaign and restore a sense of comity and trust that both branches are
trying to move the country's agenda forward? As a Democratic Speaker, I
also wanted to see a Republican President succeed in every way when I
could conceive it as being in the interest of the country. Anyone who
doesn't want a President to succeed, who wants a total failure, is, as
they say, no friend of the republic.
I should also say that one of the things I felt when I was in office
was that we needed to have opportunities for Democrats and Republicans
to find ways to talk together outside the formal debates of the House.
There was a case that occurred when I was Speaker in the 102d Congress
when we had one of those briefings for new Members. I was telling the
new Democratic Members that I thought they should take an opportunity--I
didn't think the press was present--to miss a vote. Not a serious vote,
not one that would affect their reelection, obviously, or affect public
policy, just miss some kind of ordinary, routine vote so they could
never, ever think about having a 100 percent voting record. I mentioned
this because we had a couple of Members who had 100 percent voting
records. When one of them finally failed to get back to the House in
time, he wept on the floor after missing the first vote after 17,372
consecutive votes. I also recall that former Representative Bill Natcher
came from the Bethesda Naval Hospital on a gurney, on life supports, to
vote so his consecutive voting record would not be broken.
I told the new Members to avoid that situation. Just sit through a
roll call vote on approving the Journal or something--you get 99.99
percent, but you can't get 100. Second, I said that you ought to travel,
if you get a chance in your committee, to some place where the
committee's jurisdiction is involved. You'll learn something important
about the committee's work. But you'll also have a chance to have some
association with your colleagues. There's nothing like being together on
an airplane for awhile, and being in a foreign country, to make Members
who don't usually have much opportunity to see or talk to each other do
that. You learn that there's a lot of wisdom and judgment and good
character on the other side of the aisle, if you had any doubts about
that. If you needed a political reason for travel, sometime later in
your career you might get a vote from the Republican side of the aisle
on something the Member had no particular interest in except the fact
that you and he were together, or you and she were together, somewhere
on committee business.
Anyway, it turned out there was a press reporter in the room, and
the next day he reported that Tom Foley, as Speaker of the House, told
the Democrats of the 102d Congress to miss a vote and take a junket. Fox
Morning News the next morning said they were shocked to learn that the
Speaker of the House had told the newly elected Democrats to miss as
many votes as they could--miss as many votes as they could--and never
miss a chance to take a publicly financed trip abroad.
There is a need for Members of Congress to have this opportunity to
get through the divisions that we have on committees, the divisions that
we have across the aisle, and to have a chance to know each other and to
learn the kind of respect that follows from that. I think it helps in
the legislative process. I think it helps bring about an opportunity for
compromise and common effort.
When you sit down here and reminisce about the past with other
Speakers, I am reminded that I always had the problem of being mistaken
for Tip, in part because Tip and I were about the same weight.
Naturally, we both have white hair and big Irish mugs, as Tip said. When
I became Speaker, I weighed about 283 pounds. I weigh about 90 pounds
less than that today. But I remember I went to a gym in New Orleans when
I was Speaker. A very old retainer of the club had been very helpful to
me, and I thanked him. He said, ``Don't thank me, Mr. Speaker. It's been
an honor and pleasure to have you here, and I'm going to tell all the
club members we had the Honorable Mr. Tip O'Neill here in our club
today.'' I didn't know what to say except thank you. A year later I was
in Nordstrom's in San Francisco with Tom Nides, who was on my staff, and
I bought a shirt. As I was leaving the counter, I heard the two clerks
talk and one of them said, ``Do you know who that was?'' And the other
said, ``No.'' He said, ``That's the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.'' He said, ``Tip O'Neill?'' The other said, ``No,
dummy--Jim Wright.'' Anyway, it was an honor to have followed both Tip
and Jim.
Mr. BIGGS. We've got time for one last question.
Question. You talked about carrying out the speakership through
processes of negotiation and coalition building that had to span both
sides of the aisle. That's a mode of operation, as we've heard today,
that goes right back to the ``Board of Education'' room and Sam Rayburn,
if not before. I remember having the impression that when the New Yorker
magazine did a profile of you during your speakership, that in a lot of
cases the negotiations you were engaged in tended to be putting together
different factions within what was a very large Democratic majority.
We've also heard commentators say today that we're now in a more
partisan era where a lot of the coalition building tends to take place
within the majority party.
To what extent, then, did the necessity of carrying out coalition
negotiations--just to hold the large and diverse Democratic majority
together--contribute to the situation in which the minority tend to get
more and more left out of the coalition process? Did this trend
contribute to a more partisan operation in the House?
Speaker FOLEY. I think there's some truth to what you say. I think
in recent years a close majority in the House and the Senate put an
emphasis on getting legislation through with your own troops, and
keeping the core coalition of your own party together. And that inhibits
reaching out very much to the other party. It all depends on time and
circumstances. In the Democratic Party, frankly, we had many more
Members who were on the conservative side politically than Republicans
had Members who were very liberal. There were a few, but I think the
spectrum in the Democratic Party was much broader than it was in the
Republican Party. So we had to deal with the possibility that
Republicans would attract some support from Democrats. We had a
committee chairman, I should say a subcommittee chairman, who somebody
calculated had voted against the Democratic position on key bills 85
percent of the time. I had to justify our continued support for him by
the fact that he voted to organize the House, which was an important
vote by the way.
Coalition building also depends on whether there's a closely divided
House and what party is in the White House. If you've got a Republican
White House with a Democratic majority in the House, that requires
greater consultation. It is true, frankly, that Republicans, I think,
felt much more abused--I don't know what the right word is--much more
ignored or much more overridden than the Democrats felt they were
overriding or abusing. So it's a perception problem, in part. Now
Democrats tell me whatever we did then pales compared to what the
Republican majority is doing to the Democrats in the minority.
I remember Speaker Hastert saying about a month ago, when this issue
arose in the press, that at least the Republicans didn't take away the
Democrats' parking spaces or office keys. With great respect to the
Speaker, who I do admire very much, I can never recall us going so far
as taking away a parking space or an office key. That would be really
intervening. But it's always as seen by the beholder. I guess the other
thing that's gone, in my judgment, is this kind of bipartisan social
relationship. There was, I think, a tendency to become almost like the
British parties. There is a tension not only on policy and even on party
principle, but even personal tension. That is the degree to which, I
think, the situation has gone too far and where it has had a deleterious
effect on the House and its operations.
Actually, my admiration and interest goes to the great Speakers of
the 19th century, who were pretty authoritarian Speakers, by the way. My
favorite is Thomas Brackett Reed, who was an enormously powerful Speaker
and a very witty one. As legend has it, he was asked one time if he was
going to go to the funeral of a political opponent. He said, ``No, I'm
not going, but I approve of it highly.'' Somebody suggested that he
might be a candidate for President himself and he said, ``They could go
farther and do worse and they undoubtedly will.'' One Member was excited
on the floor making a speech and said, ``Mr. Speaker, I'd rather be
right than be President.'' The Speaker leaned down and said, ``The
gentleman need not exorcise himself. He has very little chance of being
either.''
Mr. BIGGS. Could you speak for just a couple of minutes about
something that is a little extra-legislative, and that is the whole idea
of the budget summits during your speakership?
Speaker FOLEY. The budget summits are the only time that I have a
twinge of nostalgia about not being in the House anymore. And I don't
understand why because budget summits were great periods of tension. We
had two or three of them when I was a majority leader and Speaker. They
involved various problems. One was the stock market crash of 1987. We
had to do an emergency reduction of the budget in order to strengthen
the market, along with the Federal Reserve's quick infusion of a lot of
liquidity. I chaired a bipartisan House-Senate committee at that time--a
task force, I guess. Senator John Stennis asked someone if that young
Foley was chairing it. They said, ``Yes,'' to which he responded, ``I
like young people to get their chance.'' I treasure that remembrance.
We also had budget summits with President George H.W. Bush and it
involved constant meetings in my office and other places where Nick
Brady [Treasury Secretary] and John Sununu [White House Chief of Staff]
and Mr. Dick Darman [OMB Director] would come up and we would work over
the various alternatives. I remember the famous budget summit we had
over the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill. Senator Fritz Hollings said his
name on the end of the legislation was a sure way to anonymity because
the proposal generally became known as Gramm-Rudman.
This is an interesting form of the previous question. The House was
then in Democratic control and the Senate was in Republican control. The
summit was between House Democrats and Senate Republicans. We sat around
my office--Senator Pete Domenici, Senator Warren Rudman, Senator
Hollings, and others. The question was whether we should invite the
minority to take part in it, that is, House Republicans and Senate
Democrats. It was one of the Republican Members, who shall remain
anonymous, who said, ``No, no, no. We are the governing coalition, the
Democrats of the House and the Republicans of the Senate on this bill.
And if we invite in the minority, yours or ours, they will have no
particular incentive except to obstruct and delay.'' I didn't think that
was right. I thought we should have invited the minority Members. But it
was overruled at that time. Budget summits also can lead to very serious
consequences. I think the defeat of the budget summit by the House under
Newt Gingrich's leadership was a seminal event at the time.
By the way, it's interesting for me to recall that single events
that don't seem to be connected can have significant consequences. For
example, Senator John Tower was appointed by President George Bush 41 to
be the Secretary of Defense. He ran into the opposition of Senator Sam
Nunn, and the Senate Armed Services Committee failed to report his
nomination affirmatively. This was an embarrassment for the
administration and they decided, I think, that they needed someone to
appoint as Secretary of Defense that would be instantly confirmable--
unanimously confirmable. They decided that person was Dick Cheney, who
was then Republican whip. He was taken from the House whip's job,
nominated as Secretary of Defense, and unanimously confirmed by the
Senate. Cheney's departure led to a race in the House between a moderate
Member and Newt Gingrich to replace Secretary Cheney as GOP whip and
Newt won by one vote. All this came about as a consequence of the
opposition of some Democrats to John Tower's nomination to the Secretary
of Defense job.
Events have consequences. There are connections and some of us are
old enough to recall them. By the way, I think Dick Cheney did a very
credible job as Secretary of Defense and that, I think, led to the
possibility of him becoming Vice President of the United States. So
these things are interestingly connected.
I'm generally not very much in favor of these extraordinary
legislative vehicles like task forces and budget summits. But in times
of emergency, sometimes regular order just doesn't function that quickly
and that responsively to a crisis that exists in the country.
I'd like to--because he's here and others are here--just say a word
of great admiration for Dan Rostenkowski. He talked about Tip being a
great legislator. I think Dan Rostenkowski was a great legislator. He
also was a legislator who worked between the two parties in getting
legislation out that was otherwise difficult to do. He would charge the
President, if it was President Bush or whomever, to take care of his
side of the aisle and he would take care of the Democrats. People I've
talked to over the years remember with great respect Dan's service on
the Ways and Means Committee. They have always commented that Dan kept
his eye on the ball, knew where the legislation had to go, and was
extraordinarily effective at getting things done. It was an era of great
figures like Dan and John Dingell. Both of them were great figures
because they were both great chairmen.
Mr. BIGGS. Thanks to Messrs. Fazio and Frenzel, Speaker Foley, and
the audience. We can now declare a recess until the next session begins.
The Historical Speakership
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Historical Speakership
Dr. BILLINGTON. It is my pleasure as Librarian of Congress to be
here with you at this commemoration of Speaker Cannon and this happy
gathering of so many distinguished and historymaking Speakers of the
House. I always say that the Congress of the United States has been the
greatest single patron of a library in the history of the world,
gathering in books and materials as no other legislature, or no other
government for that matter, has done so effectively. The collections
come to us through copyright deposit of the creative output of the whole
private sector of America, and also include much of the world's
knowledge: two-thirds of our books are in languages other than English.
I have to say that all of the Speakers that have been discussed so
far, as well as the Speaker yet to come, have themselves played
interesting and important roles sustaining the idea that every
democracy--and especially one in a big, complex country like this--has
to be based on knowledge and on ever more people having ever more access
to ever more information. That was certainly true of everyone on the
last panel that spoke, and I want to just take a moment to particularly
single out Vic Fazio who, in his thankless work as chairman of the
Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, played a
particularly important role in the restoration of the Jefferson
Building, without which that beautiful, extraordinary structure would
not be seen in the same beauty and majesty that it is today. He also
offered the first congressional support for the Library's digital
outreach to the Nation, which has now reached the point that we had 3
billion electronic transactions last year. This began in a small way
with an important congressional appropriation, even though it has been
largely funded by private money.
And I should also mention in that regard the special role that
Speaker Newt Gingrich played with his desire to have congressional
information placed online: the whole THOMAS system owes a great deal to
his initiative and support. I am here in active, humble gratitude for
past and future users of the Library of Congress and also to give thanks
to the private supporters of this important centennial; the foundations
that have also made it possible; and, of course, to the Congressional
Research Service under Dan Mulhollan's able leadership for putting all
of this together.
My job today is to introduce a real expert on this whole subject,
Professor Robert Remini. He is associated with the Library to fulfill a
congressional mandate, a mandate from the House in particular, to
produce a history of the House of Representatives--one that would have
scholarly substance and at the same time be accessible to a broad
audience. We have been very fortunate to have enlisted the services of
one of the most distinguished of American historians, Robert Remini. He
is at present a distinguished senior scholar at the Kluge Center at the
Library of Congress. As some of you may know, last week we gave out the
first international prize in humanities and social sciences at the Nobel
level through a Kluge endowment, and that has enabled us to bring some
very distinguished scholars to the Library of Congress. The former
President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, just joined us last
week. One of the most distinguished of all of these scholars is Bob
Remini, and certainly one of the most important of the projects being
done there is his history of the House of Representatives.
Despite the bad light and my failing eyes, I will read you some of
his many distinctions. He is compiling a congressionally authorized one-
volume narrative history of the House of Representatives, which he has
called--I'm quoting now--``an extraordinary institution with its vivid
and sometimes outrageous personalities.'' You can see the little bit of
adjectival twinkle already even in this brief characterization. He hopes
his book will capture--I'm quoting again--``all the excitement and drama
that took place during the past 200 years so that the record of [the
House's] triumphs, achievements, mistakes and failures can be better
known and appreciated by the American people.''
Professor Remini was educated at Fordham University, and graduated
in 1947 from Columbia University, where he finished his Ph.D. in 1951.
He has been a teacher of American history for more than 50 years, the
author of a three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson, and many other
studies of Jackson's Presidency and of the Jacksonian era. He has also
written biographies of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams,
and Joseph Smith. We know him as an earlier collaborator with the
Library of Congress because he crafted the historical overview to a
volume called Gathering History: the Marion S. Carson Collection of
Americana in 1999. This is one of the Library's most important private
collections of American history. It deals particularly with families in
Pennsylvania from the early 1800s, and includes the first picture of a
human face probably ever taken anywhere by a photograph, which was
taken, it turned out, in Philadelphia, and which turned up in this
collection. Professor Remini brought it to life in this wonderful
volume, as he has brought to life so much of the American past and
particularly our history and the functions of our government.
Thus, we have with us a historian who has looked at America through
a variety of perspectives from the top down, from the bottom up, through
the lives of great men, and through the artifacts of American cultural
life. Now he is writing about the legislative institution that for over
200 years has grown to be the most consequential one in the free world.
It is really hard to imagine a person better qualified by his long
experience, and, I might add, by his energetic prowling of the halls of
the House that he has been doing for the better part of a year. He has
won many friends here. It is hard to imagine anyone better qualified by
learning, experience, and temperament to undertake this task.
Necessarily, his perspective, of course, has given him some insight into
the role of Speakers over the years, and it is about them and their
activities that he will speak to us this afternoon. So, it is my
pleasure to present to you as close as we will ever get to a full
chronicler of some of the early history of the House and someone who,
with his own energy, vitality, and endless questioning for more than a
year now, has this noble task of recording the story of the most
important and the most representative legislature in the world. I give
you Professor Robert Remini.
Professor REMINI. Thank you very much, Dr. Billington, for that
gracious introduction. I have a lot of people to thank. First of all,
the Congressional Research Service who invited me here to come and talk
about what I'm doing now in writing the history of the House of
Representatives. I want to begin by singling out Congressman John
Larson, whose idea it was to have a history written of this most
important institution. Such a work has never been really done well, but
there are indeed many books written about the House. I also want to
thank Dr. Billington for inviting me to become a Kluge Scholar, and for
providing me with an office in the Library of Congress, where I could
write the history.
I wasn't sure I could do justice to this history. I've always done
biographies. I've never written an institutional history. But all of the
biographies, or most of them, are about people who have served in the
House, like Jackson, like Martin Van Buren, like Henry Clay, like Daniel
Webster, like John Quincy Adams. And I thought writing such a history
would be fun. I could come into Congress and meet all the Congressmen
and get involved in congressional politics, observing the problems and
challenges that the Members have to contend with.
One of the things that is disheartening to me is that we do not
honor the men and women who have shaped this most important institution.
And especially the men who were the Speakers. This institution has
evolved, and it is continuing to evolve, just as the Office of the
Speaker has evolved from what Speaker Foley said was the British system.
Which is what the Founders, I think, intended.
When I was researching Henry Clay, a student of mine came to me and
said, ``What are you working on now?'' And I said, ``I'm doing a
biography of Henry Clay. Do you know who Henry Clay was?'' He said,
``Sure.'' I said, ``That's wonderful. Who was he?'' He replied, ``He was
the father of Cassius Clay.'' And he didn't mean the abolitionist
Cassius Clay, either.
Who today knows who Henry Clay was, for example? The Senate has
selected five, I think it is, of their greatest Senators and recognized
them. There is a room where their portraits are displayed. The presiding
officers have their busts done after they step down. Two months ago,
they had a commemorative ceremony for former Vice President Quayle. If
you go into the Chamber of the House of Representatives, what do you
see? George Washington--well, that's OK. I mean after all, he is the
father of the country--you wouldn't have a republic without him. But
what's his relationship to the House of Representatives? He gave it the
back of his hand the first time they asked him for the appropriate
documents related to the Jay Treaty so that they could legislate the
moneys needed to implement the treaty. He wouldn't give the documents to
them, replying instead, ``If you want to impeach me, then you can ask
for these documents.'' But there he stands. In truth, he is the father
of the country and deserving of great honor.
On the other side of the rostrum is the Marquis de LaFayette. Now
you tell me in God's name what did LaFayette have to do with the House
of Representatives? He was the first foreigner to speak to the House.
Big deal. You see what I mean? Rather, we should honor the people who
have done important things in the House such as Henry Clay. The
Founders, I think, intended that the legislature would be central to the
whole governmental operation. Notice the Constitution talks a great deal
about the Congress and all of its responsibilities and powers while
those not listed are reserved to the States and the people. But then you
look at the other two branches, which are supposed to be separate and
equal, and there is relatively little discussion. The judiciary--there
will be a supreme court and such inferior courts as Congress shall, from
time to time, establish. The executive was not much better. He may
receive reports from the departments. What departments? It does not say.
It was up to the Congress, then, to flesh out these other two co-equal
branches.
It was also expected that the men who attended the First Congress
would complete the process of establishing the government, and indeed
they did. First, they chose a Speaker. As the present Speaker, Dennis
Hastert, said, ``That's the first office that is mentioned.'' And in
creating the office they were thinking, I believe, of someone akin to
the British Speaker, who was nothing more than a traffic cop,
recognizing one person over another, calling for votes, being non-
partisan.
The Office of the Speaker changed almost immediately with the
formation of political parties because then you had two distinct views
about how the government should operate. And I must say, as an aside,
that what has happened here today having this conference is something
that should be done much more often. There ought to be a greater
awareness and sense of our past. We honor the living Speakers here
present, but how about those who came before? This is, in part, my job
and I think the fact that the Members of the House have asked for a
history of their institution shows some indication that they are anxious
to have the collective memory of the House preserved and respected.
Theodore Sedgwick was the first Speaker who really used his office
in a partisan way. But none of those early leaders were really creative
in revolutionizing the office. Not until you get Henry Clay. He was
elected on the first vote of the first day of his own tenure in the
House. But the Members knew who he was, and his reputation. They wanted
somebody who could really lead this country in the direction that they
felt they needed to go. And here was a man who saw his opportunity to
take an office which was practically insignificant and so reshape it to
be the most powerful in the country politically after the Office of the
President. Because that is what, in effect, he did. And the Members who
elected him Speaker knew he would be dealing with very difficult men, in
particular John Randolph of Roanoke. Randolph had been a powerful
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and Jefferson's floor manager
in the House until he broke with him. He brought his dogs into the
House. How about that? And anybody who tried to interfere, he would
strike them with his riding whip. It was chaotic.
Let me give you an example of some of the chaos that we've had in
the House. I'm sort of jumping out of the period for the moment, but
I'll be right back. I'm quoting from the Cincinnati Enquire of June 20,
1884. ``If every man in the House should fall dead in his seat, it would
be a God's blessing to the country. And in less than two months, we
would have a new set of men who would be just as wise and good as their
predecessors. Today the Congress is a conclave of hirelings, wind bags,
mediocrities and dawdlers. Members of the House are sprawled in their
chairs and put their feet on the desks. They abuse door keepers, munch
peanuts, apples, toothpicks, suck unlit cigars. [Uncle Joe Cannon was a
great one for sucking unlit cigars.] Spit tobacco on the rugs and
carpets and clean their fingernails with pocket knives. No matter how
persistently the Speaker pounded the gavel, the representatives kept
right on talking to one another. With bar rooms in the cloak rooms and
below stairs, whiskey flowed as freely as oratory. Saturdays were
special in the House--then representatives could hold forth with bunkum
speeches that no one heeded on any subject they pleased and fill 70
pages of the Congressional Record.''
It was when you had strong leadership and Speakers who embrace a
vision of where they think the country needs to go and have the will,
the brains, the strength to direct them in that direction, toward that
goal, that is when the House really asserts its authority. Clay had his
American system, and for 10 years it was the House of Representatives,
under his direction, that determined domestic policy in this country,
which is amazing. But he had problems in handling particular Members. A
man like John Randolph of Roanoke, for example. They finally fought a
duel, as you probably know. Once, they were walking down the street
toward one another, each coming closer and closer, neither willing to
give way. Let the other man step aside for me. And when they got
practically eyeball to eyeball, Randolph stopped in his tracks and he
looked at Clay and said, ``I never side-step skunks.'' When Henry Clay
heard that he said, ``I always do.'' And he jumped out of the way!
Speakers have to be smart to be great, I find. Sam Rayburn said it
best, ``You need two things to be Speaker: brains and backbone.'' I have
found that many of the great Speakers have very sharp minds and very
sharp tongues. You heard what Speaker Foley said about Speaker Reed--
I've got a lot of examples of Reed's quick mind and tongue. For example,
he said to one Representative at the time, ``You are too big a fool to
lead and you haven't got enough sense to follow.'' In other words you're
useless.
Henry Clay, of course, is a very unique figure. And the pity is that
he has not had the attention and recognition that the House itself ought
to accord him. And, it should be noted, when you don't have a Henry
Clay, you get a Thaddeus Stevens, who isn't the Speaker, he's the
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, but during Reconstruction, the
most powerful man operating in the House. It's not until you get toward
the end of the century with Samuel Randall and Thomas Reed that things
change, men who then begin to realize that the only way you can really
do the people's business and get men to attend to their duties is to use
the rules and shape the rules for that purpose.
Many Speakers have described what they believe are the
responsibilities of a Speaker. Notice the Speaker today talked about
what he felt his duties were. Henry Clay, when he spoke of them, said
that they ``enjoin promptitude and impartiality in deciding various
questions of order as they arise; firmness and dignity in his deportment
toward the House; patience, good temper, and courtesy toward the
individual Members, and the best arrangement and distribution of talent
of the House, in its numerous subdivisions for the dispatch of the
public business, and the fair exhibition of every subject presented for
consideration. They especially require of him, in those moments of
agitation from which no deliberative assembly is always exempted, to
remain cool and unshaken amidst all the storms of debate, carefully
guarding the preservation of the permanent laws and rules of the House
from being sacrificed to temporary passions, prejudice or interests.''
Each of the many men who have served in this office tries to
describe his duties in a way that recognizes that there is this tension
between a man who is really the majority leader of his party and also
the presiding officer of the House who is expected to be impartial and
even-handed in his relations with all the Members.
In the 19th century, they didn't have a majority or a minority
leader as such. Presumably, the man who lost the election for Speaker
from the opposite party was the minority leader. But there was no whip.
All of that comes at the end of the 19th century. And the role of
Speaker is one in which he uses his office to forward a program or a
vision that he has (or is stated in the party platform) that says that
these are the things that we stand for, that we feel are important and
helpful to the American people, and want to see legislated. Yet he has
another role, which is to be the moderator of a number of men who can
disagree violently and have in the past actually attacked each other
with knives. We have lots of stories just before the Civil War, as you
know, when they were physically attacking one another because of their
differences over slavery. How do you balance those two aspects of the
Speaker's position? Notice that the Speakers today always mention that
they tried to be fair in their dealings with all the Members to be sure
everybody and each side receives equal treatment. Reed, who was probably
the first great Speaker after Clay, said this: ``Whenever it is imposed
upon Congress to accomplish a certain work, it is the duty of the
Speaker who represents the House and who, in his official capacity is
the embodiment of the House to carry out that rule of law or of the
Constitution. It then becomes his duty to see that no factious
opposition prevents the House from doing its duty. He must brush away
all unlawful combinations to misuse the rules and he must hold the House
strictly to its work.'' He also said, ``The best system to have is one
in which one party governs and the other party watches. And on general
principle, I think it would be better for us to govern and the Democrats
to watch.''
He had trouble with the Democrats who would pull what was called a
``disappearing quorum.'' They would call for a roll call, and they were
present in the Chamber, and those who did not respond when their names
were called were marked absent. Finally, Reed decided he would put an
end to the disappearing quorum. So when the clerk called the roll and an
individual didn't answer, the clerk was ready to mark him ``absent.''
When the clerk got to the Member from Kentucky by the name of McCreary,
who did not answer and would normally be marked absent, Reed directed
the clerk to mark him present.
McCreary objected. ``I deny your right, Mr. Speaker,'' he said, ``to
count me as present.'' Then Reed very calmly turned to him and said,
``The Chair is making a statement of the fact that the gentleman from
Kentucky is present. Does he deny it?'' So from then on, if a Member was
physically present in the House, he was counted present whether he said
``present'' or not. Sometimes when they would start the roll call,
Members would duck under the chairs and under the tables so they
wouldn't be seen.
Dilatory amendments were another technique to stall action on bills.
Sometimes the session ended with 1,000 bills still waiting for action.
When Reed was Speaker not only did they pass all the bills they were
supposed to, they appropriated for the first time $1 billion. And people
said, ``My God--a billion dollars.'' And Reed responded, ``It's a
billion dollar country.'' Joseph Cannon inherited this power. Now Cannon
was a very gregarious, delightful, loveable tyrant. He used his power to
maintain the status quo. They said if there had been a meeting or a
caucus to decide whether creation would be brought up out of chaos,
Cannon would have voted for chaos rather than creation. Let's keep
things the way they are. This was his motto. When he was the chairman of
the Appropriations Committee, he supposedly said, ``You think my
business is to make appropriations, it is not. It is to prevent their
being made.'' That gives you some idea of his position. He also said to
William McKinley, ``That it was easier for a politician to get along
with a reputation as a sinner than with a reputation as a saint. I have
been accused of being a profane man, who played cards and showed other
evil tendencies. While McKinley had a reputation for being thoroughly
good and kind and gentle. Who never swore or took a drink or played a
game of cards. He couldn't talk plainly to people because of his
gentleness. And he could not take a glass of beer without shocking the
temperance people who had endorsed him. On the other hand, I could do
much as I pleased without unduly shocking anybody. For little was
expected of me. If I showed gentility, I simply caused surprise at my
improvement. Or,'' he said, ``I could throw the responsibility on the
newspapers for misrepresenting me.''
Cannon also said that he had looked into the matter of being
Speaker. ``I have control of the South half of the Capitol. I manage the
police, run the restaurant, settle contests over committee rooms and in
general, I'm a Poo Bah \1\.'' The Speaker who followed him was a totally
different man. As you know, Cannon became Speaker in 1903, which is 100
years ago. So in that sense, we do honor him particularly today. He
showed what it was like to have the kind of government in which nothing
really happened. He opposed any kind of reform, whether it came from his
own party or not. He disliked Teddy Roosevelt and his program, as well
as the program of the opposition.
\1\ A reference to a character from Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The
Mikado.
But he finally pushed it too far. The revolution continued and he
was stripped of his powers in 1910. The House then had to remake itself
and the Office of the Speaker. You have people coming forward like
Nicholas Longworth, who aided the process. When he was elected Speaker
he recognized this tension between presiding over the House and leading
his party. He said, ``I propose to administer with the most rigid
impartiality, with an eye single to the maintenance, to the fullest
degree, of the dignity and the honor of the House and the rights and the
privileges of its members. I promise you that there will be no such
thing as favoritism in the treatment by the chair of either parties or
individuals. But on the other hand, the political side, to my mind,
involves a question of party service. I believe it to be the duty of the
speaker standing squarely on the platform of his party to assist in so
far as he properly can the enactment of legislation in accordance with
the declared principles and politics of his party. And by the same
token, to resist the enactment of legislation in variance thereof. I
believe in responsible party government.''
I think, following him, the most important Speaker--and I'm not
going to comment at all on those who are still living. I'll have my say
when the book is finished later in a few years--was Sam Rayburn, who
presided longer than any other Speaker. He is a fit candidate for
recognition as a statesman and great leader. Lyndon Johnson seemed to
think otherwise. He claimed, ``Rayburn is a piss poor administrator. He
doesn't anticipate problems and he runs the House out of his back ass
pocket.'' Others had a better opinion in which one man said, ``Mr. Sam
is very convincing. There he stands, his left hand on your right
shoulder holding your coat button. Looking at you out of honest eyes
that reflect the sincerest emotions. He's so dammed sincere and
dedicated to a cause, and he believes in his country and his job, and he
knows it inside out so well that I would feel pretty dirty to turn him
down and not trust him knowing that he would crawl to my assistance if I
needed him.'' I think that almost sounds like what they [participants in
this conference] were saying earlier with respect to Tip O'Neill.
Rayburn himself said--and I mentioned this before--that a man needs to
have a backbone and brains in his head. He remembered Reed, and he said,
``I remember him well--big head, big brains.'' He added, ``I always
wanted responsibility, because I wanted power. The power that
responsibility brings. I hate like hell to be licked. It always kills
me.''
I think what the Speakers, the good ones, have learned is that the
only way you get things done is not to treat the Members the way this
man [pointing to a picture of Cannon] did, as just servants or slaves to
do his bidding. Instead, treat those men as his equal, to whom he can go
and make his pitch with all of the sincerity and the passion in him if
he really cares about the bill that he's trying to sponsor, and get
these men to know that he feels sincerely that this is what the people
want. This is what is good for the country. Because that, in the long
run, is what their duty is to the country, to the Nation. They are
legislating for all of us and we only hope to God they are doing it for
all the right reasons and are led by men and women who care passionately
about what they were doing.
My research has taught me something else that surprised me. And that
was how intelligent, how gifted so many of the men and women who are
Representatives today really are and how mistaken the American people
are about the quality of the men and women who serve them. I think it is
a great shame, and I hope to do something to change that opinion. Thank
you very much.
Dr. BILLINGTON. We're a little over time, but I think we have time
for perhaps one question if there is one from the floor.
Question. Is there in Longworth's speakership the beginnings of the
process of trying to find the levers by which to recentralize power in
the House that continues through Rayburn and subsequent Speakers. Can
you speak to that?
Professor REMINI. You see, you have two different types, and I
didn't really have time to develop them, in which you get men who are
very, very intelligent, quick-witted, well-read. And those who come out
of the prairie like Uncle Joe and are much more interested in the
process rather than in the results. And they know, of course, that they
have these levers of power and they have to use them. When it got to a
point where power was misused, then you got a new man, Longworth, who
was intelligent, educated, and felt passionately about the House and
what he was doing. He was a man of great ability to handle different
sides of a difficult question. He could handle difficult people. After
all, he was married to Alice Roosevelt, who was a very difficult woman.
He knew how to win compromises. You know, I'm going off on a tangent,
but I hope I'm making the point.
When I wrote my book on Henry Clay, the title of it was Henry Clay:
The Great Compromiser. And the editor said that, ``No, today people
think of compromisers as men and women who have no principles at all.''
But that is not what Henry Clay was. Henry Clay was looking for
solutions to avoid conflict. To him compromise meant simply this: that
each side gives something that the other side wants so that there is no
loser and no winner. Because if you have a loser and a winner, you are
going to perpetuate the quarrel. The only way to resolve these problems
is to give a little, to get a little, and be willing to accept that.
That's what happened with the Missouri Compromise. That's what happened
with the Compromise of 1850. That's what happened with the Compromise
Tariff of 1833. And that was the lesson that they understood.
This is what Longworth then tried to do. He wanted to compromise the
differences between those like Cannon who wanted an authoritarian kind
of leadership, and those who were determined to go the other way and
have a freewheeling, very liberal kind of leadership. And it's that kind
of individual who can find those means to make men who have to work
together co-exist. That's why I think it's important today to have
sessions like this, so that men and women of the two different parties
can at least speak to one another. Did you notice how often it was
mentioned today the civility that once existed seems to have been
diminished? Oh, there's always incivility. When Thomas Hart Benton made
some remarks that offended southerners, the argument became very heated.
When one southerner reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol,
Benton tore open his shirt and said, ``Shoot, you damn assassin--
shoot.'' And you can imagine what happened in the Chamber.
Oh, there are some glorious scenes of pandemonium in the House and
in the Senate as men tried to compromise their differences. And I'm not
saying that you have to give up what is essential to your position. But
you have to give in order to take. I don't want to go into any specifics
with Longworth as to his style. It would take more time than I have. But
it is that kind of leadership, I think, that makes the difference
between great Speakers and those who are failures. I've always thought
that Speakers are like Presidents. We've had great ones and we've had
failures, and a lot of in-betweens. We have the Lincolns and the
Washingtons and the Roosevelts who were Speakers, and we also have the
Buchanans and the Hardings. The difference, I think, is one in which men
try to bring about a consensus for the sake of the American people and
what they need and what has to be done.
Dr. BILLINGTON. Many of you will remember that for the 200th
anniversary of the Congress, David McCullough spoke to a joint session
and pointed out how little attention has been paid to the history of the
Congress. He specifically mentioned a large list of Speakers for whom
there is no reliable, serious biography. Certainly the historical study
of the Congress as a whole is an important and neglected subject. I know
that former Congressman John Brademas is trying to set up an institute
for the study of Congress at New York University. There is great and
growing interest in this subject. So I hope that this conference is not
the last where we will get people together so that we hear both from the
distinguished Members who have sat in these important positions and from
the historical profession that gives us some perspective on it all. I
think you will all want to join me in thanking Bob Remini for sharing
with us his vitality and enthusiasm, that I think is infectious, and his
knowledge. We all look forward to seeing those qualities in the history
of the House when it comes out. Thank you again.
?
Photograph by DeJonge Studio
Hon. Newt Gingrich, Speaker 1995-1999
The Gingrich Speakership
The Cannon Centenary Conference
The Gingrich Speakership
Mr. OLESZEK. This conference now turns to an examination of the
Gingrich speakership. I am delighted to introduce our moderator for this
panel--Don Wolfensberger. As many of you know, Don is a 30-year House
veteran who was staff director of the Rules Committee during the
chairmanship of the late Gerald Solomon of New York. Currently, Mr.
Wolfensberger is the director of The Congress Project at the Woodrow
Wilson Center for International Scholars. He is also the author of an
award-winning book titled Congress and the People: Deliberative
Democracy on Trial. Don, the podium is yours.
Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Thank you, Walter. I want to add my thanks to the
Carl Albert Center and to the McCormick Tribune Foundation for
sponsoring this event. I also want to add my kudos to the Congressional
Research Service, Dan Mulhollan, Walter Oleszek and their whole team,
for putting together just a marvelous all-day conference. Please join me
in thanking them. What I'll do is introduce Newt Gingrich first and then
I'll have introductions for each of our two discussants, Leon Panetta
and Bob Walker, when it's their turn to speak.
I vividly recall a day in early October 1994--I think it was after a
Republican leadership meeting--and Newt Gingrich made me a bet, or tried
to. He said, ``Wolfie--I'll bet you 50 cents that we take control of the
House in the next month's elections.'' Well, I kind of brushed it off
and I said, ``I'm not really a betting man, but I sure hope you're
right.'' But I remember thinking to myself--does he really believe
that's going to happen? You know, all the pundits, the political pros,
the prognosticators at the time were saying, in effect, that the
Republicans might pick up 20, maybe even 30, seats in the 1994 elections
for the House.
Well, as you know, the rest is history. On November 8, 1994, the
tsunami happened and Republicans picked up not just the 40 seats that
they needed for a bare 218 majority, but 52 seats and brought in 74
freshmen Republican Members. I think, to his credit, Newt Gingrich had
prepared his party for the takeover. Not only was the ``Contract with
America'' unveiled in September, the product of a year-long development
effort by the Republican conference, but he had also tasked each of the
ranking minority members on the committees and their staff to put
together an organizational plan, a game plan, for how they would run
their committees for the first year once we won the majority. And this
was done early in 1994.
I was really grateful, as the appointed staff director of the Rules
Committee, that we had that document in our hands when we awakened on
the morning of November 9. Everyone was plugged in to Newt's planning
model--``vision, strategy, projects, tactics.'' And everyone also knew
the leadership model of ``listen, learn, help, and lead.'' So we were
trained for this, but we had no idea, really, of what we were getting
into.
The Rules Committee, where I was working for Jerry Solomon, was at
the center of the action in processing the Contract bills. You may
recall that the Contract with America was a 10-plank legislative
program. But that really translated into about two dozen bills when it
was broken down. And most of these, if not all of them, were coming
through the Rules Committee where we were busily still trying to find
out where the bathrooms were. I remember thinking in the middle of the
100-day Contract period that I wish Newt Gingrich had been a little more
like Joe Cannon in one respect. Joe Cannon once said, ``We don't need
any new legislation. Everything is just fine back in Danville.''
But for me, the high point really of the whole experience was the
opening day of 104th Congress when we worked all day and well into the
night debating and voting on a package of House reforms that had been
developed over the years. Not only did the Contract have an 8-point plan
for various House reforms such as banning proxy voting, putting term
limits on committee chairmen and so on, but there were 24 other reforms
that had evolved over a 3-decade period that I had had the pleasure and
the honor to work with our leadership in developing. Most of these were
put into effect in just 1 day. You can imagine how that would be the
highlight of a career for someone like me.
As I mentioned in my book about this whole experience, I did leave
the Congress after the first 2 years of the Republican takeover. I had
my 30 years of government service and was ready to do something new. But
I looked back on it and I said that this was a very interesting 2 years.
It was like a roller coaster ride when you consider all of the ups and
downs of the 104th Congress. But I would not have missed it for the
world. So with that, I probably for the first time want to thank you for
quite a ride, Newt. And with that, I give you Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Speaker GINGRICH. Thank you, Don. It's very good to be here with two
of the friends I served with for years. Bob Walker, who helped found the
Conservative Opportunity Society--we did so many different projects
together--and Leon Panetta, with whom I served in the House and got to
know even more when he became Chief of Staff for President Clinton. I
also want to acknowledge Chairman Rostenkowski--it's great to see you
back. We were over just now in Speaker Hastert's office reminiscing with
four Speakers, which I think is the only time I know of that you've had
four Speakers at one place. Many of you who are true students of the
House will appreciate the speed with which we arrived on the topic of
the Senate and found a bipartisan, non-ideological passion and
agreement, which I'm not going to go into today because of my interest
in comity.
I thought about this chance to talk, and I want to try to keep it
fairly brief. I want to give you an overview of my understanding of what
happened to us when we won control of the House. And I want to suggest
to everyone--if you get a chance--please read Kings of the Hill by Dick
and Lynne Cheney, both the first edition, which came out in 1983, and
the second edition, which came out after I had become Speaker.
The first point I want to make is that they captured two things in
their works. First, if you look at page 194, they said, ``Today's House
has neither strong leadership nor any other well-developed centralized
power. Authority is dispersed among a few elected leaders, many
committee chairmen, and a multitude, or so it sometimes seems, of
subcommittee chairmen (there are currently 137).'' They then go on to
describe the kind of leadership that might be needed in the information
age, arguing that it would be a party leader who could combine debates
on the floor with grassroots activism in real time--a synergistic
network. They wrote this in 1983 and I think it's a very good forerunner
for what we actually did in the intervening period. Again, I would
encourage everyone to look at the two editions of Kings of the Hill,
they are very revealing each in their own right.
To a degree that it's almost impossible to get this city to think
about, the Republican capture of the House was an intellectual effort. I
think that has been very hard for people to appreciate. It was a long
march in the sense that there are some fundamental things that I had
learned early on. I always recommend Peter Drucker's The Effective
Executive to groups, which I first read in the late sixties. If you read
books like that, you begin to think about how much we had to aggregate
resources and how many things we had to do right, because 1994 was not
an accidental campaign. It was a campaign which required some help from
our opponents and which we would not have won under other circumstances.
We could have gained 25 seats and probably would have but not without
all of the previous 16 years of work. And so I start with that.
Additionally, I would say that House GOP campaign chairman Guy
Vander Jagt was the unsung hero, both because Vander Jagt insisted on
supporting my candidacy when I had lost twice, and because when I became
a freshman, even before I was even sworn in, he asked me to chair the
long-range planning committee to look at how to become a majority. I
always point out to people--we failed in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988,
1990, and 1992 before we won in 1994. So first of all, it wasn't like
there was this sudden magic moment. I mean we had a lot of things that
didn't work right. It's a sign that if you can persevere, that can be a
very important component of victory over time. In that context, I think
you have to look at a series of stages.
However, I just want to cite another book for 1 more minute. The
1994 election was essentially based upon Norman Nie's The Changing
American Voter, and Robert Remini's The Election of Andrew Jackson, and
it is actually worth your time to read these two books if you are a
serious student of how this business works. We were looking for models
of how do you get very large-scale change? Remember, the point Don made
wasn't unusual. I think only a small number of chairmen, including Bob
Walker, thought we could win a majority. If you look at the news media
prediction outtakes during the weekend before the election, they are
almost funny in retrospect because it was inconceivable that we could
create a majority--it had been so long. What people failed to understand
is the hardest election was going to be in 1996. Republicans had become
a majority in 1946 and we had become a majority in 1952, but we had not
won a second consecutive election since 1928.
September 17, 1994, was the day that Joe Gaylord briefed the GOP
team. We had a team that was going on a campaign swing on September 17--
Dan Meyer, Steve Hanser, Kerry Knott, Joe Gaylord, and myself.
Literally, as we were taking off at National, I asked both Kerry Knott,
who headed up our planning operation, and Dan Meyer, what were we
planning on the night after the election? At that time, I was still the
minority whip and Bob Michel was still the GOP leader. I said, ``On
election night, are we planning for me to be minority leader or to be
Speaker?'' And Gaylord broke in and said, ``Well, you better be planning
to be Speaker, because you're going to be.'' Dan Meyer then turned to
him and said, ``OK, before we do anything else, explain this
prediction.'' Gaylord started in Maine and, by memory, went through
every congressional seat in the country and came up with a 52-seat gain.
I think we gained 53, so he was off by 1.
From that date on, my entire goal was to be able to maintain the
momentum of doing what we had pledged while winning a second election in
1996. And I would argue the second election was much harder. Leon
Panetta may want to comment on that. Democrats did a brilliant job of
orchestrating resources, designing images, and really taking it to us.
By our count, there were 125,000 negative ads around the country that
had me in it. We made a conscious decision not to defend me, and we made
a decision that our historic goal was to keep control. We also decided
to balance the budget and we knew that meant you had to reform Medicare.
We were close enough to AARP and Horace Deets, its executive director,
who had the nerve to stay with us long enough that we ran seven points
ahead of Bob Dole among senior citizens and that was the margin of
victory. Very briefly, I think that there are six stages that are worth
looking at. First, how did we grow the majority? You have to look at Bob
Walker, Vin Weber, Connie Mack, Duncan Hunter and the entire GOP team
that created the Conservative Opportunity Society as well as GOPAC and
the extraordinary work of people like Bo Callaway and Gay Gaines in
creating a nation-wide network of literally, at its peak, 50,000
activist Republican candidates and incumbents receiving audio tapes and
training.
Second, how did we implement the revolution? And there you have to
look at what was really an extraordinary team in a specific moment as
the loyal opposition. Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Bob Walker, Bill Paxon and
I sat down and said, ``OK, can we be a single team? Because if we're a
single team, we can amass the energy to win the election, but if we are
five independent egos competing with each other, we probably can't win a
majority.'' And to his credit Dick Armey, who was clearly the decisive
person at that point, said, ``This is really hard for me. I've always
flown solo. You're asking me to fly in formation. I really have to go
home and talk to my wife and pray about it.'' And within a week, he came
back and said, ``We are one team.'' We operated, from that point on, as
one single unified team, and it was an amazing accomplishment.
The other person you have to recognize is the new Governor of
Mississippi, Haley Barbour, and it concerned a key moment in Annapolis,
Maryland, where the Republican Senators had gone to decide what to do
about Hillary Clinton's health care plan. Over a drink at the tavern
right across from the State Capitol, I said to Haley Barbour, then the
chairman of the Republican National Committee [RNC], ``If you will help
us, we will do a contract with America and we'll include tort reform.''
And he said, ``By George, if you'll include that, I'll pay for the ad.''
It was at that point that his assistant said he would never again go out
for a drink, because it was the most expensive single trip he had ever
made.
All this became a process. We now had a commitment from the RNC to
run a two-page ad in TV Guide, so you could now go back to Members and
say, ``Gee, we've got to get a contract, because we've got the ad to
fill.'' We began a dialog where ``listen, learn, help, lead'' came in
because you had to get 350 independent entrepreneurs called Republican
candidates to sign a contract. Remember: this is the only time in
American history that candidates didn't have a platform which says, ``We
believe in such and so.'' Instead, we had a contract which said, ``We
will vote on specifications,'' which is a much higher standard.
There were only three incumbents, to the best of my knowledge, who
did not sign the contract. Everyone else signed the contract. The
contract, in my mind, was a management document which enabled me to
pivot and turn to Bob Walker, Dick Armey, and Tom DeLay and say, ``You
guys get this through.'' Armey literally had total control of the floor
in a way I don't think any Speaker normally has delegated that
responsibility. From day one, I turned over control of the floor so I
could then focus on figuring out with Bob Livingston, Bill Archer, and
John Kasich how we were going to balance the budget, because you
couldn't have done both in the same setting. You had to have different
leadership operating both projects. So everything that was driving Don
crazy on the floor was being driven by Armey based on what was in the
contract we had signed before the election. By the way, we wouldn't have
gotten it signed after the election. Once these guys got to be chairmen,
there was no hope they were going to sign a contract because it gave
away too much power. We then had a pretty serious effort to centralize
authority in the speakership, something, which is fair to say, has
continued to this day.
The next phase after that was winning the crucial election of 1996.
And there the key, as Don was saying, was an enormous effort. I have a
tremendous respect for Dan Miller of Florida, because he trained every
single one of our Members with very few exceptions. They could then all
go home and answer Medicare questions and win the Medicare argument,
because we thought that was the crisis of the campaign on our side. The
other two things I'd say is we had a very close working relationship
with Scott Reed, Dole's 1996 Presidential campaign manager, a guy named
Don Rumsfeld over at the Dole campaign, and a very close relationship
with Haley Barbour. Frankly, if we had not had the foreign campaign
contribution scandal of the last 10 days, I think we might have lost
control of the House. But the combination of winning Medicare, having
raised enough resources with the aid of Bill Paxon, and then having the
ability to focus a lot of energy on the question about foreign
contributions got us through winning reelection for the first time since
1928.
Fourth, we had a phase of working with Bill Clinton. And the fact
is, if you look at welfare reform, which was signed; you look at the
balanced budget, which was negotiated out and signed; you look at a
number of other issues, including creating the Hart-Rudman Commission;
there were a whole series of things working in 1996 and then
particularly in 1997, where I thought there was a real momentum of
cooperation. This is a period that you have to look at as genuine
bipartisan cooperation. We were actually passing bills and routinely
getting about half of the Democratic Caucus to vote with us.
Part five of this in my mind is that perjury drowned out the
bipartisanship. The question of what was happening with the Presidency
just shattered party cooperation, and the President couldn't risk any of
his left so we were pinned into being in a fight with him. All of 1998
was, in a sense, a great lost opportunity. If that had not happened, if
that particular scandal had not broken out, my hunch in retrospect is
you would have seen a much different 1998. We would have passed an
amazing amount of very positive legislation on a bipartisan basis. I
think that's where President Clinton was headed, and I think that all
went down the tubes in December and January.
Finally, the sixth and last stage for me was when it was clearly
time for a new Speaker and there were a lot of different factors there.
One was my exhaustion. A second was the fact that the ethics war against
me had taken its toll. A third was the fact the House is really not
designed to have an entrepreneurial dominating figure in the speakership
position. Henry Clay pulled it off in a very different world in very
different settings. But it's very difficult to do because the House
really is a collection of equally-elected people who have real authority
and real power. Far more than the Senate, the House really delegates
authority to its committees, and its committee chairmen really acquire
mastery of their topic. The idea that there might be some guy at the
center who is going to run over them is anathema to the way the House
has been structured--except for a very brief period, I would argue,
under Cannon and a very brief period earlier than that under Speaker
Reed from Maine and under Clay in a very different world. It's very hard
to go back and imagine the House of Representatives when Clay was
Speaker because it was so much smaller and so very different.
I basically had burned out the centralizing process. Losing seats in
November 1998 sealed that and, in my judgment, made it appropriate for
me to leave and to permit a different kind of speakership to emerge. I
also think that Speaker Hastert has actually carried out a more
conciliatory, more managerial speakership with extraordinary skill and
has gotten an amazing amount done, given the size of his majorities.
In retrospect, I'll just close by saying there are four big things I
would do differently. The first, looking back on September 17, 1994, I
should have understood that the jump from the minority whip's job to the
leader of a national movement at the center of the national news media
and chief organizer of the House was an enormous jump. We should have
brought in a number of very senior people with Presidential and
gubernatorial experience, because we needed to upgrade our operations.
This is not a bad comment about anyone on the team, nor is it a bad
comment about any of our staffs, who are fabulous. It is simply an
objective fact. We were suddenly on a different playingfield and we were
going to get overmatched by reality, even though I think we accomplished
an amazing amount.
The second is I should have had much more media discipline. I say
this not because of the times when I would say things that would get me
in trouble, when I was just being a partisan Speaker, but because I
would get confused about my role. There's a side of me that's
permanently analytical, that likes coming and giving the speech, and
that side of me should not have been allowed out of the box for the
entire time I was Speaker. If I really had to say something, I should
have said it into a tape recorder for the archives and brought it out as
a book 20 years later. Instead, I would go and say something
controversial. You go back and look at the whole Air Force One example
where I just handed Leon Panetta and his boss an opportunity to just
beat me around the head and shoulders for no good reason.
If you actually go and look at the text of my comments at a Sperling
breakfast [sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor], they were
analytical comments about the difficulty of understanding how to
negotiate with Clinton. I wasn't complaining about what happened except
to say, ``I don't know how you read him.'' Within an hour, my
observation was immediately turned to ``Gingrich was whining,'' which
then got turned into a picture of me as a crybaby on the front page of
the New York Daily News. That story led some of my colleagues to think
I'd lost my mind. Well, I will tell you in retrospect, they were right.
A fully professional Speaker would have understood that it was somebody
else's job to comment on Clinton, that that wasn't my job. I have the
greatest respect for President George W. Bush and the later phase of
President Clinton's term, when he got much more disciplined, and for
President Reagan, who understood that this is who I have to be in this
context to play this game, captured brilliantly by John Keegan in a book
called The Mask of Command.
Third, the ethics charges have never been actually looked at. I
really recommend, if you want to understand my speakership, that you
read the volume published by the Ethics Committee. It includes all of my
planning documents. You'll understand how intellectual this process
really was, because it's all been published. It's all available for
students of how you do these things. In retrospect, I underestimated the
degree to which there was a legal strategy. Frankly, we should have
gotten an attorney who was prepared for that kind of litigation-style
strategy. Early on we didn't and if you go back and look at the 83
charges, no serious charge was ever judged to be true. What I got
hammered on was having signed a letter which was inaccurate, which was
written not by my attorney nor by a partner in his firm, but by a new
hire who was an assistant. Now, that's still my responsibility. I still
failed, but in retrospect, it was a combination of bad litigation and
not taking the entire fight seriously enough. That was an erosive
process and the truth is, without Randy Evans having come in and having
fired my prior attorney, I probably wouldn't have survived. The entire
process just eroded my authority substantially.
Last, I would say in retrospect, we should have insisted on
celebrating. We did so many things so rapidly that we never slowed down.
I'll give you an example: the Medicare fight. Because we never stopped
and celebrated being the first reelected majority since 1928, the only
majority ever elected to the House as Republicans with a Democratic
President in American history, we never had 1 day of stopping and
saying--this is amazing. So nobody figured out that we had won the
argument over Medicare, and that we had run seven points ahead of Dole
in the November 1996 elections, and that, in fact, senior citizens were
our margin of victory. And so people felt like you lost because you're
so badly bruised and you're so tired. That was sort of the mood that we
had throughout a good bit of late 1996 and early 1997. Those are the
things I would have changed. I look forward to my colleagues' comments.
Don, as you said, it was a pretty wild ride.
Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Our first discussant on the Gingrich speakership
is Leon Panetta, who is the co-director with his wife Sylvia of the
Panetta Institute in Monterey, California. It's a non-partisan center
dedicated to the advancement of public policy. Mr. Panetta served from
1977 to 1993 as a Representative from the Monterey area in California.
And then beginning in 1993, Mr. Panetta served 4 years in the Clinton
administration, first as OMB Director, and then as White House Chief of
Staff. On the one hand, he was spared serving in the House under a
Republican majority; on the other hand, he was fated to deal with that
same majority during 2 of the most turbulent years in the history of
Presidential-congressional relations. In the House, he was known as the
top budget expert on the Government's budget. In the White House, he
became known as the top expert on how to keep the Government running
without a budget. I give you Leon Panetta.
Mr. PANETTA. Thank you very much. I also want to extend my thanks to
the Congressional Research Service, and to the Carl Albert Center for
having this forum on the changing nature of the speakership. There are
obviously differences as we look at each of the Speakers who are
reviewed today in terms of their personal relationships with Members, as
well as their leadership styles. And I think it helps us define the
place in history for each of them. When it comes to my friend Newt
Gingrich, I don't think there's any question that, of the four Speakers,
he represents the more controversial figure, because of both the
personal and leadership styles that he brought to the speakership.
Let me preface my remarks by saying that I had the opportunity to
serve with Newt as a colleague in the House, and developed a friendship
with him during that time. I then had the opportunity, obviously, to
work with him when I became Chief of Staff to President Clinton. We
began a series of efforts to try to negotiate various issues.
Incidentally, if you all want to feel insignificant, you want to sit
in a room where Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton are having a
conversation. These are two individuals who are extremely bright, well-
read, full of ideas, and full of enthusiasm about how to resolve issues.
If you listened to the both of them, there was no question in your mind
that they could solve any issue in the world. What was interesting is
that they came to basically oppose each other on most issues that they
dealt with. But it was interesting.
Part of the reason I term his speakership controversial is because
it became a conflict between the role of the Speaker as leader of his
party, and the role of the Speaker as leader of the House dealing with
individual Members and also the Speaker as leader of the Nation. I think
he was without question a successful leader of his party. His ability to
be able to pull the party together, to consolidate the political power
that was important to obtain the majority, and the fact that he put
together a very effective agenda that became the platform for the
Republican Party--this was an exceptional achievement. He, in effect,
created a revolution in politics. But the challenge was also how to
convert that revolution into effective policymaking on a continuing
basis to help govern the Nation. And that's where I think the
distinction has to be made.
In academic terms, for those of you who are academics, let me refer
you to James MacGregor Burns' book on leadership, in which he talks
about transformational leadership, and what's called transactional
leadership. Transformational leadership is leadership that tries to
attract people by offering a higher purpose, a higher calling. It goes
beyond simply cutting deals. On the other hand, the transactional leader
is a person who provides rewards or penalties for compliance. And
generally, if you want to be Speaker, it probably involves using both of
those capabilities. There was no question that Newt Gingrich wanted to
be a transformational leader. He wanted to be a Disraeli, a Wellington,
a Churchill, a Jack Welch. He tried to inspire Members and push them to
a higher calling, to a higher standard, that went beyond just simply
cutting deals, and basically serving their own interests. He tried to
rise to a higher calling with regards to the party and the agenda of the
party. But the problem is that a Speaker is not a CEO. A Speaker is not
a general. And a Speaker is not a Prime Minister. You can't take the
parliamentary model and try to apply it to a branch of government that
is based on the separation-of-powers approach to governing.
The House of Representatives, as has been pointed out time and time
again during this forum, is a unique legislative body. It's a unique
institution in which each Member is autonomous and independent; in which
Members basically try to ensure their survival through their own
election and through responding to their constituency. That's the nature
of a House of Representatives. So, you're not going to get Members to
take the hill unless they're convinced that in the end it's in their
interests to take the hill. The point is, if you're going to be a
visionary or a transformational leader in the House, and if you really
want to transform both the House and the country, which I believe Newt
Gingrich was trying to do, then you damn well had better make the right
decisions. And beyond that, you had better be able to adapt to changing
circumstances, or else you're going to lose the support of your Members.
The force of your personality is simply not enough in itself. There has
to be a pragmatic side to that leadership as well.
There's no question that Newt had great successes as the leader of
his party--the first GOP majority in 40 years. That is a significant
achievement for an individual, to nationalize the congressional
elections. This is really one of the first times, instead of every
Member fighting on his own in his district, where Newt broadly
nationalized elections with the Contract with America. Moreover, he
brought all of those items in the Contract with America to a vote within
the first 100 days, which is also a significant achievement. He did
implement reforms. He cut the number of committees. He implemented term
limits. He got rid of proxy voting. He also accomplished some
significant legislation like welfare reform, the freedom to farm bill,
the telecommunications bill, and the line item veto. He pushed for a
balanced budget. Which leads one to ask, ``Where the hell are you now,
when we need you, Newt?'' [Laughter.]
So he clearly achieved some successes. But if you're going to have a
high profile, if you're going to be a high-profile charismatic leader,
the transformational-type of leader in a legislative body, you have to
be careful that you don't make some big mistakes. I think the problem
was that he made some mistakes that began to erode the support that he
needed from his own Members.
What were some of those mistakes? I guess they're obvious to all of
us. First of all were the shutdowns that took place in 1995 and 1996. I
mean, clearly, when you're going to impact the citizens of this country,
either through an inconvenience or through a reduction or a temporary
loss of benefits, you're going to suffer a blow. I remember Bob Dole,
when we were sitting in the Oval Office, talking about the fact that we
really shouldn't be in a shutdown. Bob Dole said, ``You know, in my
experience, you can probably shut the Government down over the weekend,
but if you shut it down for any longer period of time, people are going
to come looking for you.'' And he was right. I think Bob Dole understood
that it would be a mistake to do that. Frankly, my own view, I think
Newt Gingrich understood this point as well. But the problem was that he
had created a revolution within his own Members, with the sense they
would wholeheartedly fight for everything they were trying to achieve.
And that led to an almost impossible situation in that the strong
ideological constituency that he had created in the House made it
impossible for him to be able to compromise. We were probably very close
to compromising at one point. But for whatever reason, it just could not
happen. And that, of course, led to the shutdown.
In addition, I think the disaster relief he asked for--disaster
relief, flood relief, for the Midwest--was important, but it had a
couple of amendments attached to it by the Republicans, and was
ultimately vetoed by the President. I think the Republicans were
basically blamed again for preventing disaster relief because of those
amendments. I think that was a tactical mistake.
Obviously, the handling of President Clinton's impeachment, which
created the impression of being more partisan than balanced, and the
Speaker's own ethics violation, continued to erode his status.
Ultimately what happened is that he became in a very real way a campaign
liability. He was polling badly in the country as a result of that. If
you're a charismatic leader you can't afford to poll badly in the
country. So the consequence was like all revolutions: in the end,
Members turned on their own leader and moved him out of the speakership.
Let me just reiterate that the speakership of Newt Gingrich, as I
defined it, was controversial and it perhaps may go down in history as
one of those that was the most controversial. As a result, there is a
profound lesson, I think, to be gained from that speakership. There is
no question that you can be a strong charismatic leader of the party,
and there have been strong charismatic leaders within the House of
Representatives. But at the same time, if you're going to be a leader of
the House, you have to stay in touch with your Members. You have to
respond to their needs. You've got to listen to them. You've got to
compromise when necessary in order to govern. And you always have to be
willing to change with the needs of the Nation, to adapt to changing
circumstances, even if that involves compromising an ideology. I think
that's the difference between success and failure; and I think that is
perhaps the profound lesson of the Gingrich speakership. Thank you.
Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Our second discussant on the Gingrich speakership
is Bob Walker, who is chairman of Wexler and Walker Public Policy
Associates here in Washington. Many of you remember him, though, as a
10-term Pennsylvania Congressman from 1977 to 1997, a ubiquitous floor
presence in the House, and a top Republican strategist, tactician, and
parliamentary guru over most of those years. As someone who worked
closely with Bob Walker and the Republican leadership on various
procedural matters, I often wondered where he got his kinetic energy. I
stopped wondering after I once sat down with him for breakfast in the
Rayburn cafeteria, and his breakfast of chocolate milk, a chocolate-
covered donut, and a half-grapefruit covered with sugar. Now you know
the secret of what it is that makes the ``Energizer Walker'' run.
Congressman Bob Walker.
Mr. WALKER. My staff always said they knew it was going to be a bad
day when I had two chocolate donuts. Newt has done a pretty good job of
walking through how we got to where we were in 1994 when we took over
the House. But it seems to me that when we got there, we discovered a
few things about ourselves that speak to the issues that Newt faced
inside his speakership.
The main lesson that we learned very quickly was that governing is
hard. When we had been in the minority, we never had any responsibility
to do any governing. We had fought the good fights, we had charged up
the hill every day, we had gotten bloody fighting with our flags flying,
and so on. We would come down off the hill if we lost, but we felt
really good about it because we had fought glorious battles. All of a
sudden, we found ourselves in a position where we actually had to
govern, where it did require compromise, where it did require a lot of
work with individual Members. And at the end of the day you got part way
to where you wanted to go. You won, but you didn't feel really good
about it.
It was going through that transition in the majority that for
everybody was a huge learning experience. And Newt was in the position
of having to work through that. He was in the position of having to work
with a number of things that we had set up in advance very consciously.
The Contract with America was a political document and a governing
document. How much of a governing document became very clear to us on
one of the opening days when we had come back to Washington after the
elections were over. We were faced with all of the freshmen who had been
elected, who came in and said very clearly to the people who were going
to be in the leadership, ``We're going to do the Contract, right?''
You know, they had internalized this to the point that there was no
changing anything that was in the document. They were determined to
ensure that it was the direction that the leadership was going to go.
And that was a positive thing from the standpoint of our being able to
do an agenda right at the beginning of the 104th Congress. Remember, we
had also committed to do that agenda within 100 days. While the 100 days
was an arbitrary figure that we thought had great political saliency,
when it came to actually accomplishing it, it was a major slog through
the legislative process, because you had the rules of the House to
contend with, such as layover requirements and a number of different
procedural things that you had to be aware of.
What it meant was that you had to have a lot of direction from the
top. And Newt did use his leadership to help implement the agenda. The
fact is that committee chairmen learned from the very earliest days of
the Gingrich speakership that they were taking orders from the Speaker's
Office, and that we were going to go through this agenda. It was going
to get done in a way that reflected exactly what we had put in the
Contract with America. That seems to me to be something that then played
itself out in a variety of ways throughout the speakership.
From then on, people who ended up with problems inside their
committee structure as they dealt with issues felt that they could come
to the Speaker because, after all, the Speaker had in the earliest days
forced the agenda through. So we were constantly in some of those
committee battles. The chairmen were also faced with a new situation
where we had term-limited them. They did not have long-term prospects in
the job. Their power was somewhat diminished by the fact that they were
only going to be there a short period of time. It seems to me that the
100-day agenda was a very important part of shaping the way the
speakership evolved in the years ahead.
There's another thing that has not been discussed here that I think
needs to be recognized about Newt's speakership. There was a great
technology focus in it. Dr. Billington made mention here a little while
ago of the fact that Newt in the earliest days, as a personal crusade,
created the THOMAS computer system for the House of Representatives. For
the first time, it brought online all of the documents of the House of
Representatives for the public to have easy access to and to learn what
was actually going on inside the Congress. It was Gingrich's recognition
that we had entered a new technological era in this country, and that
Congress needed to be a part of it. I believe that it is a technology
revolution that continues today.
It has certainly changed the shape of those of us who are lobbying
in town. It used to be that one of the things that a lobbyist could
produce was the documents out of the House of Representatives. Only
lobbyists could easily get them because they went to the House document
rooms for their clients out across the country. Now the clients can get
the documents simply by going online.
Speaker Gingrich also was focused on science and technology as a
broad general subject. The whole business of doubling the budgets of NIH
grew out of a relationship between Newt and John Porter on the need to
have amounts of money flowing into some of these technology areas that
were so important. Technology also was frustrating for him because that
was a part of the agenda for which the Republican conference was not
completely on board.
I remember going out to the Xerox center outside of town just after
we had completed the 100-day agenda, and Newt was determined to have us
adopt a new agenda to move forward. Part of that agenda was to make the
Republican Party into the leadership party of the information age. Newt
had drafted some concepts for the conference to consider and ultimately
adopt that would move us in that direction. When we got to the Xerox
center and broke into groups to discuss these various agenda items,
Members took a look at some of the things that were supposed to take us
into the information age. I remember one committee chairman--where I
walked into the room to listen--who described the discussion as
``psychobabble.'' That was probably one of the kindest things that was
said about these discussions. By the time we got back into the general
session, this was a portion of the agenda that was just written off. I
remember Newt, following the meeting, being very discouraged because it
was clear that the conference participants simply didn't understand
where we were headed at that point in the economy and how we could be
leaders in that arena.
Another thing, as I reflect on this, that seemed to me to be a
shaper of the Gingrich speakership was the fact that we had a number of
people in the freshman class who arrived in 1994 who were ``self'' term-
limited. They had decided on their own that they were only going to be
here for a short period of time. Those folks became people inside the
conference who resisted whenever we attempted to make long-term deals
and look down the road a long way. They were there for a very short
period of time. They wanted to get things done now, or they wanted to
stop things from being done now. Interestingly enough, it was a number
of those people who ended up being at the base of the revolt that took
place against Newt's leadership later on.
Newt's operational style was often not understood by a lot of
people. It was to empower folks to go out and do things with regard to
issues that came up. If a young Member of Congress came to the Speaker
and said, ``You know, I'd like to do something about this issue.''
Newt's tendency was to say ``yes'' and empower them to go do it. The
problem with that was, for a number of us who were part of his
leadership team, we almost immediately got a call from a committee
chairman or a subcommittee chairman who didn't realize that this
responsibility had now been given to some freshman Member of Congress.
The chairman was outraged by the fact that this person had seemingly
been empowered by the Speaker. So there were a number of us in the
leadership team and on Newt's staff who would have to go to the freshman
and say, ``You may not have understood exactly what the Speaker was
saying.'' We would try to work out some of these arrangements.
Certainly, part of the problem that Newt ultimately ran into were
the dozens of ethics charges that were filed against him. The ongoing
issues there stem from the fact that many people in the opposition
party, in the Democratic Party, never really got over their anger about
the confrontational tactics that had been used in order to take the
majority. That made it very difficult to work with the Democratic
leadership. And it may have been partially work that we didn't do very
well. Additionally, many in the Democratic leadership didn't work very
hard at forging a relationship. That reality really led to much of the
decision of the Republicans that we had to go it alone. No matter how
narrow our majority we had to do it on our own, and it was a way of
shaping policy throughout the Gingrich speakership.
I must say that working with President Clinton was different, and
Leon Panetta has somewhat characterized this relationship. Newt and
President Clinton did have this ability to talk to each other, because
they were both policy wonks. Yet there was no end of frustration on our
end of Pennsylvania Avenue when Newt and the President would get
together and talk about something, and Newt would come up to explain
this great deal he had just cut. Somebody in the leadership would say,
``Newt, we can't do that!'' And then there would have to be more
discussions that followed our meetings. I believe that there was an
understanding that we could, through that relationship, forge some
legislative packages. As has been mentioned, there were some things that
were done, such as the welfare reform package that ultimately was a
major change of direction in American policy.
I have a somewhat different view of the Government shutdown than
Leon's. I think that most of us felt as though that was very successful.
It would have been a disaster had it led to us not being able to retain
the majority in 1996. The fact was that we were able to retain our
majority despite having gone through the shutdowns. Many of us have felt
that the shutdowns convinced a lot of the markets that there was a
serious effort under way to balance the budget. It wasn't just rhetoric
anymore. There was, in fact, a serious effort under way. A lot of the
growth that happened in the economy after that really resulted from the
willingness of the Republicans to take the political heat that came with
the government shutdowns.
Let me just sum up here. There are a half a dozen things that I
would say are probably the legacy of the Gingrich speakership. First, it
seems to me that his speakership affirmed the national Republican
political ascendancy. Up until then there had been a lot of feeling that
the Republican Party was basically a party where a personality, Ronald
Reagan, had managed to bring us to a status that gave us a fighting
chance in politics. With the speakership of Newt, and the ability to win
successive elections after 1994, it certainly affirmed our political
ascendancy.
Second, his legacy should certainly include that he moved the House
of Representatives into the modern technology era. Third, it seems to me
that his speakership also changed the relationship between the Speaker
and committee chairmen. Clearly, there is a much different relationship
that continues to this day. Fourth, the speakership of Newt Gingrich and
the way in which the Republican majority approached legislation assured
the long-term vibrancy of Reaganism. We took much of the Reagan agenda
and assured that it was what we were enacting as a result of our work in
the Congress. Fifth, it seems to me that the Gingrich speakership
created a positive visionary platform for dealing with national issues
from a conservative base. In large part, that kind of visionary outlook
resulted in our ability to keep a majority in the House over a long
term.
Finally, sixth, it seems to me that what the Gingrich speakership
also did was change the nature of the political dialog in the country.
Up until then we had debated the issues largely from the standpoint of
liberal rhetoric. We changed a lot of that rhetoric. Just the idea that
we went from discussing how long we were going to have large deficits to
the fact that we could actually have a balanced budget was a tremendous
change in rhetoric. Despite the fact that we're having trouble keeping
those balanced budgets today, we still talk in terms of balanced budgets
in ways different than we did before. That's my view. Thanks.
Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. Because we did get a late start, I've been
authorized by the organizers to go a little late in this, so we can
allow for some questions. But what I'd like to do is first of all give
Newt a couple of minutes to make some comments on what was said since he
last spoke, and also if Mr. Panetta would like to do so as well. Mr.
Panetta will probably have to leave before our question period is over
to catch a plane. So I want to make sure he has an opportunity for a
last word as well. Newt.
Speaker GINGRICH. First of all, just a couple of quick observations.
I think there are two grounds for focusing on my speakership. The first
is that it was actually a team effort all the way through. You can't
describe my rise without talking about the Congressional Campaign
Committee, Guy Vander Jagt, Joe Gaylord, and others. You can't describe
our rise in the House without mentioning the Conservative Opportunity
Society and people like Bob Walker and Vin Weber and Connie Mack and
others. You can't describe how we ran the Contract with America without
looking at the extraordinary role Dick Armey played. And you can't look
at how we ran the House in the first couple of months without looking at
Armey and Walker and DeLay. Finally, you can't describe balancing the
budget without including Kasich and Livingston and Archer. So there was
an extensive team process. I was the central executor and I had very
substantial power, but it was as the leader of a collectivity. It wasn't
just me and then you drop down 100 feet to the next person. The team
concept was a very conscious design.
Second, because of the separation of powers that Leon pointed out, I
believe it is a mistake to see 1994 in isolation, and Bob Walker came
closer to the right model--which is, Reagan in 1980 brings us back from
a distinct minority party status to being competitive. We, I think,
helped get ourselves to parity, recognizing that much of the Contract
was in fact standing on Ronald Reagan's shoulders. Bush now has to see
whether or not he can move beyond parity to majority.
You can go back to earlier studies of American politics in the 19th
century. There are three things to think about in terms of what I tried
to accomplish: the political, the policy, and the personal. The first
thing, and I wrote down what Leon said because I thought he caught it
right, although he and I probably will disagree on it. He said,
``effective policymaking on a continuing basis to help govern.'' This is
the 9th year of a Republican majority in the House. The last time we
were in the 9th year of a Republican majority in the House was 1927. So
at a political level, it's pretty hard to argue that we weren't
successful. Just as a fact.
Second, on policy grounds, look at welfare reform, balancing the
budget, reforming the FDA, strengthening the National Institutes of
Health, increasing the Central Intelligence Agency's budget, cutting
taxes. It's hard not to say that those 4 years were fairly substantial
at a policy level.
And the third is personal. Here I'm quite happy to have people
decide that I failed in the end because I left the House. But it's a
little hard for me to look back and not feel success as a former Army
brat who had no great personal wealth, no ties, and I arrived in Georgia
courtesy of the U.S. Army at a time when it was segregated and
Democratic. Georgia is now a State that has a Republican Governor, a
Republican Senator, I think a soon-to-be Republican second Senate seat,
and a majority of Republicans in the House. I arrived in Washington when
we were in our 24th year of being in the minority. We're now in our 9th
year of being in the majority. I got to have a dinosaur in the Dinosaur
Room, as Denny Hastert reminded me today. What's to feel bad about? This
was an enormously successful run that changed the House, changed the
Republican Party, and marginally changed the country.
In the end, I don't think you can be that aggressively
entrepreneurial in Washington in the speakership and sustain it very
long. So you either have to decide, ``I really want to get all of these
things done and then I'll have to go do something else for a while,'' or
you have to decide, ``I'd rather stay around here and get a lot less
done.'' I don't think there's a game in the middle between those two
styles. Most successful Speakers don't try to do as many different
things, and they're right. But we had a very unique brief window to
really change things.
Last, I agree totally with Leon about the disaster relief fiasco in
1997. That was one of the reasons we ended up with my leadership in
rebellion. I thought it was crazy for us to be in the fight. It was a
moment of saying, ``You know how good Bill Clinton is at this stuff, why
are you putting your head up so he can just beat on you for three
hours?'' I couldn't agree more. That's one of the places I failed. I
failed in part because by then there were too many things going on and
too many moving parts, which is the weakness of a centralized leadership
in the House.
The shutdown, though, is really important for sophisticated people
to look at for a long time. Livingston and Kasich have both told me in
the last year they are absolutely convinced we wouldn't have gotten to a
balanced budget without the shutdown. They see it as shock therapy. But
there's a key mantra, which is, ``We lost.'' I want all of you to think
about this. We were the first reelected majority since 1928. We are the
only majority ever reelected with a Democratic President winning the
national election in 1996. What is it we lost? People say, ``Oh, that
was a terrible period, and we lost.'' But what did we lose? We had a
running brawl 9 months before the election. We proved that we were
really deadly serious about solving our Nation's problems. Leon has his
version, and mine is a totally different discussion. We have to get Bob
Livingston to come in some time and do an entire session on whether the
shutdown was a mistake. I think you would have Leon on one side and you
would have Kasich and Livingston on the other side.
I would just say that as a professional designer of campaigns, the
shutdown did not cost us anything except in the press corps and in this
city and at cocktail parties. It didn't cost us anything in the country.
In the end, we were able to win election in a way that nobody had done
since 1928. We didn't feel good about it, so people tend to undervalue
the sheer fact that it's still Speaker Hastert.
Mr. PANETTA. Well, I guess I would just caution that the fact of
simply holding power in and of itself is not necessarily an indication
that you're governing the country. Democrats made the mistake of
basically assuming that because we held power, that somehow we didn't
have to deliver in terms of governing the country. I've often said that
we govern in our democracy either through leadership or crisis.
Leadership that's willing to compromise and willing to find solutions is
the most effective way of governing this country, in order to avoid
crisis. But I think if you look at the last few years, we are a Nation
that more and more governs by crisis, as opposed to leadership. Crisis
drives policy. It drives energy policy. You've got to have the lights
shut down in order for the country to respond to the energy problem. On
budget issues, there's always the threat of some kind of shutdown or
forcing Members to stay beyond an adjournment date to pass
appropriations bills in this place. The same thing is true on health
care. The same thing is true for Social Security. The same thing is true
for Medicare. Ultimately, we are doing more and more as a result of
crisis driving policy. Now, whether we're Democrats or Republicans, I
think that's a reality. And let me add, the public may for a period of
time basically allow that kind of gridlock to proceed. But, as the
California example demonstrates, there is a point at which angry and
frustrated people are going to take their vote out on leaders who are in
office. If there's any lesson you should take away from the California
recall experience, it's that incumbents ought not to feel too
comfortable about where they are at the present time. I think there is
an angry and frustrated public out there, that at some point may do
exactly what happened in 1994, which is to change the leadership because
they are frustrated with the fact that we are doing more by crisis than
by leadership.
Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. I think we have time for one question.
Question. In what way did your view of the speakership change during
your tenure?
Speaker GINGRICH. Virtually none. My view was that we had to be very
different than traditional speakerships. My assumption was that we would
be faced with overwhelming resources against us from the White House,
large parts of the media, and the capacity to raise money from interest
groups who would be threatened by changing government and changing
priorities. Leon mentioned Wellington, and Wellington is one of the
leaders I looked at because I expected to be in a peninsular kind of
campaign where the other side had more resources. We had to be very sure
we were focused on what it took to win. And my models were actually not
so much prior speakerships, although I understood a fair amount about
people like Tom Reed and Henry Clay and Cannon and Rayburn. My models
were much more how do you organize people to be effective in a situation
of enormous pressure where you're trying to get things done? In that
sense, I do accept Leon's point that I tended to take as models Alfred
Sloan of General Motors or George Catlett Marshall in the Second World
War or a Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I was trying to find ways to be able
to rally our people to do the things we wanted to do.
Mr. WOLFENSBERGER. I'm now going to call on CRS Director Dan
Mulhollan to make a few closing remarks, but please join me in thanking
our panel for doing an outstanding job.
Mr. MULHOLLAN. This closes our session. I want to thank everyone who
participated in this important conference and everyone who attended the
various sessions. One of the things it underscores is that each one of
you being here indicates an interest, a caring about the institution of
the U.S. Congress, and for that we are quite grateful. I must also add
that, in order for this event to take place, a lot of people worked very
hard. I wanted to mention Justin Paulhamus, Karen Wirt, Jill Ziegler,
and Robert Newlen of CRS who worked to make the conference a success.
Another CRS person merits special mention because he had the idea for
the conference and carried it out in a highly successful manner. He is
Walter Oleszek, my colleague and friend for over three decades, and we
should thank him for his initiative and efforts.
?
Part II
Perspectives on the
Speakership
?
Four Speakers, Cannon Centenary Conference, November 12, 2003
Chapter 1
The Speakership in Historical Perspective
Ronald M. Peters, Jr.
Regents' Professor, Carl Albert Research and Studies Center and
Department of Political Science, University of Oklahoma
Just over 100 years ago, on November 9, 1903, the Honorable Joseph
Gurney Cannon, a Republican from Illinois, was sworn in as the 34th
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon
became, perhaps, the most powerful Speaker in the history of that
office, exercising almost complete control over the legislative process,
dominating the committee system, often determining the content of
legislation, and standing toe to toe with Republican Presidents Theodore
Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Cannon was a colorful figure, earthy
in appearance, demeanor, and sense of humor. He was the most prominent
legislator of his day and perhaps, at that time, the only Member of
Congress to gain extensive public recognition. In fact, his power in the
House of Representatives became increasingly controversial until
finally, on St. Patrick's Day 1910, the Members of the House rebelled
against him, stripping him of control over the Rules Committee and
putting the party regime that had evolved since the Civil War on the
path of extinction.
The speakership of the House had not always been so powerful an office
nor such a pure expression of party interest as Cannon made it. During
the formative years of the Republic, the political party system was in
flux, and House Speakers were not usually cast in the role of national
party leaders. Henry Clay of Kentucky, the most important Speaker of the
antebellum period, was indeed a partisan figure; but his influence
extended beyond the circle of his partisan supporters and as a national
figure he, in effect, transcended the offices that he held. Other
antebellum Speakers were less noteworthy. It was not until after the
Civil War, with the rise of the stable, two-party system that we have
known since, that the speakership became defined as a position of party
responsibility. This development sharpened the fundamental tension
between the Speaker's partisan and institutional roles that is latent in
the constitutional design. From 1865 until the turn of the 20th century,
the political parties became more entrenched and the speakership became
an increasingly important position of party governance. Several Speakers
during this period became powerful political leaders. These included
Republicans James G. Blaine of Maine, Thomas B. Reed of Maine, and
Cannon himself, and Democrats such as Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania,
John G. Carlisle of Kentucky, and Charles F. Crisp of Georgia. Clearly,
however, Cannon was the most powerful of them all, and his speakership
represented the apotheosis of the office. Cannon came to the speakership
just as that office reached its zenith under the rules of the House and
of the Republican conference. The Speaker controlled floor recognition,
named the members of committees, chaired the Rules Committee, determined
referral of bills to committees, and controlled the floor agenda.
Speaker Cannon's power was made emblematic by one disgruntled GOP
progressive Member who, when asked by a constituent for a copy of the
rules of the House, sent a picture of the Speaker.
Today, we remember Cannon as the Czar of the House, and the office
building that bears his name is a monument to his power. It is equally
important to remember, though, that Cannon's speakership witnessed the
peak of the Speaker's powers and the beginning of their decline. The St.
Patrick's Day revolt of 1910 stripped the Speaker of his control over
the Rules Committee and led to the defeat of the Republican Party and of
Cannon himself in the 1912 elections. Cannon was reelected in 1914 and
the Republicans recaptured their House majority in the election of 1918.
The speakership, however, was never again as powerful as it had been
under Cannon. It is ironic that the building that bears Cannon's name
was emblematic of an institutional shift that would, over time, erode
the power that he had enjoyed.
When the Cannon House Office Building was completed in 1908, it was
the first detached office building serving the U.S. House of
Representatives, and it symbolized, and gave further effect to, an
underlying transformation in American politics and in the House of
Representatives. It was at or near the beginning of the era of
``institutionalization'' of the House.\1\ The demands of legislative
work and constituency service had created the need for each Member of
the House to have adequate staff and appropriate office space in which
to operate. No longer would Members have to meet with constituents in
the halls, lobbies, hotels, and restaurants. Henceforth, Members would
have their own space and that space would be at some distance from the
legislative Chamber. The first step in isolating Members from each other
was taken out of institutional necessity.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Nelson Polsby, ``The Institutionalization of the House of
Representatives,'' American Political Science Review, v. 62, March 1968,
pp. 144-168.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cannon House Office Building opened during a period of electoral
realignment and the attendant sharp political conflicts. Progressive
western Republicans allied with northern and southern Democrats to
dislodge Cannon from the Rules Committee. When the Democrats took the
House in 1911 their Speaker, Champ Clark of Missouri, relinquished to
Floor Leader Oscar Underwood of Alabama control over the House floor.
Underwood experimented with government through the Democratic Caucus
(much to the displeasure of their erstwhile allies, the progressive
Republicans), but eventually power flowed to the committee system where
it remained ensconced until the reform movement of the early seventies.
The transformation of the House from a party-centered to a committee-
centered legislative body was manifested by the construction of two
additional office buildings. The Longworth Building, named after Speaker
Nicholas Longworth (R-OH), was completed in 1933. The Rayburn Building
was completed in 1965 and was named in honor of the House's longest-
serving Speaker, Sam Rayburn of Texas. These buildings were monuments to
the power of the committees. While the Cannon Building had few committee
hearing rooms, both the Longworth and Rayburn Buildings are organized
around them. With the exception of the Appropriations, Rules, Standards
of Official Conduct, and Ways and Means Committees, which today occupy
offices in the Capitol Building, all other committees established their
operations in the detached office buildings. The party leaders occupied
space in the Capitol. Just as the physical layout of Washington, DC,
reflects the constitutional separation of powers, so, too, did the
arrangement of Capitol Hill reflect the institutional divisions between
the party leaders and the committees and their chairs.
The influence of political party competed with that of the committee
system under Democratic majorities from 1911 to 1918 and under
Republican majorities from 1919 until 1930. The Democrats experimented
with ``King Caucus'' while diminishing the role of the Speaker. The
Republicans managed business through a small group of legislators whose
most influential Member was Longworth. As Speaker, Longworth
demonstrated vestiges of the power that Cannon had enjoyed, but only
that. Beneath the surface, a trend was already underway that would alter
the House and the speakership for generations: longevity in service was
steadily on the rise. This trend was especially accentuated in the
southern States dominated by Democrats. When the Democrats returned to
power in 1931, southern Democrats were at the top of the seniority lists
and came to chair many key committees. The Democrats were to hold power
for all but 4 of the next 64 years, and, until the reforms of the early
seventies, the southerners sat astride the committees and the House like
statues on the balustrades of an ancient castle.
I have elsewhere labeled this the ``feudal'' era in the history of the
speakership because of the manner in which Speakers showed deference to
the committee chairs.\2\ There were related political and institutional
reasons for this deference. Politically, the ascendency of the
committees and the relative decline of the speakership was the product
of the Democratic Party and the coalition that supported it. The
Roosevelt coalition combined voters from northern cities with the
``solid South.'' The quid pro quo was always implicit: the South would
provide reliable congressional majorities and the North would leave
civil rights alone. To ensure that this political bargain stuck,
congressional Democrats opted for seniority as an almost inviolate rule
for advancement up the committee lists. They granted extraordinary
powers to the committee chairs, powers that enabled them to set the
agenda, determine committee meeting times, cast proxy votes, name the
subcommittees, and, in effect, control legislation. The southern barons
could block any legislation thought inimical to southern interests. The
Rules Committee, which had been the bastion of Cannon's power, now
functioned autonomously and often at odds with the leadership. The Ways
and Means Committee, whose chair had formerly served as floor leader and
deputy to the Speaker, now functioned autonomously in controlling vital
legislation and serving as the party's Committee on Committees. The
speakership that Cannon knew had become unrecognizably eroded.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Ronald M. Peters, Jr., The American Speakership, 2d ed. (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990 [1997]).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was just fine with Democratic Speakers. Their job was to preserve
the Democrats' hold on power. This meant holding the coalition together.
Conflict resolved or avoided in the committee rooms would not infect the
Democratic Caucus or erupt on the House floor. It was in this context
that Sam Rayburn became the longest-serving (and by many accounts) most
esteemed Speaker of the House. Rayburn represented a district in a
southern State. His obligations as a national Democrat were always in
tension with the attitudes of his Texas constituents.\3\ Rayburn shaped
the culture of the House of Representatives. He was both feared and
revered by Members. Because he did not exercise active control over the
committees, he was not held to account for their actions. At the same
time, he was able to influence the committees when he needed to do so,
precisely because he cultivated relationships with their chairs, his
fellow southerners. Together, they taught a generation of new Members
that ``to get along, go along,'' go along, that is, with Rayburn and the
committee dons.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Anthony Champagne, Congressman Sam Rayburn (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1984).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This House of Representatives defined what political scientists later
called the ``textbook Congress,'' replete with ``norms'' such as
reciprocity, collegiality, deference, hard work, and, of course,
seniority. These values were ingrained in Members and those who best
adapted to them were the most likely to rise in the party hierarchy.
Rayburn's socialization of the House even stretched across party lines.
While the Republican Party always demonstrated a more centralized
tendency than did the Democrats, their most senior Members rose on the
committee rosters and learned that their best interests were served by
embracing the Democratic system and working with its leadership. Rayburn
developed a close friendship with Republican Leader Joseph Martin of
Massachusetts, and, when Martin served as Speaker during the 80th (1947-
1949) and 83d (1953-1955) Congresses, he perpetuated many of the values
that he had assimilated during his service in Rayburn's House. Rayburn
held daily sessions in a room at the Capitol that was dubbed the ``Board
of Education.'' Martin would join the Speaker in bending an elbow on
bourbon and branch water while discussing the issues of the day. A
generation of favored Democrats and Republicans assimilated bipartisan
norms as they absorbed the Speaker's liquor.
The ``textbook Congress'' did not last forever, indicating perhaps why
textbooks always need to be revised. During the fifties, there arose
increasing tension between the northern, liberal wing of the Democratic
Party and the southern conservatives. The two Texans leading the
Congress, Rayburn in the House and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B.
Johnson, were tugged to the left, Johnson by his Presidential ambitions,
Rayburn by the increasingly restless liberals in the Democratic Caucus.
When John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960, he realized that the
southern stranglehold on the House would frustrate many of his policies.
In 1961, in the last great battle of his career, Sam Rayburn led a
successful effort to enlarge the Rules Committee to give it a loyal
majority. Thus, the path was cleared for the subsequent passage of the
landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
After Johnson's landslide Presidential election in 1964, substantial
liberal majorities in the House and Senate swept away southern
opposition to enact his Great Society. Still, House liberals such as
Richard Bolling (D-MO.) believed that the time had come to break the
southern grip on the committee system. By the decade's end, they had
enough votes to push through the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970
and, during the early seventies, a series of Democratic Caucus reforms
that both strengthened the speakership and weakened the committee
barons. The Speaker was given operating control over the Rules
Committee. By party rule, he named the chair and the majority members of
the committee. The Democratic Steering and Policy Committee became the
party's Committee on Committees, and the Speaker appointed a number of
its members. All committee chairs were to be nominated by Steering and
Policy and ratified by the full caucus, as were the subcommittee chairs
of the Appropriations Committee. The caucus itself met monthly,
providing a venue for the liberal majority to express itself.
Even as the power of the speakership was thus enhanced, that of the
committee chairs was reduced. The Democrats pushed through a
``subcommittee bill of rights'' that guaranteed that bills would be
referred to the subcommittee of jurisdiction. Subcommittees were
provided staff, budget, and jurisdiction. With a more autonomous set of
subcommittees beneath them, and with the full caucus and its liberal
majority hovering over them, committee chairs could no longer control
the legislative process and dictate the content of legislation. The
erosion of the power of the full committee chairs reached its apex in
1975 when, led by the Watergate class of 1974, three southern committee
chairs were deposed by the caucus. After that happened, committee chairs
were more careful to nurture their relations with the caucus as a whole.
The general effect of these reforms may be described in three rings.
At the center, the party leadership, especially the Speaker, was
empowered by these reforms. Leadership stock went up, committee chair
stock went down. In the middle ring, power was decentralized within the
committee system. By the late seventies, over 150 members of the
Democratic Caucus served as subcommittee chairs. Each was granted
considerable autonomy in managing the subcommittee's business. To
sustain their influence, committee chairs had to negotiate relationships
with the subcommittee chairs. Rivalries naturally developed and the
committees became venues for bargaining and compromise. In the outer
layer, the House floor became a more important venue. The weakened
committee system was the subject of less deference on the floor. The
introduction of electronic voting, in 1973, made Members more
accountable. Televised coverage made the floor more accessible to the
public. Issues that might once have been resolved behind the closed
doors of the committee rooms were now settled in open floor fights. And
the floor was leadership territory.
Thus, the modern speakership was to operate in a very different
legislative milieu than at any time in the history of the House. During
the late 19th century, the Speaker was able to dominate the House.
During most of the 20th century, the committee barons were in control.
During the last three decades of the 20th century, the decentralization
of power created the need for other control mechanisms. Under these
circumstances, more power was given to the Speaker, but more was
expected of him as well. Thrust onto center stage, House Speakers became
more pivotal and more vulnerable. Members had higher expectations;
political opponents had greater incentive and opportunity to cause
mischief.
Political scientists have written for a long time now about the
``post-reform House.'' The term remains useful in differentiating the
transition away from the committee-centered regime of the textbook
Congress. By now, however, it may obscure more than it reveals. It has
not been the reforms alone that have altered the context of the modern
speakership. An underlying realignment has reshaped the political
landscape that gives definition to institutional processes. The most
obvious manifestation of this realignment is the fact that in 1994 the
Republicans won control of the House for the first time in 40 years. As
early as 1968, pundits had been anticipating a rightward drift in
American politics.\4\ Barry Goldwater had prophesied it and Ronald
Reagan had pressed it forward. Newt Gingrich completed it. The linchpin
of this realignment has been the transition of the South from Democratic
to Republican control. This process began with the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which drove many southern, white Democrats into the
camp of the Republicans. This development has led us to where we are
today. Richard Nixon carried a substantial percentage of the black vote
in 1960. More Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act than
Republicans. The Republican decision to seek the votes of southern
whites had its intended effect, swinging a majority of southern
congressional districts, Senate seats, and electoral votes to the GOP;
but it has cost them dearly among black voters who now vote 95 percent
for the Democrats. This racial and regional polarization meshes with
religion and other cultural variables to shape the present narrow
political division in the country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, NY:
Arlington House, 1969); Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg, The
Real Majority (New York: Coward-McCann, 1970).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The parity between the two parties shapes the political and
institutional context of the speakership today. The reformed House had
one set of consequences when it was run by entrenched Democrats holding
a comfortable majority of seats most of the time. It runs differently
when run by a narrow Republican majority determined to hold on to power
in a protracted war for control of the House. For example, the
relationship between the party leadership and the committees is
fundamentally different under the Republicans than it had been under the
Democrats. The Democratic committee chairs saw their power eroded, but
were never dominated by the party leaders. Even when several committee
chairs were deposed by the Democratic Caucus, the initiative came from
within the caucus and the leadership supported the chairs. The
Republicans have simply bypassed several senior Members as committee or
subcommittee chairs, and have punished deviating Members by denying them
chairs to which their seniority would have entitled them. Thus, if the
reformed House is different from the pre-reformed House, the Republican
House is different from the Democratic House. No matter which party is
in the majority, the narrow division that has been in place between the
two parties since 1995 has shaped the legislative environment in ways
that the reformers of the early seventies could not have anticipated.
One manifestation of this new environment is the upheaval that the
speakership has experienced in the past 15 years. Almost a century ago,
Uncle Joe Cannon was stripped of much of his power, defeated for
reelection and, upon being reelected, reduced to the role of elder
statesman within the Republican conference. During the 20th century, the
speakership has witnessed great stability, even as its stature was in
many ways diminished in relationship to the committee system. The reform
movement and the development of partisan struggle for control of the
House have created a more politicized environment than any since
Cannon's time. This has taken a toll on the speakership. One Speaker
resigned from office, a second was defeated for reelection, and a third
declined to seek another term in office. These events say as much about
the contemporary climate of American politics as they do about the
individual Speakers.
This inquiry into the speakership today, then, comes at a critical
moment in the history of that office. This volume presents a variety of
perspectives on the changing speakership. Part I provides the
proceedings of the Cannon Centenary Conference on ``The Changing Nature
of the Speakership,'' co-sponsored by the Congressional Research Service
and the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center of the
University of Oklahoma. (Funding for the conference was also provided by
the McCormick Tribune Foundation.) The conference addressed in detail
the speakerships of: Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill (D-MA; 1977-1987); Jim
Wright (D-TX; 1987-1989); Tom Foley (D-WA, 1989-1993); and Newt Gingrich
(R-GA; 1995-1999). In examining each speakership, the book offers a
statement by the Speaker himself (or, in the case of the late Speaker
O'Neill, by his biographer, John Farrell) along with commentary from
Democratic and Republican Members who served with that Speaker.
Additional insight is provided by noted historian Robert Remini, who
traces the broad path of the speakership's evolution. Of particular note
is the contribution of Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL; 1999- ) who offers
his most definitive statement on the speakership and his conduct of it
to date.
Part II provides additional depth of analysis in chapters arrayed
topically. Prepared by political scientists and congressional
specialists at the Congressional Research Service, these chapters offer
an analytic perspective on the speakership. In Chapter 2, Walter Oleszek
and Richard C. Sachs examine the impact of three Speakers--Reed, Cannon,
and Gingrich--on the rules of the House. They argue that these three
Speakers were distinctive in their proactive efforts to implement a
fundamentally new institutional order in the House. Their account
reminds us that Speakers are not entirely hostage to circumstance, and
that exceptional Speakers have been able to bring about important
institutional changes.
Chapter 3, by Christopher Davis, surveys the history of the House
Rules Committee and the relationships of House Speakers to it. During
the partisan era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Rules
Committee served as a reliable arm of the majority party leadership, and
Speakers such as Reed and Cannon used control over the committee to push
party legislation. With the rise of the conservative coalition in the
late thirties, the Rules Committee assumed considerable independence,
and became an impediment to legislation pushed by the liberal Democratic
majority. Since the reform movement of the early seventies, Houses
Speakers have once again taken control of the Rules Committee. The
Republicans, who complained bitterly about the tyrannical dictates of
the committee when in the minority have, Davis finds, been as assertive
as the Democrats in using their control over Rules to structure floor
debate and to shape legislation brought to the floor.
In Chapter 4, Elizabeth Rybicki traces the relationship between the
Speaker of the House and the leadership of the Senate. She identifies
the key differences between the two bodies that structure this
relationship, and examines how the role of the Speaker in bicameral
coordination has become more challenging in the modern era. Of
particular interest is her description of the mechanics of bicameral
relations. Among these are the legislative conferences through which the
two Chambers reach agreement on the final language of bills.
Of increasing importance has been the relationship between the Speaker
and the press, addressed by Betsy Palmer in Chapter 5. Her account
stresses the changing relationship between House Speakers and the media,
affected by the historical and partisan context, the personalities of
individual Speakers, and evolving media technologies. During most of
American history to date, Speakers had informal and sometimes personal
relationships with a core group of press corps veterans. With the
emergence of broadcast television, cable television, and Internet
technologies, Speakers have had to develop more sophisticated media
strategies to counter those of the President, Senators, and other House
Members. The decision to open House proceedings to broader media
coverage has changed the political environment. The increasing
partisanship we see today echoes that of a century ago, but the
relationship between the Speaker and the media is greatly different
today than it was then.
There has been no more important relationship for House Speakers than
that which they have encountered with Presidents of the United States.
In Chapter 6, Eric Petersen provides a template for understanding the
Speaker-President nexus by considering the relationship between Speaker
Cannon and President Theodore Roosevelt, on the one hand, and Speaker
Rayburn and President Franklin Roosevelt on the other hand. In the
former case, despite Theodore Roosevelt's efforts to court Cannon, the
relationship was at times strained, as Speaker Cannon often disdained
the legislative initiatives of the President. Forty years later, Speaker
Rayburn was a pillar of support for Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and
wartime policies. In each case, however, the Speaker's relationship to
the President was shaped by the needs and expectation of the Members of
the House.
Chapter 7 elaborates on the relationship between Speakers and
Presidents by considering that relationship in the context of national
emergencies: the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World
War II. In it, Harold Relyea argues that times of national emergency
affect the role of the Speaker and the relationship of the speakership
to the Presidency. In our system of separated institutions sharing
powers, the Presidency naturally emerges during times of national
crisis. The Congress, in general, and the speakership, in particular,
tends to defer to Presidential leadership. This may take the form of
passing Presidential legislation or in acquiescing to Presidential
actions. In such times, House Speakers tend to be supportive of Chief
Executives. Still, relationships between Speakers and Presidents during
national emergencies have varied due to personality, partisanship,
ideology, institutional stature, and statesmanship.
In the book's final chapter, I provide an overview of the many changes
the speakership has experienced and offer a reflection on its role in
the House today. This discussion echoes many of the specific themes
developed by the other authors. In particular, it reinforces the
perspective that the speakership has evolved over time according to
underlying changes in the American political system, producing periods
of partisan turmoil as well as periods of bipartisan stability. Speakers
have had to adapt their leadership style to the contexts in which they
were called upon to serve, yet each Speaker has put his stamp on the
office. The present period is characterized by a strong partisanship not
experienced since Uncle Joe Cannon was at the zenith of his power, a
century ago. Whether this augurs well or ill for the House of
Representatives, the speakership, and the country, is a story yet to be
told.
Chapter 2
Speakers Reed, Cannon, and Gingrich:
Catalysts of Institutional and
Procedural Change
Walter J. Oleszek
Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process
Congressional Research Service
and
Richard C. Sachs
Specialist in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
``The elect of the elect of the people'' is how a little-known Speaker
described his position more than two centuries ago.\1\ Most of the early
Speakers with very few exceptions, such as Speaker Henry Clay (1815-
1820, 1823-1825), functioned largely as presiding officers rather than
leaders of their parties. This condition began to change during the
post-Civil War era with the growth of partisan sentiment and party-line
voting in the House and in the country. Speakers became both their
party's leader in the House and influential actors on the national
scene. Perhaps the most powerful and institutionally important of these
late 19th century Speakers was a man nicknamed ``Czar'' Reed, which is
why our analysis begins with him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Asher Hinds, ``The Speaker and the House,'' McClure's, vol. 35, June
1910, p. 196. Hinds, a former Member and long-time Parliamentarian of
the House, was quoting Speaker Nathaniel Macon (R-NC, 1801-1807).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Thomas Brackett Reed (R-ME, 1889-1891; 1895-1899) to J. Dennis
Hastert (R-IL, 1999- ), 20 lawmakers have served as Speakers of the
House of Representatives. Only a few are remembered for the procedural
or institutional changes they initiated or supported during their
occupancy of this constitutionally-established position. Arguably, three
Speakers during this century-plus period ushered in ideas and meaningful
developments that reshaped the operations of the House: Reed, Joseph
Cannon (R-IL, 1903-1911), and Newt Gingrich (R-GA, 1995-1999). A central
feature of the three speakerships was the exercise of ``top down''
command in an institution largely known for its decentralized power
structure. Each Speaker, too, was a formidable protagonist to the
President at the time (William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Bill
Clinton, respectively).
Reed, Cannon, and Gingrich were strong personalities, but much of
their claim to institutional fame arises because they changed the
culture and work ways of the House. Reed ended the virtually unstoppable
dilatory practices of the minority and riveted the majoritarian
principle into the rulebook of the House; Cannon so dominated
institutional proceedings that he provoked the famous 1910 ``revolt,''
which diminished the Speaker's authority and facilitated the rise of the
committee chairs to power; and Gingrich introduced procedural changes
that permitted him to lead the House as few other Speakers before him.
To be sure, other Speakers presided during periods of important
procedural change. Speaker Sam T. Rayburn (D-TX; 1940-1947, 1949-1953,
and 1955-1961) led the House when it enacted the Legislative
Reorganization Act [LRA] of 1946. He was also instrumental in expanding
the size of the Rules Committee, a 1961 initiative to ensure that
President John F. Kennedy's New Frontier agenda would not be buried in a
panel hostile to JFK's legislative program. The expansion marked the
beginning of the end of an era--roughly from the 1910 revolt to the
early seventies--in which powerful committee barons exercised
significant sway over Chamber proceedings. John W. McCormack (D-MA,
1962-1971), was Speaker during debate and passage of the Legislative
Reorganization Act of 1970; Carl Albert (D-OK, 1971-1977), and Thomas P.
O'Neill (D-MA, 1977-1987), both led the House during periods of major
institutional change--from a resurgent Democratic Caucus to changes in
the bill referral and committee assignment process to statutory reforms
such as the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act of 1974, and the Balanced Budget and Emergency
Deficit Control Act of 1985.
The principal advocates of many of these innovations, however, were
change-oriented individuals (Richard Bolling, D-MO, for instance) or
informal entities such as the Democratic Study Group, rather than the
Speaker. When the Senate passed its version of the 1946 LRA and sent it
to the House, Rayburn ``gave it a skeptical glance and let it sit on his
desk for six weeks;'' \2\ Speaker McCormack ``resisted the reform of the
House''; \3\ or, as Representative Bolling said about McCormack's
efforts in trying to block what eventually became the Legislative
Reorganization Act of 1970: ``Behind the scenes, Speaker McCormack has
exerted every effort to prevent enactment of any version of the bill
designed to provide a limited measure of modernization of the antiquated
machinery and antiquated ways of doing business in both House and
Senate.'' \4\ By contrast, Reed, Cannon, and Gingrich were the principal
advocates or instigators of momentous institutional change.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ D.B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (Austin, TX:
Texas Monthly Press, 1987), p. 319.
\3\ Ronald M. Peters, Jr., The American Speakership: The Office in
Historical Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1990), p. 151.
\4\ Richard Bolling, Power in the House (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co.,
1968), p. 248.
Thomas Brackett Reed and the ``Reed Rules''
The Pre-Reed Context.--Thomas Brackett Reed, Republican of Lewiston,
Maine, became Speaker on December 2, 1889, at the start of the 51st
Congress. Previous occupants of that high office had little success in
preventing a determined minority from delaying and obstructing the
business of the House. With few procedural tools to move the legislative
agenda, Speakers before Reed entertained motions that were plainly
dilatory in intent, or as Reed himself characterized them, ``motions
made only to delay, and to weary . . .'' \5\ The dilatory motions came
in numerous forms: repeated motions to adjourn, to lay a measure on the
table, to excuse individual Members from voting, to reconsider votes
whereby individual Members were excused from voting, and to fix the day
to which the House should adjourn, among others.\6\ These filibustering
tactics often prevented the majority party from enacting its legislative
priorities and opened it to public criticism.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ U.S. House of Representatives, Hinds' Precedents of the House of
Representatives [by Asher C. Hinds], 5 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1907),
vol. 5, p. 353.
\6\ Ibid., p. 354.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Woodrow Wilson wrote critically of the House's inability to conduct
business because of the paralyzing effect of dilatory practices. In his
classic study, Congressional Government (1885), Wilson described the
conduct of a pre-Reed House filibuster on a pension bill brought to the
floor by the Democratic majority during the 48th Congress (1883-1884):
[T]he Republican minority disapproved of the bill with great fervor,
and, when it was moved by the Pension Committee, late one afternoon, in
a thin House, that the rules be suspended, and an early day set for
consideration of the bill, the Republicans addressed themselves to
determined and persistent ``filibustering'' to prevent action. First
they refused to vote, leaving the Democrats without an acting quorum;
then, all night long, they kept the House at roll-calling on dilatory
and obstructive motions . . .'' \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
and Co., 1885), p. 80.
By ``leaving the Democrats without an acting quorum,'' Wilson is
referring to the infamous and long-standing House practice dubbed the
``disappearing quorum.'' Under Article I, Section 5, of the
Constitution, ``a Majority of each [House] shall constitute a Quorum to
do Business.'' This provision was, however, interpreted by Reed's
predecessors to mean one-half of the total membership plus one, who
formally acknowledge their presence in the Chamber as determined by a
roll call vote. Though physically present on the floor, the disappearing
quorum allowed Members to avoid being counted as ``present'' for the
purpose of a constitutional quorum if they failed to respond when the
Clerk called their names. ``The position had never been seriously
questioned that, if a majority of the representatives failed to answer
to their names on the calling of the roll,'' stated a biographer of
Reed, ``there was no quorum for the transaction of business even if
every member might actually be present in the hall of the House.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Samuel W. McCall, Thomas B. Reed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co.,
1914), p. 166.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The practice of the disappearing quorum originated in 1832 when
Massachusetts Representative John Quincy Adams, former President of the
United States (1825-1829), first used the tactic to frustrate House
action on a proslavery measure.
Prior to Adams, it had been customary for every member who was present
to vote. In 1832, when a proslavery measure was being considered, Adams
broke precedent by sitting silently in his seat as the roll was called
during voting; enough members joined him so that fewer than a quorum
voted on the measure. Without a quorum . . . the House could only
adjourn or order a call of the House to muster a quorum. \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Roger H. Davidson and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress Against Itself
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977), p. 23.
In short, the House Chamber could be filled with the total membership,
but if less than half responded to a call of the House, there was no
quorum and no substantive business could be conducted. No wonder
Representative Joseph Cannon referred to the disappearing quorum as
``the obstruction of silence.'' \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ L. White Busbey, Uncle Joe Cannon (New York: Henry Holt and Co.,
1927), p. 74.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These two procedural devices--dilatory motions and the disappearing
quorum--enabled partisan minorities to slow or stop the flow of House
business. The stalling tactics were effective, for example, in forcing
the House, in 1850, to conduct 31 roll call votes in a single day on a
California statehood bill; to require, in 1854, 101 roll call votes
during one legislative day on the Kansas-Nebraska bill; and, on a
legislative day in 1885, to conduct 21 roll call votes.\11\ Critics of
these procedural logjams, Woodrow Wilson among them, charged that ``more
was at stake than the ability of the majority to act in pursuit of its
legislative agenda; the public reputation and even the legitimacy of the
House as a democratic institution was under challenge.'' \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ U.S. House of Representatives, History of the United States House
of Representatives, 1789-1994, 103d Cong., 2d sess., H. Doc. No. 103-324
(Washington: GPO, 1994), p. 181. Hereafter referred to as 1994 History
of the House. See also U.S. House of Representatives, Journal of the
House of Representatives, 48th Cong., 2d sess., March 2, 1885
(Washington: GPO, 1885), pp. 731-765.
\12\ Quoted in 1994 History of the House, p. 181.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Reed Rules.--It may appear surprising to some that filibustering
tactics often prevented the majority party from advancing its agenda
during the post-Civil War period. This era witnessed the rise of the
current two-party system and greater partisan cohesion in Congress. It
was an era ``marked by strong partisan attachments [in the electorate],
resilient patronage-based party organizations, and especially in the
later years [of the 19th century], high levels of party voting in
Congress.'' \13\ Yet, despite the rise of party government in the House,
no Speaker until Reed used the power of his office to end the
filibustering tactics of the minority party. Speaker James Blaine (R-ME,
1869-1875), said when a lawmaker suggested he count as present Members
in the Chamber who refused to vote: ``The moment you clothe your Speaker
with power to go behind your roll call and assume there is a quorum in
the Hall, why gentlemen, you stand on the very brink of a volcano.''
\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Randall Strahan, ``Thomas Brackett Reed and the Rise of Party
Government,'' in Roger H. Davidson, Susan Webb Hammond, and Raymond W.
Smock, eds., Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership Over Two
Centuries (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), p. 36.
\14\ Representative James Blaine, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, Feb. 24, 1875, appendix, vol. 3, p. 1734.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reed was willing to ``stand on the very brink'' for two key reasons.
First, he was a strong proponent of the idea that the majority party
must be able to govern the House. ``Indeed, you have no choice,'' he
wrote when he was Speaker-elect prior to the convening of the House in
the 51st Congress (1889-1890). ``If the majority do not govern, the
minority will; and if tyranny of the majority is hard, the tyranny of
the minority is simply unendurable. The rules, then, ought to be
arranged to facilitate action of the majority.'' \15\ Second, the 1888
elections produced unified GOP control of Congress and the White House
for the first time in 14 years. (The House's partisan composition was
166 Republicans and 159 Democrats.) These two conditions, ``together
with the frustrations and criticism that had surrounded the House in the
previous Congress, created a `critical moment' in which an unusual
opportunity was present for large-scale institutional innovation.'' \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Representative Thomas B. Reed, ``Rules of the House of
Representatives,'' Century, vol. 37, March 1889, pp. 794-795.
\16\ Strahan, ``Thomas Brackett Reed and the Rise of Party Government,''
p. 51.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the 1st session of the 51st Congress convened on December 2,
1889, Speaker Reed was determined to end the long-standing ability of
the minority party to frustrate majority lawmaking through dilatory
motions and disappearing quorums. Unsure whether he had the votes to
make these fundamental changes, Reed even planned to resign as Speaker
and from the House if the Chamber did not sustain his rulings. ``[I] had
made up my mind that if political life consisted of sitting helplessly
in the chair and seeing the majority powerless to pass legislation, I
had had enough of it and was ready to step down and out.'' \17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Quoted in Strahan, ``Thomas Brackett Reed and the Rise of Party
Government,'' p. 53.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part of Reed's strategy was to block adoption of the rules of the
preceding Congress and have them referred to the Rules Committee, the
panel he, as Speaker, chaired. On the opening day, the House adopted a
resolution directing that the rules of the 50th Congress be referred to
the Committee on Rules for review and revision.\18\ Until new rules were
promulgated for the House, Speaker Reed presided using general
parliamentary law and could, therefore, decide when to rule dilatory
motions and disappearing quorums out of order. For example, functioning
``as the presiding officer under general parliamentary law, Speaker Reed
consistently refused to accept dilatory motions''--a harbinger of the
procedural changes to come.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Congressional Record, vol. 60, Dec. 2, 1889, p. 84.
\19\ Peters, The American Speakership: The Office in Historical
Perspective, p. 63.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House operated under general parliamentary rules--which included
adoption of resolutions establishing committees and the Chamber's order
of business--for nearly 3 months. It was during this period that Reed
made one of the most consequential rulings of any Speaker: terminating
the disappearing quorum. Speaker Reed understood that he was handling
political dynamite and carefully calculated how best to end the
practice. He chose a contested election to force the issue because these
cases were highly partisan and would galvanize Republicans to support
the Speaker. Under the Constitution, the House is the judge of the
elections, returns, and qualifications of its own Members, but the usual
practice was that contested seats were nearly always awarded to the
majority party's candidate as a way to increase their margin of control.
In the period from 1800 to 1907, ``only 3 percent of the 382 `contests'
were resolved in favor of the candidate of the minority party.'' \20\
Mindful of this history, the minority Democrats realized that the Reed-
led Republicans would surely seat the GOP Member in any election
contest. Their plan: employ the disappearing quorum.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Douglas H. Price, ``The Congressional Career--Then and Now,'' in
Nelson Polsby, ed., Congressional Behavior (New York: Random House,
1971), p. 19.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The procedural battle was joined on January 28, 1890, when a contested
election case was brought to the floor. The specific issue involved who
should be seated from the Fourth District of West Virginia: Charles B.
Smith, the Republican, or James M. Jackson, the Democrat.
Unsurprisingly, the GOP-controlled Committee on Elections submitted a
resolution to the House that recommended the seating of Smith. Speaker
Reed then put this question to the House: ``Will the House now consider
the resolution?'' \21\ Democrats demanded the yeas and nays on the
question, which produced a vote of 162 yeas, 3 nays, and 163 not voting.
With 165 a quorum at the time, Reed appeared to prevail until two
Democrats withdrew their votes upping the non-voting total to 165. With
Democrats crying ``no quorum,'' Speaker Reed directed the Clerk to
record as present Members who refused to vote, declared that a quorum
was indeed present, and ruled that the resolution was in order for
consideration.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Representative Thomas B. Reed, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 61, Jan. 29, 1890, p. 948.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bedlam erupted in the Chamber. Outraged Democrats used such words as
tyranny, scandal, and revolution to describe the Speaker's action. One
Member, James McCreary (D-KY), prompted this exchange with the Speaker:
Mr. McCreary. I deny your right, Mr. Speaker, to count me as present,
and I desire to read the parliamentary law on the subject.
The Speaker. The Chair is making a statement of fact that the
gentleman from Kentucky is present. Does he deny it? \22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Ibid., p. 949.
The parliamentary turmoil lasted 3 days before the House again turned
to the case of Smith v. Jackson. Democrats ended their delaying tactics
and motions when it was plain that Reed had the votes to sustain any of
his rulings. On January 31, 1890, the House resumed consideration of
Smith v. Jackson, and on February 3, Smith was seated by a vote of 166
yeas, 0 nays, and 162 not voting. Smith was immediately sworn into
office.
With the seating of Smith, Speaker Reed apparently believed that he
had the votes to definitely ensure adoption of new House rules. On
February 6, 1890, the Rules Committee reported to the floor new House
rules, the so-called Reed rules. Eight days later, by a vote of 161 to
144, with 23 Members not voting, the House adopted new rules which
augmented the Speaker's authority and limited the minority party's power
of obstruction. Among the changes were four key provisions.
First, the disappearing quorum was eliminated. House Rule 15 stated
that nonvoting Members in the Hall of the House shall be counted by the
Clerk for purposes of establishing a quorum. Second, Rule 16 declared:
``No dilatory motions shall be entertained by the Speaker.'' No longer
could lawmakers offer dilatory motions and have them accepted by the
Chair. Now the Speaker had formal authority to rule them out of order.
Third, Rule 23 established a quorum of 100 in the Committee of the
Whole. Before, a quorum in the Committee was the same as that for the
full House: half the membership plus one. Lawmakers frequently delayed
action in the Committee of the Whole by making a point of order that a
quorum was not present. Finally, Rule 22 authorized the Speaker to refer
all bills and resolutions to the appropriate committee without debate or
authorization from the House.
Defeated on the floor, the Democrats turned to the Supreme Court to
negate the Speaker's quorum ruling. On April 30, 1890, they contended
that a quorum was not present when the House voted to approve a bill
relating to the importation of woolens. The bill was supported by a vote
of 138 to 0, with 189 lawmakers not voting. In the case of United States
v. Ballin (1892, 144 U.S. 1), the Court held that the House can decide
for itself how best to ascertain the presence of a quorum. The
advantages or disadvantages of such methods were not matters for
judicial consideration.
Democrats recaptured control of the House in the 1890 and 1892
elections and their Speaker (Charles Crisp of Georgia) reverted to the
practice of the silent quorum, refusing to count lawmakers in the
Chamber who were present but who remained silent when their names were
called for votes. Reed, now the minority leader, made such strategic use
of the disappearing quorum to foil Democratic plans that in 1894 the
Democratically controlled Chamber reinstated the rule counting for
quorum purposes Members present in the Chamber but who did not vote.
Reed returned as Speaker of the 54th (1895-1897) and 55th (1897-1899)
Congresses; however, in 1899 he resigned from the House to
protest what he characterized as President William McKinley's
imperialist policies in the Philippines and Hawaii.
Speaker Cannon and the 1910 Revolt
Joseph Cannon was first elected to the House in 1872 and served for
nearly 50 years--suffering two electoral defeats in 1890 and 1912--
before retiring in 1923. A popular Republican called ``Uncle Joe'' by
friends and foes alike, Cannon unsuccessfully challenged Reed for
Speaker in the GOP Caucus of 1888, but his lengthy experience, party
loyalty, and parliamentary skills prompted Reed to appoint him chair of
the Appropriations Committee as well as to the Rules Committee. Elevated
to the speakership on November 9, 1903, Cannon served in that capacity
until March 3, 1911. As Speaker, Cannon was the inheritor and
beneficiary of Reed's procedural changes.
Cannon did not have the intellectual or oratorical abilities of Reed,
but, like the hedgehog, Cannon knew one great thing: within the formal
structure of House procedure, the Reed rules now provided the
opportunity for a Speaker to dominate life in the House; not just
legislative policymaking on the floor, but the committee system,
administrative functions, the granting of favors large and small. When
Cannon became Speaker in 1903, he seized this opportunity and dominated
the House. His speakership has been described as a case of ``excessive
leadership.'' \23\
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\23\ Charles O. Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An Essay
on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives,'' Journal
of Politics, vol. 30, Aug. 1968, p. 619.
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Briefly enumerated, Cannon's exercise of power included the following:
he assigned Members to committees; appointed and removed committee
chairmen; regulated the flow of bills to the floor as chairman of the
Rules Committee; referred measures to committee; and controlled floor
debate. Taken individually, Cannon's powers were little different from
those of his immediate predecessors, but taken together and exercised to
their limits, they bordered on the dictatorial.
A GOP lawmaker said of his recognition power, for example, that it
made a Member ``a mendicant at the feet of the Speaker begging for the
right to be heard.'' \24\ Claiming the Rules Committee was simply a pawn
of the Speaker's, Representative David De Armond (D-MO), suggested that
Cannon ``personally, officially, and directly . . . make his own report
of his own action and submit to [a] vote of the House the question of
making his action the action of the House.'' \25\ In making committee
assignments, Cannon was not reluctant to ignore seniority. In 1905 he
appointed as chair of the Appropriations Committee a Member who had
never before served on the panel. On another occasion, he denied the
request of GOP Representative George W. Norris of Nebraska, who as a
progressive leader opposed Cannon's heavy-handed parliamentary rule, to
be named to a delegation to attend the funeral of a Member who had been
a personal friend of Norris'.
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\24\ Representative William P. Hepburn, remarks in the House,
Congressional Record, vol. 63, Feb. 18, 1909, p. 2653.
\25\ Representative David De Armond, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 63, March 1, 1909, p. 3569.
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Frustration and anger with Cannon's autocratic ways began to soar
inside and outside the House during his final years as Speaker. No
Speaker, said a lawmaker, is ``entitled to be the political and
legislative dictator of this House in whole or in part.'' \26\ Other
factors aroused opposition to Cannon's leadership. His economic and
social views were seen as reactionary by many. His relationship with
President Theodore Roosevelt was often strained because of policy
differences. As Cannon admitted, the two ``more often disagreed'' than
agreed over legislation.\27\ As one insurgent Republican--John Nelson of
Wisconsin--said to his House colleagues, ``Mr. Chairman, I wish to say
to my Republican fellow Members who believe in the Roosevelt policies,
let us look at the rules of the House. President Roosevelt has been
trying to cultivate oranges for many years in the frigid climate of the
Rules Committee, but what has he gotten but the proverbial lemons.''
\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Representative Everis A. Hayes, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 65, March 19, 1910, p. 3434.
\27\ Busbey, Uncle Joe Cannon, p. 217.
\28\ Representative John Nelson, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 62, Feb. 5, 1908, p. 1652.
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Dissatisfaction with Cannon's leadership eventually triggered one of
the most noteworthy events in the history of the House: the revolt of
1910.
The 1910 Revolt.--The story of the 1910 revolt has been told many
times.\29\ Suffice it to say that the rebellion by insurgent Republicans
and minority Democrats began more than a year before Cannon was stripped
of important procedural powers. Recognizing that he needed to defuse the
mounting discontent, Speaker Cannon in 1909 backed several procedural
changes. He agreed to a new unanimous consent calendar, which allowed
lawmakers 2 days during a month to call up minor bills without first
receiving prior approval of the Speaker. A Calendar Wednesday rule was
adopted, which could only be set aside by a two-thirds vote, that
provided 1 day each week for standing committees to call up reported
bills, bypassing the Cannon-run Rules Committee. The Speaker, too,
agreed to a rules change granting opponents of a bill an opportunity to
amend a measure just prior to final passage by offering a motion to
recommit--or send the bill back to the committee that had reported it to
the floor. (Previously, the Speaker recognized whomever he wanted to
offer this motion.) Further, the Rules Committee was prohibited from
reporting a rule that denied opponents the chance to offer a motion to
recommit.\30\
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\29\ See, for example, Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An
Essay on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives,'' pp.
617-646. Also, Kenneth Hechler, Insurgency; Personalities and Politics
of the Taft Era (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964), pp. 27-82; Chang-
Wei Chiu, The Speaker of the House of Representatives Since 1896 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1928); and Paul DeWitt Hasbrouck, Party
Government in the House of Representatives (New York: MacMillan Co.,
1927), pp. 1-13.
\30\ Donald R. Wolfensberger, ``The Motion to Recommit in the House: The
Creation, Evisceration, and Restoration of a Minority Right.'' A paper
prepared for presentation at a conference on the History of Congress,
University of California, San Diego, December 5-6, 2003. Mr.
Wolfensberger is director of The Congress Project, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These rules changes did little to halt insurgent and public attacks on
the Speaker. Several national magazines ran ``articles in regular
installments that not only detailed the Speaker's wrongdoings but also
praised the insurgents.'' \31\ Eventually, opponents of Cannon
successfully marshaled their forces--employing a procedural resolution
offered by Representative Norris--to weaken the power of the Speaker.
The insurgent forces removed the Speaker from the Rules Committee and
stripped him of the right to appoint lawmakers to that panel. On March
19, 1910, the House agreed to the Norris resolution, which provided that
``there shall be a Committee on Rules, elected by the House, consisting
of 10 Members, 6 of whom shall be Members of the majority party and 4 of
whom shall be Members of the minority party. The Speaker shall not be a
member of the committee and the committee shall elect its own chairman
from its own members.'' \32\ Nearly 3 months later, on June 17, 1910,
the House further weakened the power of the Speaker by adopting a
discharge calendar. This new rule established a procedure to discharge
(or extract) bills from committee, providing them with an opportunity to
be voted on by the House.
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\31\ Rager, ``Uncle Joe Cannon: Brakeman of the House,'' in Davidson,
Hammond, and Smock, Masters of the House, p. 77.
\32\ H. Res. 502, 61st Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record, vol. 65,
March 19, 1910, p. 3429.
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With ``Cannonism'' an issue in the November 1910 elections, Democrats
recaptured control of the 62d Congress (1911-1913). On April 5, 1911,
they adopted a new rule which removed from the Speaker his authority to
appoint Members to the standing committees. This authority was formally
assigned to the House. In reality, each party nominated its partisans to
the standing committees through its Committee on Committees, which was
followed by pro forma House approval of these decisions.
Cannon's ability to act as an autocratic Speaker was due in part to
Reed's skillful remodeling of the rules to remove procedural obstacles
to lawmaking erected by the minority party. Cannon's contribution was
his forceful use of the rules to discipline not just minority party
members, but members of his own party as well. The Speaker's heavy-
handedness was also attributable to those Republicans who opposed Cannon
but feared--and so remained silent--that his downfall could produce a
Democratic Speaker who would use the rules no differently. Various
factors, as noted earlier, have been suggested to explain Cannon's fall
from power: he exercised procedural power so autocratically that it
provoked the rebellion against his leadership; he ignored for too long
the rising tide of progressivism, a GOP-led reform movement, preferring
instead to adhere to the status quo of Republican regularity; and he was
a 19th century man arriving at a position of national political power in
a 20th century moment--a modern moment--of rapid social, economic, and
political change for which he was unprepared.
The Rise of Committee Government
Whatever combination of forces led to the 1910 revolt, its aftermath
for the institution was dramatic. If the House of Speaker Cannon was
``partisan, hierarchical, majoritarian and largely populated by members
serving less than three terms,'' it gradually became ``less partisan,
more egalitarian, and populated by careerists.'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ David Brady, ``After the Big Bang House Battles Focused on
Committee Issues,'' Public Affairs Report, University of California,
Berkeley, March 1991, p. 8.
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The 1910 revolt produced a major shift in the internal distribution of
power in the House. Committees and their leaders came to dominate
policymaking for the next 60 years.\34\ Various reasons account for this
development, such as the rise of congressional careerism and the
institutionalization of the seniority system.\35\
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\34\ There was a brief interlude of governance by ``King Caucus.'' When
the Democrats took control following the one-man rule of Cannon, they
employed their caucus, for example, to debate and mark up legislation
prior to its introduction in the Chamber and to bind, by a two-thirds
vote of the caucus, all Democrats to support the party's position on the
floor. However, enthusiasm for governing this way faded, and Democrats
gradually made less use of King Caucus; it did not survive the return to
power of the Republicans following the November 1918 elections. See
Wilder H. Haines, ``The Congressional Caucus of Today,'' American
Political Science Review, vol. 9, Nov. 1915, p. 699.
\35\ Nelson W. Polsby, et al., ``The Growth of the Seniority System in
the U.S. House of Representatives,'' American Political Science Review,
vol. 63, Sept. 1969, pp. 790-791.
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Seniority--longevity of continuous service on a committee--became not
just an established method for naming committee chairs, but an
ingrained, inviolate organizational norm for both parties. As a result,
committee chairmen owed little or nothing to party leaders, much less
Presidents. This automatic selection process produced experienced,
independent chairs, but it also made them resistant to party control.
Many lawmakers chafed under a system that concentrated authority in so
few hands. Members objected, too, that the seniority system promoted
lawmakers from ``safe'' one-party areas--especially conservative
southern Democrats and midwestern Republicans--who could ignore party
policies or national sentiments.
Committee government was characterized by bargaining and negotiating
between party and committee leaders. Speakers had to persuade committee
chairs to support priority legislation. ``A man's got to lead by
persuasion and the best reason,'' declared Speaker Rayburn, ``that's the
only way he can lead people.'' \36\ For example, by the early thirties,
and continuing for virtually all of Rayburn's service as Speaker, the
Rules Committee was dominated by a conservative coalition of southern
Democrats and Republicans. Thus, much of Speaker Rayburn's time was
spent persuading and bargaining with Rules members to report legislation
favored by various Presidents and many legislators.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ ``What Influences Congress: An Interview with Sam Rayburn, Speaker
of the House of Representatives.'' U.S. News and World Report, vol. 26,
Oct. 13, 1950, p. 30.
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The late sixties and seventies saw a rapid influx of new lawmakers,
many from the cities and suburbs, who opposed the conservative status
quo. Allying themselves with more senior Representatives, especially
Democrats (recall that Democrats controlled the House continuously for
40 years from 1955 to 1995), they pushed through changes that diffused
power and shattered seniority as an absolute criterion for naming
committee chairs. A resurgent Democratic Caucus initiated many of the
procedural changes that transformed the distribution of internal power.
Some of the changes were enacted into law (the Legislative
Reorganization Act of 1970, for example); some made rules of the
Democratic Caucus--the ``subcommittee bill of rights'' is an example
which required, among other procedural changes, that committee chairs
refer legislation to the appropriate subcommittee within 2 weeks after
initial introduction.
Among the important consequences of these various enactments were: the
spread of policymaking influence to the subcommittees and among junior
lawmakers; the enhancement of Congress' role in determining Federal
budget priorities through a new congressional budget process; the
infusion of flexibility and accountability into the previously rigid
seniority system; the tightening of the Speaker's control over the Rules
Committee (he was granted the authority to select its chair and the
other majority members of the panel); and greater transparency of the
House's deliberative processes heretofore closed to public observation,
including gavel-to-gavel televised coverage of floor proceedings over C-
SPAN [Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network].
Institutionally, dual and contradictory changes were underway in the
House during the seventies. Power was shifted from committee chairs
downward to the subcommittee chairs (subcommittee government as it was
called by some scholars), as well as upward to the centralized party
leadership. House Democratic reformers wanted to make the committee
system more accountable to the Speaker and the Democratic Caucus as a
whole. They brought about some centralization of authority--examples
include removing the committee assignment process from the Democrats on
the Ways and Means Committee and lodging it in the party Steering and
Policy Committee and augmenting the party whip system--but in other ways
the changes produced a highly decentralized and individualized
institution that made it harder for party leaders to mobilize winning
coalitions. Before, party leaders could often rely on a few powerful
committee chairs or State delegation leaders to deliver blocs of votes;
under subcommittee government, scores of entrepreneurial lawmakers had
the capacity to forge coalitions that could pass, modify, or defeat
legislation.
The decentralizing forces of the seventies gradually subsided and
strong leadership began to reemerge in the eighties. ``[T]he latent
power of centralized party leadership was aroused by unanticipated
changes in the political landscape and the policy agenda.'' \37\ These
changes included the election of Ronald Reagan as President in 1980 and
1984. Leading the House became more difficult with sharp differences
erupting between the branches--and between the House and Senate, the
latter in GOP hands from 1981 to 1987--over the role of the Federal
Government and national policy priorities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ Roger H. Davidson, The Postreform Congress (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1992), p. 114.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenged by President Reagan to limit the domestic role of
government, cut taxes, and increase defense spending, Democratic Members
recognized the importance of strengthening their party leaders both to
overcome institutional fragmentation and to negotiate bicameral and
interbranch differences with the White House and the GOP-controlled
Senate. Rank-and-file Democrats looked to Speaker Thomas P. ``Tip''
O'Neill (D-MA), to develop and publicize party programs, and to
negotiate equitable budget deals with the Reagan administration,
sometimes in high-stakes budget summits. In response, O'Neill used
leadership task forces to promote party priorities, created ad hoc
panels to process major legislation, and innovated the use of special
rules from the Rules Committee to advance the party's program.
As partisan disagreements became sharper, Republicans repeatedly made
O'Neill a media target during congressional November elections. In turn,
as the first Speaker to preside over a televised House, and as his
party's highest elected official, O'Neill became a vocal critic of
Reagan's domestic and foreign policies. As a result, the speakership
itself was transformed during O'Neill's time. ``Today, O'Neill is as
much a celebrity and news source as he is an inside strategist.'' \38\
In short, when O'Neill retired from the House at the end of 1986, the
speakership was an office of high national visibility.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Alan Ehrenhalt, ``Speaker's Job Transformed Under O'Neill,''
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. 43, June 22, 1985, p. 1247.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The speakership, too, had accumulated additional centralized authority
for the management of the House's business. At the urging of the party
rank-and-file, the Speaker-controlled Rules Committee began to issue
more restrictive rules to protect Democrats from having to vote on
electorally divisive, GOP-inspired ``November'' amendments. By at least
the mideighties, ``Democratic party leaders in the House became more
active, more forceful in moving party legislation forward.'' \39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Leroy N. Rieselbach, Congressional Reform: The Changing Modern
Congress (Washington: CQ Press, 1994), p. 129.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1987, James C. Wright (D-TX), became Speaker. An aggressive leader,
Wright took bold risks and exercised his leadership prerogatives in an
assertive manner. For example, he prodded committee chairmen to move
priority legislation, recommended policies (raising taxes to cut
deficits, for example) over the opposition of the Reagan White House and
many Democratic colleagues, and employed procedural tactics--limiting
GOP amendment opportunities, for example--that made Republicans'
minority status more painful and embittered their relations with
Democratic leaders. ``If Wright consolidates his power, he will be a
very, very formidable man,'' said Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA).
``We have to take him on early to prevent that.'' \40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ John Berry, The Ambition and the Power: The Fall of Jim Wright (New
York: Viking, 1989), p. 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gingrich represented a new breed of Republican who entered the House
starting with the election of 1978. They were unhappy with the
institutional status quo and the cooperative relations their GOP leaders
had established and maintained with Democrats. These Gingrich-led
Republicans sought to portray the Democratic leadership as corrupt and
to undermine public confidence in congressional operations. The
strategic goal was to win Republican control of the House. Gingrich
employed two long-term plans in his eventual rise to power. First, he
urged all Republicans to work together to advance a unified conservative
agenda and to use that agenda to nationalize House elections. Second,
GOP Members would aggressively confront the Democratic leadership about
what Republicans viewed as the unfairness of the legislative process and
attempt to make the internal operations of the Chamber a public issue.
For example, Gingrich and his Republican allies argued vociferously that
special rules from the Rules Committee were skewed to bolster the
majority party and that the Democratic leadership was stifling
legitimate debate on national issues. Gingrich also employed ethics as a
partisan weapon against Speaker Wright, which led to his departure from
the House in June 1989. (Wright was charged with violating several House
rules, such as accepting gifts from a close business associate.)
Wright was succeeded as Speaker by Majority Leader Thomas Foley (D-
WA). Elected to the House in November 1964, Foley rose through the ranks
to become Speaker during an era of sharp partisan animosity and
political infighting. Republicans found Foley easier to work with than
the more pugnacious Wright, but they also lamented his willingness to
use procedural rules to frustrate GOP objectives. Significantly, public
approval of Congress reached an all-time low of 17 percent as citizens
learned in September 1991 about Members bouncing personal checks at a
so-called House bank.\41\ Voters also learned that some lawmakers had
converted campaign and official office funds into cash for personal use.
Speaker Foley worked to win back the public's trust by supporting such
initiatives as more professional administrative management of the House
and tighter restrictions on lobbyists. Democratic reform efforts proved
to be insufficient. In November 1994, after a 30-year congressional
career, Foley lost his bid to return to the House in that year's
electoral earthquake. That election returned Republican majorities to
both the House--for the first time since 1954--and the Senate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ C. Lawrence Evans and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress Under Fire:
Reform Politics and the Republican Majority (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
Co., 1997), pp. 35-38.
The Return of the Strong Speakership
Newt Gingrich, who was his party's unanimous choice for Speaker, took
the office to new heights of influence, initially challenging even the
President as a force in national politics and policymaking. Three
factors help to explain this development: recognition on the part of
most Republicans that Gingrich was responsible for leading his party out
of the electoral wilderness of the ``permanent minority''; the broad
commitment of GOP lawmakers to the Republican agenda; and the new
majority's need to succeed at governance after 40 years in the minority.
Not since the Cannon era had there been such vigorous party leadership
in the House. Speaker Gingrich explained the need for greater central
authority. The GOP must change, he said, ``from a party focused on
opposition to a majority party with a responsibility for governing. That
requires greater assets in the leader's office.'' \42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ David Cloud, ``Gingrich Clears the Path for Republican Advance,''
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. 52, Nov. 19, 1994, p. 3319.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A key centralizing aspect of Gingrich's speakership was his influence
over committees. Not only did Gingrich personally select certain
Republicans to chair several standing committees, ignoring seniority in
the process, he also required the GOP members of the Appropriations
Committee to sign a written pledge that they would heed the Republican
leadership's recommendations for spending reductions. Furthermore, he
often bypassed committees entirely by establishing leadership task
forces to process legislation, dictated orders to committee chairs, and
used the Rules Committee to redraft committee-reported legislation.
Party power during this period dominated committee power.
The centerpiece of Gingrich's early days as Speaker was a 10-point
Republican Party program titled the ``Contract with America,'' which the
House acted upon within the promised first 100 days of the 104th
Congress. The contract set the agenda for Congress and the Nation during
this period. An important component of the contract was a wholesale
reworking of the Rules of the House, the most significant since Speaker
Reed. ``The elections of November 8, 1994, transformed the politics of
congressional structures and procedures,'' declaimed a congressional
scholar.\43\ With GOP cohesion and solidarity especially high, Speaker
Gingrich consolidated and exercised power to transform House operations
in significant ways.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Roger Davidson, ``Congressional Committees in the New Reform Era,''
in James A. Thurber and Roger H. Davidson, eds., Remaking Congress:
Change and Stability in the 1990s (Washington: Congressional Quarterly
Inc., 1995), p. 41.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among the administrative, legislative, and procedural actions taken by
Republicans during the 104th Congress were these: (1) passing the
Congressional Accountability Act, which applied workplace safety and
antidiscrimination laws to Congress; (2) hiring Price Waterhouse and
Company, a nationally known accounting firm, to conduct an independent
audit of House finances; (3) cutting House committee and subcommittee
staffs by one-third; (4) imposing 6-year term limits on committee and
subcommittee chairs; (5) banning proxy--or absentee--voting in
committees; (6) permitting radio and television coverage of open
committee sessions as a matter of right and not by authorization of the
committee; (7) guaranteeing to the minority party the right to offer a
motion to recommit with instructions; (8) restricting Members to two
standing committee assignments and four subcommittee assignments; (9)
requiring more systematic committee oversight plans; (10) prohibiting
commemorative measures; (11) doing away with the joint referral of
legislation--referring measures to two or more committees
simultaneously--but authorizing the Speaker to designate a primary
committee of jurisdiction upon the initial referral of a measure; (12)
prescribing term limits--8 years of consecutive service--for the Speaker
(abolished at the start of the 108th Congress); (13) eliminating three
standing committees (District of Columbia, Post Office and Civil
Service, and Merchant Marine and Fisheries) and consolidating their
functions in other, sometimes renamed, standing committees; (14)
transforming the Committee on House Administration into a leadership-
appointed panel; and (15) reorganizing the administrative units of the
House.
These and many other formal and informal Gingrich-led changes made the
104th House (1995-1997) considerably different from its immediate
predecessor, modifying the legislative culture and context of the House.
Civility between Democrats and Republicans eroded as both sides
exploited procedural and political devices in efforts either to retain,
or win back, majority control of the House. Some of the attempted
reforms also proved hard to implement. The new majority promised a more
open and fair amendment process compared to the restrictive amendment
opportunities Republicans often experienced during Democratic control of
the House. This goal, however, sometimes clashed with a fundamental
objective of any majority party in the House: the need to enact priority
legislation even if it means restricting lawmakers' amendment
opportunities. Throughout the 104th Congress, Democrats and Republicans
prepared ``dueling statistics'' on the number of open versus restrictive
rules issued by the Rules Committee. Democratic frustration with GOP-
reported rules that limit their amendment opportunities has escalated in
subsequent years.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Erin P. Billings, ``Democrats Protest Closed Rules in the House,''
Roll Call, March 17, 2003, p. 16.
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In 1995, Time named Gingrich their ``Man of the Year.'' (Ironically,
the person to appear on the first issue of the magazine's cover was Joe
Cannon.) However, Speaker Gingrich soon encountered political and
personal problems. In an unsuccessful confrontation with President Bill
Clinton, the Gingrich-led Republicans were twice publicly blamed for
shutting down parts of the government in late 1995 and early 1996
because of failure to enact appropriations bills in a timely manner.
Rank-and-file Republicans became upset with the Speaker's impulsive
leadership style. A small group of Republicans, with the encouragement
of some in the leadership, planned in summer 1997 to depose Gingrich as
Speaker, but the plot was uncovered and averted.\45\ Nonetheless, the
coup attempt exposed the deep frustration with the Speaker within GOP
ranks. Gingrich, too, was reprimanded by the House for ethical
misconduct and blamed for the loss of GOP House seats in the 1996 and
1998 elections. Weakened by these developments, Gingrich resigned from
the House at the end of the 105th Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ Jackie Koszczuk, ``Party Stalwarts Will Determine Gingrich's Long-
Term Survival,'' Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. 55, July
26, 1997, pp. 1751-1755.
Concluding Observations
The historian David McCullough once wrote, ``Congress . . . rolls on
like a river . . . always there and always changing.'' \46\ His
observation fits the speakerships of Reed, Cannon and Gingrich. Although
each served in different political, economic, and social circumstances--
with a President of their own party or not, for example, Reed, Cannon
and Gingrich centralized procedural control of the House in their hands
to accomplish policy and political goals. Each was willing to hamstring
the minority party and to challenge the White House. Whether the
influence of these Speakers stems primarily from the context in which
they served (the strength of partisan identification in the electorate,
the autonomy of committees, the cohesiveness of the majority party,
etc.) or their personal skills, abilities, and talents, there is little
doubt that, at the apex of their power they shaped and reshaped the
procedures, policies, and politics of the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ David McCullough, ``Time and History on Capitol Hill,'' in Roger H.
Davidson and Richard C. Sachs, eds., Understanding Congress: Research
Perspectives, U.S. House of Representatives, 101st Cong., 2d sess.,
1991, H. Doc. 101-241, p. 32.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The return of dictatorial Speakers on the order of Joe Cannon is
unlikely in the contemporary era. The reasons seem mostly self-evident:
greater transparency in almost all of Congress' activities; larger, more
diverse, and more sophisticated media coverage of Congress; a
congressional membership that is not only better educated but one that
has thrived in an era where policy and political entrepreneurship is a
norm and overly strict adherence to the directives of a single party
leader an uncommon occurrence; and the expectations of attentive and
well-educated constituents who want Members to participate in public
debates and media events and to initiate policy proposals.
The speakership in its most recent incarnation draws its strength in
part because of a procedural change adopted during the Gingrich
speakership: the three-term limit on committee chairs. These committee
leaders are unlikely to remain in their post long enough to accrue
political influence sufficient to challenge the Speaker on a regular or
sustained basis. Moreover, the decision to appoint a new committee chair
is exercised by the Speaker-led Republican Steering Committee.
Congressional history demonstrates, however, that centralized authority
is not a permanent condition. Instead, the forces of centralization and
decentralization are constantly in play, and they regularly adjust and
reconfigure in response to new conditions and events.
Another large source of influence for today's Speaker is the
heightened level of partisanship in the House. This situation often
enables majority party leaders to demand, and often get, party loyalty
on various votes. Broadly, the Speaker has the dual task of mobilizing
majority support for party goals and, concurrently, formulating and
publicizing issues that attract the support of partisans and swing
voters nationally so his party retains majority control of the House.
The Reed, Cannon, and Gingrich speakerships highlight how each defined
their role according to time, place, and circumstance. The office itself
has changed shape time and again, and its ability to procedurally and
politically control the business of the House has waxed and waned. The
heightened partisanship in today's House means that the Speaker often
gets party loyalty on key votes. Probably the Speaker's most compelling
argument to his partisans is that if they are to maintain majority
control, they must stick together and do whatever it takes politically
and procedurally to retain their status. Speakers may lose key votes on
the floor, but it is seldom for lack of trying.
In its present configuration, the speakership is as significant an
office as any time in the past, a product now of its occupant and
lieutenants collectively and the conditions in which they operate. These
circumstances today favor strong party leadership, but Speakers always
operate under a range of constraints, such as the independence of
lawmakers and size and unity (or fragmentation) of the majority party.
At bottom, the Speaker's authority rests on the willingness of lawmakers
to follow his lead. Without followership, Speakers can still be ``the
sport of political storms.'' \47\
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\47\ Herbert Bruce Fuller, The Speakers of the House (Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 1909), p. 292.
Chapter 3
The Speaker of the House and the Committee on Rules
Christopher M. Davis
Analyst in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
The rules . . . are not for the purpose of protecting the rights of
the minority, but to promote the orderly conduct of the business of the
House.
Speaker Thomas B. Reed
[To provide the Speaker] absolute control of the House through its
Committee on Rules is giving greater power to the Speaker of the House
than any man in this free Republic ought to possess.
Representative Joseph W. Bailey
The Speaker of the House and the Committee on Rules have existed since
the First Congress. In fact, the first select committee established in
the House in 1789 was a Committee on Rules; the first rule it reported
detailed the duties of the Speaker.
For the first 90 years of its existence, the Rules Committee was a
temporary and relatively unimportant entity. From 1789 to 1880, however,
both the link between the Speaker and the Rules Committee, and the power
of each, would grow. This accumulation of influence was gradual, and was
tied directly to the actions and aspirations of individual Speakers. In
1858 a sitting Speaker was named a member of the Select Rules Committee,
and in 1880, the panel was made a permanent standing committee which the
Speaker chaired.
Since 1880, the committee has been at various times an agent of the
Speaker's power, an opponent and counterweight to it, a political
traffic cop, a leadership gatekeeper, an unmovable parliamentary
roadblock, an investigative and oversight body, and a secondary
legislative filter. The Rules Committee has played an increasingly
important role in the Congress. Through it, Speakers of the House have
been able to largely control not only the flow, but the substance, of
legislation from the standing committees to the House floor. The
committee has become one of the most important ingredients in a
Speaker's ability to govern.
As one scholar points out, ``Sometimes a Speaker has dominated the
[Rules] Committee from his position as its chairman; more often than
not, he has exerted great influence over it through his impact on the
selection of its members. More rarely, he has been confronted with an
independent and sometimes rebellious committee.'' \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, A History of the
Committee on Rules, committee print, 97th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington:
GPO, 1983), p. 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The power relationship between the Rules Committee and the Speaker has
often been a synergistic one, each reinforcing the other. It is little
wonder, then, that the House Rules Committee is often called ``the
Speaker's committee.''
The Origin of the Rules Committee
While today the Rules Committee is central to the power of the Speaker
and the operations of the modern Congress, the origin of the committee
is far more modest. In April 1789, when a quorum was finally achieved in
the First Congress after weeks of waiting for Members to arrive from the
13 States, the first select committee established was a committee on
rules. The 11-member panel, appointed by Speaker Frederick A.C.
Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania and chaired by Representative Elias Boudinot
of New Jersey, was directed to ``prepare and report such standing rules
and orders of proceedings as may be proper to be observed in this
House.'' \2\ When the select committee reported back to the House 5 days
later, the first rule it recommended outlined the duties and powers of
the Speaker of the House. This rules package was known as the ``Boudinot
rules,'' after the chair of the select committee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Journal of the House of Representatives, 1st Cong., 1st sess., April
2, 1789, p. 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At this time, and indeed, for the next 90 years, the Committee on
Rules wielded scant influence over the substance of legislation or the
order of procedural business in the House. During these early years,
when the Congress was small, and conducted comparatively little
legislative business, the Rules Committee was largely a housekeeping
panel that met at the beginning of a session to craft a rules package
or, more frequently, simply to readopt the Boudinot rules of the First
Congress. In many early congressional sessions, the Rules Committee met
once to accomplish this task, and not again; in other Congresses, the
panel did not make a single report. One congressional scholar has
pointed out, ``the custom of re-adopting the Boudinot Rules . . . left
little [work] to a Committee on Rules.'' \3\ In fact, in its early
history, the select committee was so insignificant to the operations of
the House that, during one 11-year period--from 1817 to 1828--Speakers
of the House did not even bother to appoint Members to the committee.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ DeAlva Stanwood Alexander, History and Procedure of the House of
Representatives (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 182.
\4\ James A. Robinson, The House Rules Committee (Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1963), p. 59.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From 1841 to 1883, however, the Rules Committee began a gradual
evolution that would transform it into one of the House's most powerful
committees. As a result of this evolution, the Rules Committee would
become so central to the power of the Speaker and the scheduling of the
business of the House, that in spring 1910, almost 121 years to the day
after the first Select Rules Committee was established, the House, in a
rare instance of open revolution, would rise up in bipartisan revolt
against the Speaker of the House and strip him of his seat on the Rules
Committee, an entity which had become ``the citadel of his power.'' \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Ibid., p. 57.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This journey to the heights of power was a slow one, however, that
evolved even as the young legislative body grew. In June 1841, the House
gave the Rules Committee the power to report from time to time; prior to
that, the panel had only been permitted to report at the beginning of a
Congress on possible revisions to the rules. This change was made in the
hope that the additional power granted the committee would allow it to
undertake a comprehensive reform of the Chamber's rules, which had
become a ``hodgepodge'' that ``bordered on chaos.'' \6\ The committee,
however, was unable to make a comprehensive reform of House rules.
Shortly thereafter, Speaker John White of Kentucky, conferred additional
influence on the committee by ruling that the panel could ``make reports
in part at different times.'' \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ A History of the Committee on Rules, pp. 44-45.
\7\ Ibid., p. 44.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1849, the House, frustrated with the continued confused state of
the rules, briefly made Rules a standing committee with the hopes that
doing so would enable it to comprehensively reform the Chamber's rules.
After 4 years, however, the panel had still not been able to accomplish
this task. Simply put, ``what resulted was more of the same.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ibid., p. 45.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1853, the House adopted a resolution making legislation reported
from the Rules Committee privileged for consideration, mandating that
reports from the panel be ``acted upon by the House until disposed of,
to the exclusion of all other business.'' \9\ This additional grant of
power failed to help the panel achieve comprehensive rules reform and,
in 1857, the panel remained so unimportant that the House did not even
create it until a full 6 months of the 35th Congress had elapsed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ ``The Rules Again,'' Congressional Globe, vol. 23, Dec. 5, 1853, p.
4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1858, however, an important breakthrough occurred. The House
established a select panel made up of the Speaker and four other Members
to revise the rules and report back to the full House; this was the
first time that a Speaker had served on one of the Chamber's legislative
committees. Under the resolution, the Speaker named the four other
members of the select committee. During floor debate, one Member offered
an amendment to have the House, rather than the Speaker, appoint these
members, but it was overwhelmingly defeated and the resolution
establishing the select committee was adopted with almost no debate.\10\
Although the action received little debate on the floor, it marked the
first time the Speaker was in full command of the Rules Committee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ ``Revision of the Rules,'' Congressional Globe, vol. 28, June 14,
1858, p. 3048.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the 36th Congress, the select committee reported back its suggested
revisions of the rules, which were subsequently adopted by the House.
Included in the report were provisions providing for a five-person Rules
Committee appointed and chaired by the Speaker of the House.\11\ The
Speaker would remain a member of the House Rules Committee, serving as
its chair, appointing its members (as well as the members of all House
committees) and exercising its power and authority for the next three
decades. Thus, after 1858, the powers of the committee and the authority
of the Speaker became even more closely linked, ``a circumstance which
served both to enhance the role of the committee and to strengthen the
influence of the Speaker.'' \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, A Short
History of the Development of the Committee on Rules, typed report by
Walter Kravitz and Walter J. Oleszek, Jan. 30, 1978, p. 4.
\12\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1880, the Rules Committee was made a permanent standing committee
of the House and given legislative jurisdiction over ``all proposed
action touching the rules and joint rules.'' The House undertook this
action in the course of another comprehensive overhaul of its rules,
which reduced the number of standing rules from 166 to 44.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ George B. Galloway, History of the United States House of
Representatives, 89th Cong., 1st sess., H. Doc. 250 (Washington: GPO,
1965), p. 47.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first chairman of the revamped committee, Speaker Samuel J.
Randall (D-PA), used his authority on the Rules Committee to bolster the
influence of his office, establishing that all future rules changes
should be referred to the Rules Committee, and that its reports could be
brought to the floor any time.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Ibid., p. 47.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The powers of the committee and the Speaker continued to grow when
control of the Chamber shifted again in 1881. One of the first Members
to recognize the full potential of the Rules Committee to manage
legislative business was Representative Thomas Brackett Reed (R-ME), who
was appointed to the Rules Committee in 1882.
In February 1883, in an important development that foreshadowed the
role of the modern Rules Committee, the House upheld a Speaker's ruling
that the committee could report a special order of business for a
specific bill. The significance of this ruling was that it allowed the
House to take up individual bills by a simple majority vote rather than
being forced to rely on the cumbersome suspension of the rules
procedure, which required a super majority vote of two-thirds, or by
unanimous consent.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ibid., p. 48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This ruling was prompted by Representative Reed, who called up a
resolution reported by the Rules Committee that sought to allow the
House to suspend the rules by simple majority vote and request a
conference with the Senate on tariff legislation. A point of order was
made by Representative Joseph Blackburn (D-KY) against the resolution on
the grounds that the Rules Committee did not have the authority to
report such a resolution. In making his argument, Blackburn pointed out
that the resolution was neither a House rule nor an amendment to House
rules, and should thus be ruled out of order. Speaker J. Warren Keifer
(R-OH) overruled the point of order on grounds that the resolution was
``reported as a rule from the Committee on Rules.'' The Speaker
explained that, just as the Rules Committee could report a rule to
suspend or repeal any or every rule of the House, subject to approval by
the House itself, it could also issue a rule that would ``apply to a
single great and important measure . . . pending before the Congress.''
\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ House Committee on Rules, Official Web site, www.house.gov/rules,
accessed on Aug. 12, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While this was the first instance of the House adopting a ``special
rule'' for the consideration of a specific bill, it did not at that time
lead to a flood of special rules from the Speaker, or give an indication
of the tremendously important procedural development it would later
prove to be. ``The method of adopting a special order from the Committee
on Rules by a majority vote,'' one historian noted, ``was not in favor
for the following three Congresses. In 1887, it was regarded as a
proceeding of `doubtful validity' . . . it was not until . . . 1890 that
this method . . . gained the favor of the House as an efficient means of
bringing bills out of their regular order for . . . immediate
consideration.'' \17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Chang-Wei Chiu, The Speaker of the House of Representatives Since
1896 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), pp. 120-121.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By 1890, the function of providing special orders of business for the
consideration of legislation became routine and was the sole prerogative
of the Rules Committee and its chair, the Speaker. Speaker John G.
Carlisle (D-KY), regularly issued special rules from the committee for
individual bills, further cementing the practice. ``Since that time,''
former House Parliamentarian Asher Hinds points out, the issuance of
special rules ``has been in favor as an efficient means of bringing up
for consideration bills difficult to reach in the regular order and
especially as a means for confining within specified limits the
consideration of bills involving important policies for which the
majority party in the House may be responsible.'' \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Asher C. Hinds, Hinds' Precedents of the United States House of
Representatives, 5 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1907), vol. IV, 3152.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Republicans retook control of the House in the 51st Congress,
1889-1891, Representative Reed was chosen Speaker. He immediately took
advantage of his position as chairman of the Rules Committee to control
legislative business on the floor through the use of special rules. More
importantly, Speaker Reed used his power as Speaker and chairman of the
Rules Committee in tandem to clear minority obstruction of floor
business.
As presiding officer, Reed issued several landmark rulings that in
effect, outlawed minority obstructive tactics, particularly the
``disappearing quorum,'' a parliamentary innovation pioneered by John
Quincy Adams during his 17 years as a Member of the House following his
one term as President. By this tactic, minority Members, although
physically present in the House Chamber, would refuse to vote, thus
denying the body the quorum needed to do business. Speaker Reed ruled
against these obstructions as presiding officer, and then, as chairman
of the Rules Committee, codified his rulings into the standing rules of
the House. These provisos, together with a comprehensive overhaul of the
rules undertaken by Reed, came to be known as the ``Reed rules,'' and
serve as the basis for the power of the modern Speaker and the
operations of the present-day House. Most notably, the Reed rules
established a framework by which the Speaker, as leader of the majority
party in the House, could move his legislative agenda forward.
Additional power accrued to the Speaker through the Rules Committee
when, in 1891, the committee was given the authority to report at any
time. Two years later it was also granted the right to sit during
sessions of the House.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Ibid., 4321.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even when viewed through the prism of the House in later periods of
centralized power, it is difficult to convey the absolute control
exercised by the Speaker during this period.
So absolute was ``Czar'' Reed's control of the business of the House
through the scheduling powers of the Rules Committee, that, when told of
a particularly long debate that had consumed the time of the Senate, the
Speaker was able to remark without humor or irony, ``Thank God the House
of Representatives is not a deliberative body.'' \20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Asher C. Hinds, ``The Speaker of the House of Representatives,''
American Political Science Review, vol. 3, May 1909, pp. 155-156.
The Revolt Against Speaker Cannon
The power of the Speaker of the House, through and by the Rules
Committee, continued to grow under Speaker Joseph G. ``Uncle Joe''
Cannon (R-IL), who served as the Chamber's presiding officer from 1903
to 1910. Speaker Cannon was a colorful figure, and a strong believer in
party discipline. He did not hesitate to use his power in appointing
committee members and even committee chairs, and in punishing those who
did not obey his wishes.
In assessing the leadership of Speaker Cannon, one scholar has
remarked, ``Particularly significant was Speaker Cannon's power as
chairman of the Committee on Rules. The Committee was small--never over
five Republican Members prior to 1910. The three-to-two edge of the
Republicans was potent, however, since the Speaker appointed the members
carefully--insuring that they agreed with his views.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Charles O. Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: An Essay
on the Limits of Leadership in the House of Representatives,'' The
Journal of Politics, vol. 30, Aug. 1968, pp. 617-646.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cannon was well prepared to use the committee as an instrument of
power, having observed its use under Speaker Reed. Indeed, Cannon was no
stranger to the use of raw political power. As chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee in 1898, Cannon ``wooshed through a then
staggering $50 million appropriation to allow President William McKinley
to fight the Spanish American War--without consulting or even informing
his fellow committee members about it.'' \22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Michael Kilian, ``Tough Act to Follow,'' Chicago Tribune, Jan. 23,
1995, sec. 2, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cannon continued that use of political power when he became Speaker
and Rules chair. ``Before March, 1910, the power of the Speaker was in
part due to the increase in the power of the Committee on Rules,'' as
one writer has observed, because the committee ``had privileges which
were not accorded by the House to any other committee. Through a special
order, the Committee . . . regulated what should be considered, how long
debate on a bill should last, when a vote should be taken, or whether a
bill should be voted with or without amendment. It proposed amendments
to legislative bills over which other committees had jurisdiction.''
\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Chiu, The Speaker of the House of Representatives Since 1896, pp.
124-125.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Cannon used his power over the Rules Committee coupled with
his power of recognition to manage the business of the House down to the
smallest detail. Writing of Cannon's daily meetings with his Rules
Committee lieutenants and rank and file Members seeking the Speaker's
permission to consider their bills, one reporter related:
If the Speaker decides in the applicant's favor, he takes a little pad
and writes the Congressman's name and number of the bill on it. Later,
when the House assembles and the Speaker calls it to order, he has this
little pad in his hand or lying beside him on his desk. The various
successful applicants arise and shout ``Mr. Speaker!'' while the
unsuccessful ones sit glumly in their seats . . . The Speaker does not
even look at the shouting applicants. He studies his pad and calls out,
``The Gentleman from Ohio,'' or ``The Gentleman from Illinois,'' until
the entire list is exhausted. There is more finality in a Cannon ``yes''
or ``no'' than in that of any other man in America. \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ ``A Glimpse Into Speaker Cannon's Famous Red Room,'' New York
Times, Dec. 13, 1908, p. SM8.
Minority Leader (and later Speaker), Champ Clark, summed up Speaker
Cannon's partisan use of the Rules Committee when he told his House
colleagues in 1910, ``I violate no secret when I tell you the committee
is made up of three very distinguished Republicans and two ornamental
Democrats.'' \25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Representative Champ Clark, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 45, March 17, 1910, p. 3294.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is clear that, ``the legislative agenda, the progress of bills,
members' committee assignments, almost every function of the House, all
. . . was under the control of the Speaker and the five-member House
Rules Committee, which was made up of Cannon and four of his hand-picked
colleagues.'' \26\ So absolute was Speaker Cannon's rule, that one,
perhaps apocryphal, story claimed that, ``when a constituent asked one
representative for a copy of the rules of the House toward the end of
Cannon's Speakership, the member simply mailed the man a picture of the
white-bearded Cannon.'' \27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Ibid., p. 1.
\27\ Kilian, ``Tough Act to Follow,'' sec. 2, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1909, the House, which had become increasingly frustrated with
Speaker Cannon's iron grip over the legislative agenda, enacted a
potential restriction on his scheduling power through the Rules
Committee when it adopted the ``Calendar Wednesday'' procedure. Under
this procedure, each Wednesday was reserved exclusively for the various
standing legislative committees to call up measures in their
jurisdiction for floor consideration. This procedure could be used to
bring to the floor measures for which the Rules Committee had granted no
hearing or special rule. While the adoption of Calendar Wednesday was an
attack on the power of the Speaker, in practice, Cannon was largely able
to render it ineffective.
Noted parliamentary expert with the House, Asher C. Hinds, argued that
far too much was made of the Speaker's power vis-a-vis the Rules
Committee. He wrote in 1909, ``The power of the Speaker, as it is
related to the Committee on Rules, is much overestimated. When a
committee has once reported a bill, that bill is in the hands of the
House.'' \28\ Hinds further argued that the Rules Committee did nothing
in practice that was revolutionary or inappropriate, but only did what
the party caucuses had routinely done in previous years. It is important
to keep in mind, however, that while Hinds was intimately familiar with
the operations of the Cannon House, he was also the clerk at the
Speaker's table, so his viewpoint arguably cannot be considered entirely
unbiased.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Hinds, ``The Speaker of the House of Representatives,'' p. 162.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Cannon and his Republican majority had ample warning of the
unrest brewing among the more progressive Members of both parties during
the 60th and 61st Congresses. Some observers of Congress have alleged
that this mounting frustration was attributable less to Cannon's
absolute control of the House through the Rules Committee than the fact
that he used that power to prevent the House from voting on progressive
legislation which rank and file Members of Congress of both parties
supported. ``It was `Uncle Joe' Cannon's economic and social
philosophy,'' one scholar argues, ``that first aroused [Republican
insurgents] against his autocracy'' \29\ Whatever the genesis of the
reform movement, Speaker Cannon was steadfastly unwilling to heed the
growing chorus calling for reform. In characteristically blunt style, he
said, ``I am damned tired of listening to all this babble for reform.
America is a hell of a success.'' \30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Robinson, The House Rules Committee, p. 61.
\30\ Greg Pierce, ``Joe Made Them Cry Uncle,'' Washington Times, May 7,
1986, p. 2D.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member frustration spilled onto the floor when, ``Twelve insurgents
refused to vote for Cannon for Speaker at the opening of the special
session in 1909 called by President Taft to consider the tariff . . .
[and] a combination of insurgents and Democrats defeated a motion to
adopt the rules of the previous Congress. At that point Minority Leader
Clark offered a resolution which would have increased the size of the
Committee on Rules, removed the Speaker from the committee and taken
from the Speaker his power of appointing all committees except Ways and
Means.'' \31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith,'' pp. 617-646.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speaker was able to fend off this attack by agreeing to a
compromise motion to establish a unanimous consent calendar, a motion of
recommital for the minority party, and increases in the number of votes
necessary to set aside the Calendar Wednesday procedure.
Speaker Cannon later meted out his revenge against the rebels. As one
reporter noted days after the quashed revolt, ``With few exceptions,
members of the House who opposed the Speaker's candidacy or opposed the
adoption of the . . . rules find themselves tonight with undesirable
committee assignments or without the promotion long service on a
particular committee entitled them to expect.'' \32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ ``Cannon Disciplines House Insurgents,'' New York Times, Aug. 6,
1909, p. 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While he was able to delay the inevitable, in the end, even Speaker
Cannon's mastery of the Rules Committee could not prevent the full House
from working its will. Frustration with ``Cannonism'' came to a final
head on St. Patrick's Day, 1910, when a small band of progressive
Republican Members, led by Representative George W. Norris (R-NE),
joined with Democrats to again challenge the powers of the Speaker.
Cannon had given opponents a parliamentary opening when he tried to shut
down the use of the Calendar Wednesday procedure. In response, Norris
rose and offered a resolution as a matter of constitutional privilege to
change House rules by removing the Speaker as chair and member of the
Rules Committee, and by expanding the panel's membership from 5 to 15,
to be chosen by State delegations.
In later years, Representative Norris recalled of his reform
resolution, ``I had carried it for a long time, certain, that in the
flush of its power, the Cannon machine would overreach itself. The paper
upon which I had written my resolution had become so tattered it
scarcely hung together.'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Jones, ``Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith,'' pp. 617-646.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supporters of the Speaker quickly raised a point of order against the
Norris resolution, arguing that it did not carry the constitutional
privilege its author claimed. Speaker Cannon allowed debate on the point
of order to continue for 2 days, after which he sustained it. Cannon's
decision that the Norris resolution was not in order was then appealed
to the full House which overturned the Speaker's ruling by a vote of 182
to 162. The Norris resolution was then adopted, 191 to 156, after
Representative Norris amended it to provide for a 10-member Rules
Committee elected by the entire House. Cannon continued to serve as
House Speaker, but without the unchecked power he had previously
commanded.
Decentralization of the Speaker's Power Over Rules Committee
Although the overthrow of Speaker Cannon drastically reduced the power
of the Speaker to singlehandedly manage the flow and content of
legislative business, the Rules Committee's power remained largely
intact. The post-Cannon period was a time of general decentralization of
authority in the House of Representatives, and one where power resided
in the caucus and the majority floor leader even more than in newly-
elected Speaker Champ Clark (D-MO). When Democrats regained control of
the House in 1911, they set up a system of governance largely through
party apparatus, making extensive use of binding votes in caucus to
compel Democratic Members to support the majority legislative agenda on
the floor. This era of ``King Caucus'' meant that gone were the days
when the Speaker was ``considered . . . an officer second only in power
and influence to the President of the United States himself, and so far
as the enactment of legislation was concerned, to exercise powers
superior to [the President].'' \34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
122.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that after 1910 the
weakened Office of the Speaker did not continue to exert influence over
the Rules Committee in the service of the majority party agenda, or to
continue to accumulate power for the panel. The Speaker, in conjunction
with the newly influential floor leader, Representative Oscar Underwood
(D-AL), continued to use the power of the Rules Committee as one of his
most powerful management tools. ``Excepting only the caucus,'' the Rules
Committee during Underwood's speakership became, ``the most necessary
and essential feature of the new floor leader system in the House.''
\35\ Democratic leaders made certain that the Rules Committee continued
to serve as an organ of the majority party by carefully stocking the
committee with solid party loyalists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ James S. Fleming, ``Oscar W. Underwood: The First Modern House
Leader, 1911-1915,'' in Roger H. Davidson, Susan Webb Hammond, and
Raymond W. Smock, eds., Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership
Over Two Decades (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), p. 108.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the speakership was weakened during this period, Speakers
continued to accrue power for the panel. In 1920, for example, Speaker
Frederick H. Gillett of Massachusetts ruled that the committee might
report a resolution providing for the consideration of a bill that had
not yet been introduced.\36\ The ruling was an important one that
foreshadowed the modern Rules Committee's ability to manage not only the
consideration, but the content, of legislative business in the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Clarence Cannon, Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, 6 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1935-1941), vol. VIII,
3388.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speakers also continued to use their influence to prevent the Rules
Committee from reporting rules for legislation they and the majority
party opposed. In 1922, for example, the committee blocked a resolution
demanding answers about the Department of Justice's handling of an
investigation relating to war contract fraud \37\ which the majority
opposed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ ``House Inquiry Plan is Again Blocked,'' New York Times, May 28,
1922, p. 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The power of the Speaker to control the legislative agenda was further
increased in 1924, when the ``pocket veto'' power of the chairman of the
Rules Committee was curbed by Speaker Gillett after the Rules Committee
chairman had exercised his discretion to hold resolutions from floor
consideration long after the Rules Committee had reported them.
In 1925, during the speakership of Nicholas T. Longworth (R-IL), one
Member bemoaned this ability to obstruct legislation, stating that the
Speaker and the members of the Rules Committee ``were empowered by . . .
House `gag rules' to allow legislation to live or to make it die'' while
other Members looked on, ``. . . as helpless as little children.'' The
Member in question concluded that this was simply, ``too damned much
power.'' \38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ ``Howard Charges Gag Rule in the House,'' New York Times, March 19,
1930, p. 19.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soon after assuming the speakership, Longworth had moved to restore
the Speaker's power over the Rules Committee. ``To consolidate his
control, Longworth had the Committee on Committees remove three
[insurgent progressive] Members from the Rules Committee . . . and
replace them with dependable party regulars.'' During Longworth's
tenure, Rules Committee chair Bertrand Snell was a member of a group
known as the ``Big Four'' which acted as Speaker Longworth's inner
circle of advisors and the party's principal policy body.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Donald C. Bacon, ``Nicholas Longworth: The Genial Czar,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 134.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This trend toward restoring the Speaker's power over the committee
continued under Speaker John Nance Garner (D-TX), who ``functioned as a
broker, a negotiator who put together coalitions and compromises by
working with and through committee chairs,'' including the Rules
Committee.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Anthony Champagne, ``John Nance Garner,'' in Masters of the House,
p. 170.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another important development, in 1933, Speaker Henry T. Rainey (D-
IL) upheld the Rules Committee's right to report a resolution for
consideration of a bill on which the House had refused to act under
suspension of the rules. Speaker Rainey also shepherded through the
Chamber an increase in the threshold needed to discharge legislation
from committees--from 145 to 218--to stop legislation awarding veterans
a cash bonus from being brought up in Congress.\41\ This latter
development further empowered the Rules Committee and the Speaker in
relation to rank and file Members.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ ``Discharge Rule Approved,'' New York Times, April 19, 1933, p. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still later in the Rainey speakership, a Member was named to the Rules
Committee over the Speaker's objections. That Member was ``Judge''
Howard W. Smith of Fauquier County, VA, who would play a crucial role in
the future of the relationship between the Speaker and the Rules
Committee.
The Speaker vs. the Committee: The Emergence of the ``Conservative
Coalition''
During the speakership of William B. Bankhead (D-AL), 1936-1940, the
Rules Committee ceased to be an unquestioned agent and ally of majority
party leadership, due to the advent of a ``conservative coalition'' of
southern Democrats and Republicans on the panel. For the next three
decades, Speakers would find the committee to be, at least on some
issues, an independent and competing power base in need of cajoling and
catering and, at worst, a legislative adversary.
The rise of the conservative rules coalition was a gradual one. The
Rules Committee played an instrumental part in expediting much of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation during his first
``hundred days,'' and through his initial term in office, by reporting
closed rules on major legislation forwarded by the President. As the
economic emergency of the Depression receded, however, a backlash
against Presidential policies that were viewed by southern Democrats as
increasingly liberal and unwise, set in during the 74th Congress. This
growing suspicion of New Deal policies coincided with, and was furthered
by the election of Representative John J. O'Connor (D-NY), a New Deal
critic, as chair of the committee.\42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
135.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``By 1937, the House Democratic Leadership could no longer count on
Rules Committee Southern Democrats in granting of rules.'' \43\ As a
result, Speaker Bankhead was increasingly unable to promise prompt
consideration of administration legislative priorities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ A History of the Committee on Rules, p. 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One visible split between the Speaker and the Rules Committee occurred
during consideration of the President's wage and hour bill, a
legislative proposal that would have set a national minimum wage,
established standards for maximum hours of work, and implemented several
child labor reforms. After the legislation was passed by the Senate in
August 1937, it was subsequently reported from the House Labor
Committee. That is where its progress abruptly stopped. ``With the five
southern Democrats and four Republicans on the Rules Committee opposed
to it, no rule was granted and no hearing was even held on the Wage and
Hour bill.'' \44\ When a compromise wage and hour measure was also
scotched by the Rules Committee, the House Democratic leadership had to
resort to a discharge petition to bring the plan forward for
consideration. In explaining the failure to grant a rule for wage and
hour legislation, Rules Committee member Representative Edward E. Cox
(D-GA) made an argument presaging the coming civil rights battles of the
next two decades, stating, ``This bill is an attempt to . . . destroy
the reserved powers of the states over the local concerns,'' \45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Ibid., p. 138.
\45\ ``Rule Denied, 8 to 6,'' New York Times, April 30, 1938, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ``gatekeeping committee'' had shut the gate on the Speaker
himself. ``The 1937-1938 fight over the wage and hour legislation was
extremely significant,'' one scholar has noted, ``it not only
highlighted and aggravated the split in the Democratic Party, but it
meant that on some issues the [Rules Committee] was a bipartisan
coalition,'' rather than an arm of the Speaker and the majority
party.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ A History of the Committee on Rules, p. 139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other observers of Congress have argued that, far from being an
example of a stubborn minority holding legislation hostage, the wage and
hour fight was actually an instance of the Rules Committee fulfilling a
legitimate role as a filter for legislation that was not ready for
consideration by the entire Chamber. Following debate on the bill, the
full House overwhelmingly voted to recommit the first wage and hour bill
to committee. ``To say that the Rules Committee was defying the majority
will of the House in not granting a rule,'' one author has reasoned,
``must be qualified in light of the difficulties in getting a majority
in favor of the principle of the bill'' in the House.\47\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ Robinson, The House Rules Committee, p. 61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regardless of the interpretation of the significance of the battle,
the wage and hour fight heralded the beginning of a three-decade fight
between Democratic Speakers of the House, most notably Speaker Sam
Rayburn (D-TX), and the committee on issues such as labor protections,
civil rights, and social policy.
The advent of the conservative coalition did not mean that the Speaker
lost all control of the Rules Committee. ``It is important to note that
on many issues, the Rules Committee continued to act on behalf of the
majority party, albeit at times reluctantly.'' \48\ The rise of the
conservative bloc did, however, make the ability of the Speaker to
schedule and manage legislative business on behalf of the majority
significantly more difficult.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ A History of the Committee on Rules, p. 139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deeply concerned by this ``loss'' of the Rules Committee to the
conservative coalition, the Roosevelt administration actively campaigned
for the defeat of three renegade Rules Committee Democrats in the 1938
elections--Representatives O'Connor, Smith of Virginia, and Cox of
Georgia. ``The chief desire of the [Roosevelt Administration] `purge,'
'' a New York Times writer observed at the time, ``is to eliminate the
important Rules Committee members who have consistently opposed
Administration measures. If these can be beaten . . . the group feels
that the Administration will have unquestioned control of the direction
of House affairs in the next session.'' \49\ When the smoke cleared on
the morning after the election, however, only Representative O'Connor
was defeated, a development that, when coupled with the loss of several
New Deal allies on the panel, left the ``conservative bloc'' on Rules
unchanged.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ Charles A. Michael, ``New Deal `Purge' Said to Seek Control of
House Rules Group,'' New York Times, June 30, 1938, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even worse for the Speaker, the election returned fewer Democrats to
the House as a whole, a development that sounded the death knell to the
Speaker's ability to skirt the committee by using discharge petitions.
Further complicating this strained relationship was the emboldened
nature of the Rules Committee, which proceeded to hold public hearings
on issues embarrassing to the Roosevelt administration, actively
undermined the Speaker's use of the suspension procedure, negotiated
concessions from committees on the content of bills, and granted rules
for the consideration of legislation that favored conservative
interests.
Enactment of the 21-Day Rule
After World War II, the Speaker worked to undermine the power of the
Rules Committee's conservative coalition over the legislative agenda. On
January 3, 1949, Speaker Sam Rayburn, who took office following the
death of Speaker Bankhead, shepherded through the House the adoption of
the so-called ``21-day rule.'' ``Under this rule, the chairman of a
legislative committee which had favorably reported a bill could call it
up for House consideration if the Rules Committee reported adversely on
it or failed to give it a `green light' to the House floor within 21
days.'' \50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives,
pp. 57-58.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speaker, together with allies in the Truman administration,
employed the procedure of binding Democrats through a vote of their
party caucus to support the resolution that enacted the 21-day rule.
Indeed, Speaker Rayburn expended considerable effort and personal
prestige in pushing for the rule change, making a rare speech on the
House floor urging Members' support. One scholar observed that Rayburn's
remarks:
were especially directed toward his southern colleagues, many of whom
were voting against the 21-Day rule because they feared it would
increase the chances for the passage of civil rights legislation, which
they opposed. Rayburn contended that civil rights legislation was not
the issue. `The rules,' he said, `of a legislative body should be such
at all times as to allow the majority of a legislative body to work its
will.' \51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Robinson, The House Rules Committee, p. 67.
Rayburn's efforts were ultimately successful, and when the 21-day rule
was initially passed, observers called it a major power surge for the
Speaker and a defeat for the renegade Democrats on the Rules Committee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
William S. White, of the New York Times, wrote after the vote:
Mr. Rayburn, as he is well aware, has received a power and a
responsibility not given in generations to a Speaker of the House. He
will be in command. He will be responsible in almost the complete sense
of that term, for what the House does, in so far as the Administration
Democrats are not outweighed from time to time by the orthodox
Republicans and whatever bloc of rebellious southern Democrats can be
marshaled.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ William S. White, ``House Gives Speaker Large Grant of Power,'' New
York Times, Jan. 9, 1949, p. 1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For critics of the 21-day rule, White subsequently observed, ``this
meant . . . a return to `czarism,' for in cutting down the Rules
Committee the Members . . . had simply left it all up to one man's yea
or nay rather than to twelve.'' \53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ William S. White, ``Sam Rayburn, the Untalkative Speaker,'' New
York Times, Feb. 27, 1949, p. SM10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the 81st Congress, the 21-day rule was successful in helping
Speaker Rayburn bring anti-poll tax legislation to the floor, as well as
forcing a vote on controversial housing and minimum wage bills. The Rule
was also instrumental in obtaining consideration of legislation
establishing the National Science Foundation, as well as bills granting
Alaska and Hawaii statehood. The rules helped the Speaker get around an
obstructive Rules Committee. As one Member of Congress later noted,
``Altogether, during the 81st Congress, eight measures were brought to
the floor and passed by resort to the 21-Day rule, and its existence
forced the Rules Committee to act in other cases.'' \54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ Representative Chet Holified, remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 106, Sept. 1, 1960, p. 19393.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 21-day rule was eventually repealed after a bitter political fight
in 1951 between Speaker Rayburn and the conservative coalition of
southern Democrats and Republicans. ``As a result, the power of the
Rules Committee to blockade bills'' sought by the Speaker and the
majority party was restored.\55\ This turnaround was made possible
largely by solid increases in Republican strength in the House following
the 1950 elections, coupled with mounting concern by many southern
Democrats about the possible use of the 21-day rule to force
consideration of civil rights legislation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives,
pp. 57-58.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From 1955 to 1960, the new chairman of the Rules Committee--``Judge''
Howard W. Smith of Virginia--the same Member who had been placed on the
committee over the objections of Speaker Rainey nearly three decades
earlier, and who had been unsuccessfully targeted for electoral defeat
in the FDR ``purge,''--was the ``acknowledged leader of the
[conservative] coalition.'' \56\ The coalition's ability to
independently block legislation would continue largely unchallenged
until 1961, when 79-year-old Speaker Sam Rayburn would mount an assault
on the power of the Rules Committee in one of the final political
battles of his four-decade career in the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\56\ CRS, A Short History of the Development of the Committee on Rules,
p. 11.
Speaker Rayburn and the Purge of the Rules Committee
Toward the end of the fifties, Speaker Rayburn's continued frustration
with the Rules Committee spilled over into public view. ``Judge''
Smith's ability to block legislation supported by the Speaker was
legendary:
Often, when he did not want to bring a bill out of his [Rules]
committee, the Judge would leave town and go to his 70-acre farm in
Fauquier County, Virginia, to avoid calling a meeting. Early in 1957, he
resorted to this tactic to delay consideration of President Eisenhower's
civil rights proposal, insisting that he had to return home to inspect a
barn that had burned down. ``I knew Howard Smith would do almost
anything to block a civil rights bill,'' said Speaker Sam Rayburn upon
hearing this excuse, ``but I never knew he would resort to arson.'' \57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Charles and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative
History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (New York: Mentor Press, 1985), p.
92.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Rayburn arguably did all that he could to avoid the head-on
battle with the committee's conservative coalition that eventually
erupted in 1961, preferring instead to negotiate and cajole Smith to
forward his majority party agenda. In 1959, for example, when members of
the liberal Democratic Study Group [DSG] demanded reform of the Rules
Committee by enlarging its size to defeat the coalition of four
Republicans and two southern Democrats that dominated the 12-person
panel, Speaker Rayburn refused to back the plan, seeking instead to
``assure the House liberals of steps under existing rules'' that could
be used to outmaneuver the obstructive committee, including, ``the use
of . . . seldom-invoked Calendar-Wednesday.'' \58\ In response to
Rayburn's rebuff, the liberal Members issued the following statement:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ John D. Morris, ``Rayburn Rebuffs Move By Liberals,'' New York
Times, Jan. 3, 1959, p. 1.
We have received assurances from Speaker Rayburn that legislation
which has been duly considered and reported by the legislative
committees will be brought before the House for consideration within a
reasonable period of time. Our confidence in the Speaker is great, and
we believe he will support such procedural steps as may be necessary to
obtain House consideration of reported bills.\59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
143.
This ``go along to get along'' approach was in keeping with Speaker
Rayburn's leadership style. ``[Rayburn's] effectiveness has rarely if
ever rested on the use of raw power, coercion or threats,'' one reporter
wrote at the time. ``Rather, it has stemmed from his great personal
prestige, close friendships with other House Democrats in positions of
power, and the esteem, and respect held for him by nearly all
colleagues.'' \60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ John D. Morris, ``Stakes High in Rules Struggle for Rayburn, 79,
and Smith, 77,'' New York Times, Jan. 30, 1961, p. 12.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As 1961 dawned, however, Rayburn's position on the Rules Committee
gradually changed as ``it became evident that enactment of President
Kennedy's legislative program would hang upon overcoming the
conservative coalition control of the Rules Committee.'' \61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Galloway, History of the United States House of Representatives, p.
143.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In many ways, the 1961 battle between the Rules Committee and the
Speaker was the direct opposite of the 1910 overthrow of Speaker Cannon.
In 1910, Members had risen up because a Speaker, who, through his tight
control of the power of the Rules Committee, had prevented legislation
he opposed from being considered by rank and file Members of the House.
In 1961, however, it was the Rules Committee that was blocking
consideration of legislation, thwarting the will of a powerful Speaker,
the majority leadership, and an increasing number of rank and file
Members who wished to act on the ``progressive'' bills supported by
their constituents.
An editorial cartoon by the satirist Herblock during this period
summed up many liberal Members' feelings on the Rules Committee: it
pictured a baseball player in catcher's face mask and pads standing in
front of, rather than behind, home plate, catching a fastball pitch
before the batter could have a chance to swing at it. The batter
represented Members of Congress and the catcher wore a jersey labeled
``Rules Committee.''
``Speaker Rayburn kept his own counsel until the eve of the session,''
George B. Galloway has written, ``when he came out on the side of the
reformers with a plan to enlarge the membership of the Rules Committee
from 12 to 15'' members.\62\ In doing so, the Speaker resisted--after
initially embracing--the suggestion of members of the Democratic Study
Group to balance the committee by purging it of one of its renegade
southern Democrats, Representative William M. Colmer (D-MS). The Rayburn
plan would instead increase the size of the committee by three,
enlarging the number of Democratic Rules members from eight to ten, and
Republicans from four to five, breaking the conservative coalition's
traditional six-six deadlock on the panel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Ibid., p. 143.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the weeks leading up to the opening of the 87th Congress, the
Kennedy administration, lobbyists from labor unions and progressive
groups, and the Speaker and his loyalists, including Rayburn's close
ally on the committee (and later Rules Committee chair) Representative
Richard Bolling (D-MO), lined up votes for the plan to enlarge Rules.
The scramble for votes between the Rayburn camp and the allies of the
conservative coalition was intense, for the vote was to be an extremely
close one. One historian later illustrated this situation by relating
the see-sawing battle waged by the Rayburn and Smith forces to secure
the vote of one southern Member, Representative Frank W. Boykin (D-AL):
Boykin was a friend of Rayburn and a conservative; he was pulled
emotionally to vote both ways. He committed himself to Rayburn; then
under pressure from Smith's camp, he changed his mind and committed
himself to Smith. Rayburn's lieutenants applied new pressure to Boykin
and again he switched. Smith's lieutenants fought back hard for Boykin's
vote, and once more he switched. Again Rayburn's people won Boykin back,
only to lose him again . . . At this point, Boykin had been on both
sides three separate times . . . [but] the fight for Boykin's vote . . .
illustrated the desperation of the struggle. It was so close that every
single vote was of crucial importance.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ Neil MacNeil, Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives,
(New York: David McKay, Co., 1963), p. 432.
In seeking support for his plan, the Speaker utilized all of the
powers of his office. Initially, Rayburn intended to employ caucus rules
to bind Democrats to support for the enlargement plan, repeating the
tactic he used successfully in his earlier campaign to enact the 21-day
rule. Rayburn abandoned the strategy, however, after many southern
Democrats bristled at the arm twisting and threatened to bolt.\64\
Speaker Rayburn also reportedly utilized the Kennedy administration's
control of local public works projects to help convince Members to vote
with him. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall personally made a
number of calls to Members during the days immediately preceding the
vote to discuss ``water projects of vital interest to members in many
sections of the country, particularly in the West and South.'' \65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ John D. Morris, ``Rayburn Shifts in Rules Battle,'' New York Times,
Jan. 18, 1961, p. 17.
\65\ John D. Morris, ``Rayburn Rejects All Compromise on Rules Battle,''
New York Times, Jan. 29, 1961, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The resolution to enlarge the panel was reported by the Rules
Committee by a vote of six to two on January 14, 1961, after ``Judge''
Smith promised Rayburn he would do so. Smith and Representative William
M. Colmer (D-MS) were the only Democrats to oppose the resolution; no
Republicans attended the committee markup. Following a spirited debate
on the resolution on January 31, 1961, which included a passionate floor
speech from Speaker Rayburn, the House adopted the enlargement plan by a
vote of 217 to 212.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\66\ Congressional Record, vol. 107, Jan. 31, 1961, pp. 1589-1590.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Rayburn's victory was a significant step in restoring control
of the Rules Committee as an arm of the Speaker and his majority
leadership. This win alone, however, did not defeat the conservative
coalition. Just 2 years later, under House Speaker John W. McCormack (D-
MA), majority party Members had to turn back a spirited attempt by the
coalition and its allies to return the panel to its pre-1961 size of 12
members. Despite some slight improvement in the enlarged Rules
Committee's record of cooperation with the leadership, it continued to
obstruct floor consideration of certain education, labor and civil
rights bills for the duration of the Kennedy administration.
Truce: The Return of the Speaker's Power
By the late sixties, the Speaker's relationship with the House Rules
Committee had improved somewhat, as ``Judge'' Smith was defeated for
reelection in 1966 and the committee chair was assumed by Representative
William M. Colmer (D-MS). ``Although of similar ideological bent to
Smith, Colmer viewed the role of the [Rules] Committee in a different
way, in part reflecting his own threatened ouster from the committee and
the adoption of committee rules in 1967 permitting a committee majority
to circumvent a recalcitrant chairman.'' \67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Official Web
site, www.house.gov/rules, accessed on Aug. 12, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Passage of the Legislative Reform Act of 1970 \68\ coupled with
numerous institutional reforms made in the House Democratic Caucus in
the post-Watergate era, returned to the Speaker the authority to
nominate majority members of the Rules Committee. These reforms made the
Rules Committee a reliable arm of the House leadership for the first
time since the 1910 revolt against Speaker Cannon, and gave the Speaker
true de facto control of the panel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Public Law 91-510.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The willingness to return considerable power to the Speaker was
undertaken in response to a larger decentralization of the House that
led many Members to turn to the Speaker to provide order in the
coordination of business: to make a busy and complicated legislative
body work. Rank and file Members were particularly willing to return
power to the Speaker after observing periods during the tenures of
Speaker McCormack and Speaker Carl Albert (D-OK) when there was
``paralysis in moving Democratic legislation even though there were
heavy Democratic majorities'' in the body.\69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ Mary Russell, ``Speaker Scooping Up Power in the House,''
Washington Post, Aug. 7, 1977, p. A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``In the House, the decentralizing reforms of the 1960s and 1970s
were,'' according to congressional scholar Roger Davidson,
``paradoxically, accompanied with innovations that enlarged the power of
the Speaker.'' \70\ Davidson goes on to observe, ``The fruits of these
innovations were not immediately realized. Speaker John McCormack
resisted most of the changes . . . his successor, Carl Albert . . . was
a transitional figure who hesitated to use the tools granted to him by
the rules changes.'' \71\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Roger H. Davidson, ``The New Centralization on Capitol Hill,''
Review of Politics, vol. 50, 1988, p. 357.
\71\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main beneficiary of these grants of additional power was House
Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill (D-MA), himself a longtime member of the House
Rules Committee. O'Neill was given more control over the Rules Committee
and the orchestration of the details of legislative business. As
Speaker, O'Neill ``used control on important issues to restrict the
freedom of House Members in offering amendments--in making changes in
important pieces of legislation that he wanted kept intact.'' \72\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\72\ Russell, ``Speaker Scooping Up Power in the House,'' p. A5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker O'Neill utilized the power of the Rules Committee not only as
a tool of his majority power, but also as a buffer to Member demands,
and as a hedge against minority party attacks. During the Carter
administration, for example, O'Neill was often less concerned with
losing votes on the House floor--an unlikely event given the large
Democratic majority in the body--than with minority Members forcing
Democrats ``on the record'' with politically difficult votes.
Speaker O'Neill responded to this challenge by increasingly using his
control of the Rules Committee to manage floor votes during the eighties
with ``complex'' and ``restrictive'' rules on major pieces of
legislation that barred votes on minority amendments. Whereas
restrictive rules constituted only 15 percent of all rules in the
midseventies, by the end of the eighties they made up 55 percent,
according to a Rules Committee minority staff study.\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\73\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Official Web
site, www.house.gov/rules, accessed on Aug. 12, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An additional challenge emerged for the Speaker when Republicans and
``Boll Weevil'' Democrats formed a de facto majority coalition on some
issues following the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. The
shifting electoral terrain meant that a Democratic Speaker, for the
first time in many years, had to worry about losing important votes on
the House floor. In response, Speaker O'Neill had the Rules Committee
manage legislative business in increasingly creative ways, including the
more frequent use of closed rules. An important innovation was the so-
called ``King of the Hill'' rule, where the last measure voted upon in a
series of alternatives would prevail, enabling Members to take ``free''
votes on controversial issues that provided political cover. The
leadership would naturally place its preferred version last in the
sequence.
These efforts met with mixed success. During this period, the Rules
Committee ``crafted rules to enhance the Speaker's power, although they
have been only sporadically successful during the Reagan Presidency when
conservative Democrats have bolted to the White House side.'' For
example, the committee ``fashioned an extraordinary rule allowing
separate votes on seven different budget proposals, with successful
amendments being applied to all seven. Eventually, all seven budgets
were defeated on the floor.'' \74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\ William Chapman, ``Bolling, Near Retirement, Muses About a Battle
That Never Was,'' Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1982, p. A7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As if these challenges were not enough, changing demands on Members of
Congress offered Speaker O'Neill still more challenges in the management
of the Rules Committee. For example, in 1983, the Speaker reluctantly
reduced the membership of the committee from 16 members to 13 members
because he was ``unable to persuade any senior Members to take vacant
seats on Rules.'' \75\ While Members recognized the continued power of
the panel, the growing need for rank and file Members to generate media
attention, raise campaign funds, and become legislative entrepreneurs
had simply made the ``inside baseball'' Rules Committee ``powerful but
unfashionable.'' \76\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\75\ Alan Ehrenhalt, ``The Unfashionable House Rules Committee,''
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Jan. 15, 1983, p. 151.
\76\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During this season of closed and structured rules, it is important to
note that not all of the rules granted by the committee were exercises
in partisanship; many structured rules were adopted by large bipartisan
margins in the House. Increasingly, however, the minority party viewed
the more frequent use of this type of resolution with concern and
resentment.
``As the House became more politicized and polarized during the
1980s,'' a congressional scholar has written, ``the Rules Committee
played a critical role in assisting the Democratic Leadership in
structuring House floor debates on bills to ensure greater efficiency
and predictability in outcomes.'' Predictably, the more restrictive the
amendment process became, the ``more the Rules Committee was blamed by
Republicans for violating the rights of minority party members to fully
participate in the legislative process and represent their
constituents.'' \77\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\77\ Donald R. Wolfensberger, ``The House Rules Committee Under
Republican Majorities: Continuity and Change,'' Paper prepared for
delivery at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Political
Science Association, Oct. 25, 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker James C. Wright, Jr. of Texas further centralized and focused
the use of the Speaker's Rules Committee power, continuing and building
on this trend of issuing closed rules. In 1987, the Washington Post
reported, ``The Democrat's use of `restrictive rules' which . . .
limited debate and amendments on 43 percent of the bills sent to the
floor,'' was ``a continuation of a practice begun under O'Neill. During
O'Neill's last two years as Speaker, the leadership obtained restrictive
rules on 36 percent of the bills sent to the floor.'' \78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\78\ Eric Pianin, ``House GOP's Frustrations Intensify,'' Washington
Post, Dec. 21, 1987, p. A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Davidson stressed at the time that Wright ``exploited his
extraordinary scheduling power . . . using [his] tight control over
scheduling, including aggressive use of the Rules Committee to shape
alternatives during floor deliberations.'' \79\ While critics expressed
concern about these tactics, supporters pointed to their success. ``When
he took office, Wright unveiled an ambitious list of legislative goals .
. . Two years later, nearly all the bills had passed the House and many
had been signed into law.'' \80\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\79\ Roger H. Davidson, ``The New Centralization on Capitol Hill,'' p.
357.
\80\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the end of the 103d Congress, during the speakership of Thomas S.
Foley of Washington, the final tally of open versus restrictive rules
revealed ``the largest number of restrictive rules of any Congress (73),
comprising the highest percentage of total rules ever reported in a
Congress (70 percent).''
Rule Reform and the Republican Majority
At no period in the history of the House of Representatives has the
Rules Committee been more central to the power of, and legislative
agenda pursued by, a Speaker than in the days immediately following the
change in control of the House to Republicans in 1994. ``To best
understand the extent of continuity and change on the Rules Committee
under House Republicans,'' Roger Davidson emphasizes, ``it is important
to first understand how the Republican minority viewed the House under
Democratic control and how it envisioned the institution should be run,
both in terms of changes in the standing rules of the House and the way
in which special rules were framed for considering legislation.'' \81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\81\ Ibid., p. 358.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In orchestrating the Republican Party's rise to power in the House,
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) had long focused public attention on the
behavior of the Democratic majority through the Rules Committee. ``One
of the central themes of the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS),
which Gingrich and others formed in 1982,'' Donald R. Wolfensberger,
chief of staff of the House Rules Committee during the 104th Congress,
stresses, ``was its portrayal of a corrupt House in which the majority's
arrogance was regularly reflected in procedural abuses of deliberative
process, not to mention of a beleaguered minority.'' \82\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\82\ Donald R. Wolfensberger, ``The Institutional Legacy of Speaker Newt
Gingrich: The Politics of House Reform and Realities of Governing,''
Extensions, A Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and
Studies Center, Fall 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just as perceived abuses of power by the Rules Committee had angered
rank and file Members and engendered calls for reform since the days of
Speaker Reed, as Republicans pushed to become the majority party in the
House, their public arguments about why they should be in power focused
increasingly on the actions of the Rules Committee.
At a press conference in the months before the 1994 election,
Representative Gingrich and members of the House Republican Conference
began an effort that was intended to call public attention to what they
claimed were abuses by the Rules Committee and the Democratic leadership
of the regular democratic process. ``Among the props was a poster used
on the House floor of a gagged Statue of Liberty over a running
scorecard of open versus restrictive rules (e.g., ``Democracy-0;
Tyranny-6).'' \83\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\83\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given this approach of centering their public appeal on reform of the
institution itself, it is not surprising that many of the Republicans'
legislative efforts once they assumed the majority in 1995 were centered
around reforming the House through the use of the Rules Committee.
After his election as Speaker, Gingrich ``instigated many . . .
changes in House rules and practices, which all had the common theme of
undermining the independent power of committees and their chairs and
enhancing the power of the majority leadership.'' At Speaker Gingrich's
behest, ``Three full committees were eliminated, and 106 (12 percent) of
the previous Congress's subcommittee slots were eliminated . . .
Gingrich personally designed a new committee assignment system for the
GOP in which the party leader was given a dominant formal role.'' \84\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\84\ David W. Rohde, ``The Gingrich Speakership in Context: Majority
Leadership in the House in the Late Twentieth Century,'' Extensions, A
Journal of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center,
Fall 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As with Speaker Reed before him, Speaker Gingrich's reforms were
largely accomplished through amendments to the standing rules of the
House. Speaker Gingrich took an active hand in crafting the rules
package adopted at the beginning of the 104th Congress. As one scholar
has noted, this rules reform package was ``considered under a special
rule [Rules Committee chair Gerald B.H.] Solomon (R-NY) had devised on
Gingrich's instructions'' \85\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\85\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like many powerful Speakers before him, Speaker Gingrich also proved
willing to use his control of the Rules Committee for purposes other
than the scheduling and shaping of legislative business, for example, to
help enforce party discipline. In one instance in 1996, in a move
reminiscent of actions taken by strong Speakers such as Cannon and
Rayburn, Speaker Gingrich reportedly employed the power of the panel to
punish two Republican Members who had endorsed the primary challenger to
a sitting GOP colleague. Congressional Quarterly reported that, as
punishment for this action, Speaker Gingrich had ``instructed [the House
Rules Committee] to reject any floor amendment the two Members might
seek to offer to legislation for the rest of the session.'' \86\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\86\ Karen Foerstel, ``Punished But Unrepentant,'' Congressional
Quarterly Weekly Report, July 29, 1996.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Republican majority came to power promising open rules as the
norm, but, as they had under previous Speakers of both parties, the
demands of governing in a legislative body with narrow party ratios and
a full agenda of business soon contributed to the issuance of fewer
purely open rules on major pieces of legislation. Scholars argue that
this lesson was learned relatively early after Republicans assumed the
majority in 1995. As one observer recounted, ``The first major Contract
[with America] bill out of the box after opening day was the Unfunded
Mandate Reform Act which the Rules Committee put on the floor under an
open rule. Two weeks and dozens of amendments later the bill was finally
completed and its manager, Government Reform and Oversight Chairman Bill
Clinger (R-PA) . . . was totally exhausted and disillusioned with open
rules. From that point on, the Rules Committee took a more cautious
approach, reporting ``modified open'' rules on bills that set an overall
time limit on the amendment process.'' \87\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\87\ Rohde, ``The Gingrich Speakership in Context: Majority Leadership
in the House in the Late Twentieth Century.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Representative David Dreier (R-CA) ``learned quickly'' after
becoming Rules Committee chair in the 106th Congress, the responsibility
of running the House of Representatives that a majority party holds
sometimes requires some of the same procedures he had expressed concern
about a decade ago. ``I had not known what it took to govern,'' he
acknowledged. Now, ``our number one priority is to move our agenda . . .
with one of the narrowest majorities in history.'' \88\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\88\ Jim VandeHei, ``Using the Rules Committee to Block Democrats,''
Washington Post, June 16, 2003, p. A21.
Conclusion
From the 1st Congress to the 108th Congress, the Committee on Rules
and the Speaker of the House have been linked. Under czars and
caretakers, reformers and managers, the Rules Committee has played an
integral role in the Speaker's ability to regulate the business of the
House.
This link between the panel and the Speaker has been marked by ebbs
and flows in the tides of power, including battles for independence, a
reinforcing of mutual authority, and periods of close cooperation.
Speakers have controlled the committee with an iron hand, been forced to
cajole and negotiate with it, and been bent to its will. Through those
ebbs and flows has been a constant search for balance, with some Members
believing, as Speaker Reed did, that the rules exist ``to promote the
orderly conduct of the business of the House,'' and others charging that
the rules give the Speaker ``greater power'' than any man ought to
possess in relation to the full House. That struggle for balance and
role continues today.
The Rules Committee has helped Speakers impose order on the chaos of a
young and growing legislative body. It has helped them enshrine the
status quo, and, at other times, been their primary vehicle for reform
and institutional change. Speakers have used the committee to centralize
their power, and the House has, in turn, positioned the panel as a
competing base of authority to their presiding officer. The committee's
power to write and rewrite the rules has enabled Speakers to manage the
business of the House in times of razor-thin party margins, and
increased partisanship, media scrutiny and electoral pressure.
While the days may have passed when an individual can dictate the
actions of the House singlehandedly, the Rules Committee continues to be
the most powerful arm of the Speaker and, in a large part, a centrally
important governing entity of the House. In it, Congress has largely
consolidated its constitutional power to decide the ground rules of its
own proceedings. The panel enables the Speaker to direct the legislative
business of the Chamber and press forward the agenda of the majority
party. It imbues him with the power to reward and punish individual
Members and can act as a shield from Member demands. Most importantly,
it serves as a forum in which the ever-changing and often competing
interests of the House leadership, the legislative committees, and
individual Members of Congress can be raised, negotiated, vetted and
ultimately resolved.
If Congress in committee is Congress at work, as Woodrow Wilson
famously observed, the Rules Committee is where that work is resolved
and finalized. It is the last step in the House's legislative assembly
line and the ``engine room,'' where the procedural, political and policy
mechanics that make the Chamber ``work'' are crafted by the Speaker and
his majority party allies.
For all of these reasons, the panel remains, as much as ever, the
``Speaker's committee.'' The history of the Rules Committee is, in
essence, a history of the power of the Office of the Speaker and the
evolution of the modern House of Representatives.
Chapter 4
The Speaker and the Senate
Elizabeth Rybicki
Analyst in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
In 1897, a Senator described a ``very curious thing'' to his
colleagues in the Senate Chamber. It seems Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed
(R-ME; 1889-1891; 1895-1899) had spent a great deal of time in the
Senate side of the Capitol persuading (the Senator said ``coercing'')
Senators into supporting the pending tariff measure. The Senator found
it even more extraordinary that as he passed a room where
Representatives and Senators were meeting to negotiate a compromise
between the Chambers on the tariff bill, he saw ``a powerful policeman
standing guard at the door.'' When the Senator inquired as to why the
guard was there, he was told ``it was for the purposes of keeping the
presiding officer of the House from invading the secrecy and the
councils of the conference committee.'' \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Congressional Record, 55th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 30, July 23, 1897,
p. 2867.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The characteristically vigorous efforts of Speaker Reed in this
instance may indeed have been, as the Senator claimed, ``extraordinary
and unusual.'' The need to coordinate with the Senate on legislation,
however, is as established and necessary as the Office of the Speaker
itself. According to the Constitution, each House of Congress must agree
to a measure before it can be sent to the President. The two Chambers,
however, often disagree over policy proposals, and the Constitution is
silent as to how the House and Senate should reconcile differences in
pending legislation.
In no small way, the responsibility of resolving differences and
coordinating with ``the other body'' has fallen on the Speaker of the
House. Disagreements between the Chambers on most major legislation are
resolved by conference committees, ad hoc panels composed of legislators
from each Chamber that meet to negotiate a compromise acceptable to both
the House and Senate. The Speaker appoints the House conferees, or
``managers,'' and at times his careful selection of individuals has
influenced the final policy outcome. Further, a great deal of inter-
chamber coordination takes place prior to, instead of, or after the
formal creation of a conference committee. The Speaker works with Senate
leaders in order to shepherd significant measures through the entire
legislative process. In sum, the Speaker plays a major role in the two
principal devices of legislative coordination: bicameral leadership
cooperation and conference committees.
Both the relationship between the Speaker and Senate leaders and the
role of the Speaker in the appointment of managers to conference have
changed over time. Since the major reforms of the seventies, the Speaker
has had greater discretion over who he appoints to conference. For most
of congressional history, the Speaker selected a few senior members from
the standing committee with jurisdiction over the bill to negotiate with
the Senate. Late 20th-century changes in practice, including multiple
referral and the tremendous growth of conference committee delegations,
have left the Speaker with more authority over conference committee
composition. The modern Speaker chooses how many Representatives serve
as conferees, as well as what committees the conferees come from and
what matters they may consider in conference. In addition, the
transformation of the Senate from a committee-centered, seniority-driven
institution to a more open body with an equal distribution of power has
transformed the role of the Speaker in inter-chamber negotiations. A
close personal relationship with the Senate majority leader and
important committee chairmen likely solves fewer legislative logjams
than it did in the mid-20th century, and the press of business makes the
threat of a filibuster more potent. Although conflict between the
Chambers is an inherent part of the bicameral system, the Speaker today
faces a particularly significant challenge in coordinating the passage
of legislation with the Senate.
The ``Other Body''
At the end of the 19th century, the procedures of the House and Senate
began to move in divergent directions. The House, under the leadership
of Speaker Reed, developed into a majoritarian body, able to act
whenever most of the Members favored action. The Senate, meanwhile,
continued to grant great parliamentary powers to individual Senators.
The lack of Senate rules allowing a simple majority to end debate left
Senate leaders dependent on unanimous consent agreements to set the
schedule for considering and voting on measures (even after the
enactment of a rule in 1917 allowing a super-majority to close debate).
For over 100 years, the Speaker has been accustomed to setting the
legislative agenda with the backing of the majority, but the Senate
majority leader must always take into account the rights afforded to
individual Senators under the rules and precedents.
Not surprisingly, because of the differences in the decisionmaking
processes of the two Chambers, Speakers have long found working with the
Senate to be challenging. In 1890, Speaker Reed grew exasperated with
Senators, including those in his own party, who chose to deliberate and
debate, rather than quickly pass, House bills on the tariff and election
reform. He urged the Senate to change its rules, attempted to stir
public sentiment against the Senate, and threatened to keep Congress in
session until the Senate decided the fate of the bills. The Speaker's
disapproval of the Senate could not expedite the process; as one Senator
commented dryly to the press, ``Unless Mr. Reed comes over here in
person, and takes command, I do not see how we are to oblige him . . .
It would hardly be fair to him to ask him to run the Senate and the
House at the same time.'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ ``Speaker Reed Frowns,'' New York Times, Aug. 4, 1890, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over 100 years later, a public campaign by another powerful Speaker
was no more successful in spurring Senate action. An electorate
reportedly fed up with politics as usual in Washington, DC, gave
Republicans control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections. House
Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich (R-GA; 1995-1999), had campaigned on a
list of legislative proposals known as the Contract with America. As
expected, while the House voted on every Contract proposal during the
first 100 days of the 104th Congress (1995-1996), the Senate debated
only some of the proposals in the same time period.\3\ Despite his
unquestionable skills in communicating with the public, the Speaker
could not force the Senate to act. Threats or trades are unlikely to be
effective when the Senate leader has few tools at his disposal to force
action on legislation. Speaking at a joint press conference during the
consideration of the contract, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS)
illustrated the differences between the job of the Speaker and the job
of the majority leader. After stating that the Senate would probably not
be able to ``keep up'' with the speedy House in passing the contract
items, Dole turned the podium over to Speaker Gingrich by joking that he
needed to get back to the Senate floor for an upcoming vote ``before
anybody defects.'' \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Norman Ornstein and Amy L. Schenkenberg, ``The 1995 Congress: The
First Hundred Days and Beyond,'' Political Science Quarterly, vol. 110,
no. 2, summer 1995, p. 194.
\4\ Jake Thompson, ``Dole Thrives, Despite Hype for Gingrich,'' Kansas
City Star, Jan. 7, 1995, p. A1; Transcript, ``News Conference with House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Republican
National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour,'' Federal News Service, Jan.
6, 1995, available from LexisNexis (database online), accessed May 1,
2004.
Leadership Coordination
No Speaker can change the nature of the Senate, but many have
succeeded in working with Senate leaders to ensure that the key pieces
of their legislative agenda do not die in the other Chamber. To varying
degrees since the 19th century, Speakers have met with Senate leaders to
plan or discuss major policy proposals and strategy. Coordination
between the Chamber leaders is largely ad hoc, depending partially on
the personalities of the leaders as well as the preferences of the
majority party in each Chamber.
At the very least, the leaders coordinate dates for adjournment, since
the Constitution forbids either Chamber from adjourning for more than 3
days without the consent of the other (Article I, Section 5). They have
also met regularly at various formal party or government events and
served together on a myriad of commissions. The Speaker and the Senate
majority leader have also long met jointly with the President, although
the timing and agenda of these meetings are generally dictated by the
President.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Steven S. Smith, ``Forces of Change in Senate Party Leadership,'' in
Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer, eds., Congress Reconsidered,
5th ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 1993), p. 277; Walter Kravitz,
``Relations Between the Senate and the House of Representatives: The
Party Leadership,'' in Policymaking Role of Leadership in the Senate: A
Compilation of Papers Prepared for the Commission on the Operation of
the Senate (Washington: GPO, 1976), p. 128.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speaker does not, however, just meet Senate leaders at formal
events or at the White House. The Chamber leaders also meet to
accomplish several legislative goals. Sometimes the leaders meet to
discuss the measures they plan to bring to the floor in the coming
weeks, but often, the leaders simply inform each other of their
Chamber's actions, without attempting to coordinate or to even consult
about their actions.\6\ Such information can prove particularly useful
at the end of a session when decisions about when, or whether, to
consider a bill can determine its fate. Any bill that has not passed
both Chambers in the same form at the end of a Congress dies. The
frequency of bicameral leadership meetings and less formal contacts
rises considerably at the end of a session.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Barbara Sinclair, Majority Leadership in the U.S. House (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), p. 113.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At bicameral leadership meetings, the Speaker and his lieutenants
might also discuss legislative strategy with Senate leaders. The leaders
might agree, for example, that one Chamber should act before the other
on a major piece of legislation. Passage of a bill by one Chamber might
provide the momentum or public attention necessary to carry the bill
through the other Chamber. Alternatively, the Speaker might urge the
Senate to act first because he does not want to consume the precious
time of the House to consider a measure that has little chance of
passing the Senate. The Chamber leaders might agree to assign identical
numbers (such as H.R. 1 and S. 1) to legislation to spotlight the issue
as an agenda priority.
The frequency and nature of the coordination between the Speaker and
Senate leaders apparently depends to some extent on the individuals
holding the offices. The relationship between Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX;
1955-1961) and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) in the
fifties is generally held up as the quintessential example of a close
personal bond between Chamber leaders.\7\ Rayburn had been a mentor to
Johnson when he served in the House, and they capitalized on their well-
established friendship to turn bills into law.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Robert A. Caro, Master of the Senate (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2002); Ralph K. Huitt, ``Democratic Party Leadership in the Senate,''
American Political Science Review, vol. 55, no. 2, June, 1961, p. 338.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The press could not help but compare the relationship of Rayburn's
successor, John McCormack (D-MA; 1962-1971) with Senate Majority Leader
Mike Mansfield (D-MT). One reporter described the leaders' relations in
1962 as not yet approaching ``in intimacy or effectiveness the alliance
of Rayburn and Johnson.'' \8\ After Richard M. Nixon succeeded Lyndon
Johnson as President, another journalist reported that McCormack and
Mansfield rarely coordinated with each other. At times they would
disagree with each other publicly over policy issues or even about how
to best process legislation through both Chambers. The Senate leader
told reporters in 1969 there was ``no need for more formal party
coordination between the House and Senate. Each should conduct its own
business and consult when it has problems.'' \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ David S. Broder, `` `The Other Body'--Not `the Upper House,' '' New
York Times, May 20, 1962, p. SM23.
\9\ Richard L. Lyons, ``Democratic Leadership Gap Widens,'' Washington
Post, May 21, 1969, p. A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The nature of bicameral leadership coordination has also varied with
changes in party control of the Chambers and the White House. If the
House and Senate are controlled by opposite parties, coordination can be
even more challenging. A congressional scholar and former staff member
in the House majority leader's office reported that monthly bicameral
leadership meetings, infrequently productive under unified control,
disappeared almost entirely during the divided control of the 97th
Congress (1981-1982). The scholar quotes one participant of the
bicameral leadership meetings as saying, ``They do what they want to do
and we do what we want to do and we try to agree on an adjournment
date.'' \10\ The sentiment was echoed by a long-time Senate staffer who
claimed the Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker (R-TN) was in constant
contact not with the Democratic Speaker but with the House minority
leader. The Senate leader did not otherwise actively work with the
House. ``We did our own thing,'' the staffer said, ``whatever it was.''
\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Barbara Sinclair, Majority Leadership in the U.S. House, p. 114.
\11\ ``William F. Hildenbrand, Secretary of the Senate, 1981-1985,''
(Washington: Senate Historical Office, Oral History Interviews), p. 326.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the House is controlled by the party in opposition to the
President, then the Speaker might seek to coordinate with the Senate in
the hopes of building a strong response to the policy platforms of the
Executive. For example, when the Democrats gained control of the House,
but not the Senate, in the 72d Congress (1931-1933), they formed a joint
policy committee. The committee was created to shape the party's
legislative program and determine how much support to give to the
program of the Republican President Hoover.\12\ Speaker John Garner (D-
TX; 1931-1933), according to one source, opposed the creation of the
committee, but the party caucus voted for its formation.\13\ Garner
appointed the House membership of the committee, convened its meetings
in his office, and together with Senate Minority Leader Joseph T.
Robinson (D-AR) acted as its spokesman.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Richard V. Oulahan, ``Sense of Duty Prevails: Democrats Form
Senate-House Board to Deal With Hoover Program,'' New York Times, Dec.
8, 1931, p. 1.
\13\ W.H. Humbert, ``The Democratic Joint Policy Committee,'' American
Political Science Review, vol. 26, no. 3, June 1932, pp. 552-554.
Challenges of Leadership Coordination in the Post-Reform Era
The significant challenges to bicameral leadership coordination have
become even greater since the major institutional reforms of the
midseventies. Political scientists generally describe the reform era of
the 20th century as a shift from committee-dominated policymaking to a
more participatory process involving junior Members and granting new
powers to individual Members.\14\ The institutional changes made by both
Chambers in the seventies magnified the differences in House and Senate
procedures.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Roger H. Davidson, ``The Emergence of the Postreform Congress,'' in
Roger H. Davison, ed., The Postreform Congress (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1992); Steven S. Smith, Call to Order: Floor Politics in the
House and Senate (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1989).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the weakening of committee chairs in the House was accompanied
by a rise in the powers of the Speaker, no such centralization of power
occurred in the Senate. In the last 30 years, the Speaker gained the
power to refer bills to multiple committees and the Rules Committee
became an arm of party leadership. Changes to the committee assignment
process in the House also increased the power of the Speaker.\15\ The
Senate majority leader, in contrast, gained no such increased authority
over agenda-setting or debate control. Committee autonomy declined in
the Senate as well as the House, but influence in the Senate was
transferred to individual Members not to party leaders.\16\ ``In the
contemporary Congress,'' a legislative scholar noted in the late
nineties, ``the legislative process in the two chambers is more distinct
in form and in results than ever before.'' \17\ In short, rising
individualism, especially when combined with the recent rise in
partisanship, have made leading the Senate in the past 30 years
extremely challenging.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ronald M. Peters, Jr. ``The Changing Speakership,'' Chap. 1, infra.
\16\ Barbara Sinclair, The Transformation of the U.S. Senate (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), p. 2; Christopher J. Deering
and Steven S. Smith, Committees in Congress, 3d ed. (Washington: CQ
Press, 1997), p. 183.
\17\ Barbara Sinclair, ``Party Leaders and the New Legislative
Process,'' in Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer, eds., Congress
Reconsidered, 6th ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 1997), p. 244.
\18\ Smith, ``Forces of Change in Senate Party Leadership,'' Congress
Reconsidered, 5th ed., p. 273.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speaker and his lieutenants have attempted to meet the challenge
of an often slow-moving, if not obstructionist, Senate. According to a
long-time observer of Congress, formal contact between the Speaker and
the Senate majority leader increased in the eighties.\19\ Speaker James
Wright (D-TX; 1987-1989) and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-WV)
reportedly took turns hosting bi-weekly breakfast meetings which later
became weekly meetings. The staffs of the Speaker and the Senate
majority leader also stay in constant contact. After his election as
party leader, current Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL; 1999- ) designated
a staff member to serve as his Deputy Chief of Staff for Bicameral and
Intergovernmental Affairs. In the current Congress, House and Senate
leadership aides reportedly meet every Wednesday that Congress is in
session.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Barbara Sinclair, Legislators, Leaders, and Lawmaking (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 83.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Speaker and other leaders in the post-reform House have become
more involved in determining the substance of legislation.\20\ The
Speaker, for example, might strive to shape legislation so it passes by
a wide enough margin to send a message to the Senate regarding its broad
support. Special meetings with Senate leaders might be called to discuss
specific pieces of legislation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Sinclair, ``Party Leaders and the New Legislative Process,''
Congress Reconsidered, 6th ed., p. 236.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furthermore, the Speaker and the Senate majority leader in recent
Congresses have been more directly involved in conference committee
negotiations. The two leaders may even meet prior to the appointment of
a conference committee to reach an agreement about the legislative
vehicle.\21\ In the midseventies, it was reported that ``as a rule''
party leaders do not ``inject themselves into conference negotiations
unless asked to do so.'' \22\ If this was a rule in an earlier era, it
is followed less often today. Although usually not named as managers,
leaders of both Chambers often meet with the committee members serving
as conferees. The Speaker and other party leaders are more likely to
become involved when conference negotiations are expected to be
difficult, or when the talks break down. The Speaker can help in behind-
the-scenes dealmaking because of his influence over other aspects of the
legislative process that sometimes become key bargaining chips in
difficult negotiations. If House and Senate conferees reach a stalemate,
they may seek assistance from their leaders, in part because party
leadership is often in a better position to judge what compromise the
Chamber as a whole might accept. The Speaker might also be called upon
to mediate policy disputes between Representatives and Senators of the
same party.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Emily Pierce, ``What's Driving: This Week's Agenda,'' Roll Call,
Sept. 2, 2003, available from LexisNexis (database online), accessed May
1, 2004.; Tim Curran, ``Leaders Consider Election Reform Strategy,''
Roll Call, March 7, 1994, available from LexisNexis (database online),
accessed May 1, 2004.
\22\ Kravitz, ``Relations Between the Senate and the House of
Representatives: The Party Leadership,'' Policymaking Role of Leadership
in the Senate: A Compilation of Papers Prepared for the Commission on
the Operation of the Senate, p. 131.
\23\ Emily Pierce, ``Tax Conference Getting Parental Supervision,'' Roll
Call, May 22, 2003, available from LexisNexis (database online),
accessed May 1, 2004.
Conference Committees
Forging relationships with Senate leaders is only one avenue of
bicameral coordination the Speaker pursues. After a major piece of
legislation passes both Chambers, the House and Senate usually resolve
their disagreements over the legislation in a conference committee.
Traditionally, the Speaker never appoints himself to a conference
committee, but this norm has not diminished his role in the crucial
final negotiations on the major pieces of legislation in a Congress. In
addition to his informal role in bicameral negotiations, the Speaker
chooses the Members who will represent the position of the House in
conference.
The selection of managers has clear implications on the content of a
conference committee report and, in fact, on the success of a conference
committee. Service on a conference committee carries with it the
potential for enormous influence in the version of the legislation that
will most likely become law. Conference committees report, at a time of
their choosing, agreements that cannot be amended. Furthermore, despite
some restrictions placed on conference committee reports by Chamber
rules and precedents, conference reports sometimes include provisions
not previously considered by either Chamber. In other words, provisions
of law are sometimes drafted within a conference committee.
The Speaker takes care in selecting Representatives to serve on
conference because their policy positions and personalities can affect
the outcome of the conference committee. Members who feel strongly that
the House version is the best policy solution will likely be less
willing to compromise with the Senate. Also, some Members are more
skilled at the arts of negotiation than others. Most of the time,
conferees come from the standing committees with jurisdiction over the
bill, and sometimes past interactions between House and Senate members
of committees can influence the bargaining sessions. Some Members have
built up trust or reputations for fairness among them. The Speaker might
take these factors into account when choosing conferees.
The Speaker has appointed House managers since the First Congress,
although this authority was not specifically codified in House rules
until 1890.\24\ Even when the House stripped the Speaker of the power to
appoint standing committees in 1911, it preserved the right of the
Speaker to appoint conferees. Rulings in the early 20th century
confirmed the authority of the Speaker to determine how many House
conferees will be sent to negotiate with the Senate conferees. In 1913,
a Representative made a motion to instruct the Speaker to appoint seven
conferees. Another Member raised a point of order against the motion,
arguing that it was entirely within the Speaker's discretion to
determine the size of the conference delegation. Speaker James ``Champ''
Clark (D-MO; 1911-1919) agreed, sustaining the point of order and
appointing three conferees.\25\ The ruling was cemented in 1932 when
Speaker John Garner (D-TX; 1931-1933), in response to a parliamentary
inquiry, replied that ``you can not direct the Speaker as to the number
or the manner in which conferees shall be appointed.'' \26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ The 1890 rule was omitted in the following two Congresses, when
party control of the House changed, and restored in 1895. Neither the
adoption nor omission of the rule affected House practice (Asher Hinds,
Hinds Precedents of the House of Representatives, vol. IV, 4470
(Washington: GPO, 1907), pp. 896-897)
\25\ Congressional Record, 63d Cong., 1st sess., vol. 56, Dec. 20, 1913,
p. 1316. Cited in Clarence Cannon, Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, vol. VIII, 3221 (Washington: GPO, 1936), p. 716.
\26\ Congressional Record, 72d Cong., 1st sess., vol. 75, June 24, 1932,
p. 13879. Cited in Cannon, Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, vol. VIII, 3220, p. 716.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be sure, the rules and precedents have long granted the Speaker
wide authority in selecting members of conference committees. The
discretion exercised by the Speaker in appointing managers to
conference, however, has varied over time. Since the 1880s the Speaker
has generally appointed members from the standing committee of
jurisdiction.\27\ Conferees, again by long-standing tradition, also
represent the major partisan divisions of a Congress. The selection of
conferees is sometimes described as a consultative process between the
committee chair and ranking member, who then pass their recommendations
on to the Speaker.\28\ The Speaker need not simply follow the
recommendations of the committee leaders, although he often does.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Elizabeth Rybicki, ``Resolving Bicameral Differences in Congress,''
Paper presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political
Science Association, p. 19.
\28\ Lawrence D. Longley and Walter J. Oleszek, Bicameral Politics:
Conference Committees in Congress (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1989), pp. 178-181; Resolving Legislative Differences in Congress:
Conference Committees and Amendments Between the Houses, by Stanley
Bach, CRS Report 98-696.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until the second decade of the 20th century, the Speaker generally
followed norms of conference appointment that seem to have limited his
discretion in the selection of conferees. Nearly all House conference
committee delegations were composed of three Representatives, usually
the committee chair, the ranking member, and another majority party
member of the committee of jurisdiction. Variation from the norm of
appointing three senior members of the standing committee of
jurisdiction was unusual, and in some cases controversial. Nevertheless,
at times Speakers did appoint more than three conferees, or members who
did not serve on the committee of jurisdiction, in order to create a
delegation that could better represent the policy position of the House
majority.
In 1900, for example, Speaker David Henderson (R-IA; 1899-1903) faced
a situation where members from the committee of jurisdiction appeared to
be poor representatives of the House position. The House had voted to
instruct the conferees on the naval appropriation bill not to include a
specific provision in the conference report. The Speaker, following the
norm, had appointed three members from the committee of jurisdiction to
represent the House in conference. The conferees met with the Senate
conferees, and then they presented to the House a report that included
the language they had been instructed to omit. The House conferees
claimed that the Senate conferees insisted on the provision. The House
rejected the report and asked the Senate for a further conference. The
Speaker, in what has been perceived as an instance of ``discipline by
the House of its conferees'' appointed a new delegation to represent the
House in these negotiations.\29\ None of these members served on the
committee of jurisdiction, and the Speaker's announcement of the new
conferees led to ``a buzz of surprised comment.'' \30\ The new
conferees, however, could no more convince the Senate to take the House
position on the contested provision than the original conferees, and the
House eventually yielded to the position of the Senate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Ada C. McCown, The Congressional Conference Committee (New York:
AMS Press, Inc., 1967), p. 153.
\30\ ``Contest of the Two Houses,'' New York Times, June 7, 1900, p. 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another example, Speaker Joseph Cannon (R-IL; 1903-1911) discarded
the generally well-followed appointment norms in the hopes of
influencing the conference committee outcome on the 1909 tariff
bill.\31\ Cannon selected nine members from the committee of
jurisdiction, but he did not follow the norm of appointing more senior
members before junior members. Cannon explained that he selected
conferees in order to assure that the House was well represented
geographically; indeed, he chose three members from the East, three from
the West, and three from the South. According to press reports at the
time, however, these appointments also happened to tilt the conference
committee in a particular policy direction. ``The fact is not
overlooked,'' the Washington Post reported, ``that by this arrangement
Speaker Cannon has been able to eliminate from consideration on the
conference committee . . . the most aggressive and persistent fighter
for the free-war-material policy.'' \32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ DeAlva Stanwood Alexander, History and Procedure of the House of
Representatives (New York: Burt Franklin, 1916), p. 228.
\32\ ``Cannon Selects Nine,'' Washington Post, July 10, 1909, p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While Cannon's decision to appoint nine conferees to the 1909 Tariff
Conference was met with some disapproval, critics noted that the
appointment of more than three conferees, especially on major
legislation, was not unprecedented. Indeed, starting in the 1880s the
Speaker occasionally appointed larger conference delegations to consider
the most important policy questions of the day. In 1883, Speaker J.
Warren Kiefer (R-OH; 1881-1883) appointed five managers to a conference
committee on a highly controversial tariff bill.\33\ Speaker Reed
appointed eight conferees to consider a tariff bill in 1897, and Speaker
Cannon appointed five Representatives to consider a Philippine Islands
measure in 1905.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Congressional Record, 47th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 14, Feb. 27, 1883,
p. 3356.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the course of the 20th century, the Speaker began to appoint
larger delegations to conference. By the thirties, the average size of a
House delegation had risen to five members.\34\ The Speaker continued to
appoint just three Representatives to some conference committees, but
generally the smaller delegations considered measures that were
important to fewer Members. The average size of House delegations
increased gradually throughout the forties and fifties (Figure 1). While
most contained 5 or fewer members, the delegations on the major
appropriation bills, for example, often consisted of 10 or more
representatives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Cannon, Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives, vol.
VIII, 3221, p. 716.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anecdotal evidence suggests that past Speakers have, at least on
occasion, taken advantage of the discretion granted to them by House
rules to appoint conference delegations to serve the policy or political
goals of their party. Such qualitative accounts cannot answer the
questions of how often and under what conditions the Speaker is likely
to diverge from committee recommendations or appointment norms, and
there is no attempt to answer those questions here.\35\ Instead, the
discussion below simply aims to demonstrate that, in the last 30 years,
institutional changes and new practices have increased the potential for
the Speaker to exercise discretion in the selection of House managers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Political scientists have recently attempted to assess more
precisely the influence of the Speaker in conference committee
appointments in the modern era. See, for example, Jeff Lazarus and
Nathan W. Monroe, ``The Speaker's Discretion: Conference Committee
Appointments from the 96th-104th Congress,'' Paper presented at the 2003
Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association; Jeff
Lazarus and Nathan W. Monroe, ``The Speaker's Discretion: Conference
Committee Appointments from the 97th-106th Congress,'' Paper presented
at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association; Jamie L. Carson and Ryan J. Vander Wielen, ``Legislative
Politics in a Bicameral System: Strategic Conferee Appointments in the
U.S. Congress,'' Paper presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the
Northeastern Political Science Association.
Figure 1.--Average Size of House and Senate Conference Delegations,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Selected Congresses, 1855-2000.
Increased Discretion of the Speaker in the Post-Reform Era
The major committee reforms of the seventies weakened the norm of
appointing senior committee members to conference committee, and, as a
result, strengthened the Speaker's ability to shape conference committee
membership. The House modified the standing rule granting the Speaker
the authority to appoint conferees twice in that decade.\36\ In 1975,
the House amended the rule to direct the Speaker to appoint conferees
who ``generally supported the House position as determined by the
Speaker.'' \37\ In 1977, the rule was modified again, this time to
direct the Speaker to appoint Representatives who were ``the principal
proponents of the major provisions of the bill or resolution.'' \38\ The
new language, according to Majority Leader James Wright (D-TX), would
encourage the Speaker to ``consider appointing sponsors of major
successful amendments which have been adopted on the floor of the
House.'' \39\ In both instances, the aim of the reformers was to
increase the influence of rank-and-file members in the crucial
conference committee stage of the legislative process. The Speaker, as
leader of the majority party, was expected to appoint members who
represented the position of the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ See House Rule 1, clause 11 for the full guidelines the Speaker is
expected to follow in the selection of conferees during the 108th
Congress.
\37\ Congressional Record, 93d Cong., 1st sess., vol. 119, Oct. 8, 1974,
p. 34470.
\38\ Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 123, Jan. 4,
1977, p. 53.
\39\ Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 123, Jan. 4,
1977, p. 55.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neither of these rules changes had as significant an impact on the
role of the Speaker in conferee appointment, however, as a 1975 rule
granting the Speaker the authority to refer bills to more than one
standing committee. Multiple referral transformed the composition of
conference committees and increased the discretion of the Speaker in the
selection of conferees.\40\ When multiple committees consider a bill,
the Speaker must decide how the various committees should be represented
on the conference committee. Instead of taking the recommendations of a
single chair, the Speaker may have to work with and coordinate among
several committee chairs and their requests for representation on a
conference committee. If disputes arise among committee chairs, they
often call on party leadership to resolve the policy conflicts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Garry Young and Joseph Cooper, ``Multiple Referral and the
Transformation of House Decision Making,'' Congress Reconsidered, 5th
ed., p. 226; Walter J. Oleszek, ``House-Senate Relations: A Perspective
on Bicameralism,'' The Postreform Congress, p. 205.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new referral practices also make it more likely that the Speaker
will limit the negotiating authority of a conferee. The Speaker has the
ability to appoint what are sometimes called ``limited purpose''
conferees, or members appointed to consider only selected matters in
disagreement with the Senate. If only a portion of a measure falls under
the jurisdiction of a standing committee, for example, the Speaker may
appoint conferees from that committee only for the purposes of
considering those matters within their jurisdiction. Prior to the
seventies, the Speaker rarely appointed limited purpose conferees,
although he did so under certain circumstances. In 1950, for example,
the general appropriation bills were combined into a single omnibus
bill, and Speaker Rayburn appointed a unique set of managers
(corresponding with the Appropriations subcommittees) to negotiate over
each chapter of the omnibus bill.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Constitution, Jefferson's Manual, and Rules of the House of
Representatives, H. Doc. 107-284, 107th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington:
GPO), p. 284; Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2d sess., vol. 96, Aug.
7, 1950, pp. 11894-11895.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the Speaker was given the authority to refer bills to more than
one committee, he also began to appoint limited purpose conferees more
often. From the 91st through the 94th Congress (1969-1976), the Speaker
appointed limited purpose conferees on only three bills. In contrast, in
the four Congresses (1977-1984) following the emergence of multiple
referral, the Speaker set limited authority for conferees on 61 bills,
or an average of 15 measures per Congress. At the start of the 102d
Congress (1991-1992), Speaker Thomas Foley (D-WA; 1989-1995) announced
that he intended to simplify the appointment of conferees,\42\ but the
appointment of complex conference delegations has continued to the
present day. In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), the Speaker appointed
limited purpose conferees on 10 out of the 37 measures the Chambers
agreed to send to conference.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ Congressional Record, 102d Cong., 1st sess., vol. 137, Jan. 3,
1991, p. H31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The option to appoint a conferee for a single purpose can be an
important tool of the Speaker. It allows the Speaker to name
Representatives with the most knowledge about portions of legislation as
negotiators, without granting them influence over the entire compromise
package. If a Member best represents the House or the party on only one
element of the legislation, the Speaker can limit his or her involvement
in conference negotiations to that element.
Since the reforms of the seventies, the norm of the small conference
delegation has disappeared, giving the Speaker more flexibility to
determine the size of the House delegation. In the last 30 years, the
Speaker has appointed more Representatives to conference committees than
he did in earlier eras (Figure 1). In the 94th Congress (1975-1976), for
example, the average size of a House delegation was 10 Members, and 98
percent of all conference committees had delegations larger than 5
Members. The size of conference committees continued to rise throughout
the eighties and nineties. To some extent, the average number of
delegates is driven upward by a few mega-conferences each Congress. In
the 100th Congress (1987-1988), for example, the Speaker appointed 155
delegates to the conference on the omnibus trade bill.\43\ Yet even
excluding the huge conferences, the average size of both House and
Senate delegations grew in the second half of the 20th century.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Longley and Oleszek, Bicameral Politics: Conference Committees in
Congress, p. 67.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the historical evidence suggests that the Speaker has long taken
advantage of the power to appoint conferees, since the seventies the
Speaker has had a greater capacity to exercise discretion over the
composition of the House delegation. The Speaker's ability to use
conference assignments as a mechanism to influence conference outcomes
was rather limited, both by the size of the conference and the norm of
appointing the two party leaders from the committee. In the modern
Congress, the rules and practices leave the Speaker with more authority
over conference composition. The most recent rules change in the 103d
Congress (1993-1994) granted the Speaker the authority to add, or
remove, conferees after the initial appointment.\44\ Regardless of how
often the Speaker actually exercises this power, the rules change could
potentially increase his influence over conference committees. Conferees
are aware that the Speaker can remove them from the committee or add
enough other Members to the conference to ensure a majority will sign
the conference report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Congressional Record, 103d Cong., 1st sess., vol. 139, Jan. 5,
1993, p. 49.
Conclusion
Over the past century, the Speaker has helped transform policy
proposals into law by working informally with Senate leadership and by
applying his formal conference appointment powers to further the goals
of a majority of the House. The Speaker's role in bicameral coordination
in the modern era is particularly challenging. The equal distribution of
power in the Senate, one result of the seventies reforms, makes that
body difficult to lead. The Speaker must coordinate not just with Senate
party and committee leaders, but with other Senators, who, in the modern
era, are more likely to be interested in a broad array of issues and are
more likely to exercise their individual prerogatives afforded under the
rules of the Senate.
The modern Speaker also has greater responsibilities in the
appointment of House conferees. The advent of multiple referral and
other rules changes have left the Speaker with the ability to determine
not just who will serve as conferees, but how many will serve, what
committees they will represent, and what portions of the legislation
they will consider. The most recent rules change also allows the Speaker
to add or remove conferees from the committee during the negotiations.
The changes in rules and practices that occurred three decades ago
continue to shape the role of the Speaker in bicameral relations. It
remains to be seen whether the duties of the Speaker in the two
principal devices of bicameral coordination, leadership cooperation and
conference committees, will continue to grow. It seems likely that the
Speaker's role in bicameral relations will vary, as it has in the past,
with changes in the membership and institutions of Congress.
Chapter 5
The Speaker and the Press
Betsy Palmer
Analyst in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
Thirteen years after he last held the gavel as Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Joseph ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon (R-MO) graced the cover of
a new national magazine. It was March 3, 1923, and Cannon, who served as
Speaker from 1903 until 1911, had just announced his retirement from the
House. The editors of Time decided to write a tribute to Cannon and his
turbulent times as leader and accompany it with a sketch of the former
Speaker on their very first cover. The article on the inside of the
magazine is hardly what modern readers would consider a cover story--
just a few paragraphs on one page. The magazine wrote:
Uncle Joe in those days was a Speaker of the House and supreme
dictator of the Old Guard. Never did a man employ the office of the
Speaker with less regard for its theoretical impartiality. To Uncle Joe,
the Speakership was a gift from heaven, immaculately born into the
Constitution by the will of the fathers for the divine purpose of
perpetuating the dictatorship of the standpatters in the Republican
party. And he followed the divine call with a resolute evangelism that
was no mere voice crying in the wilderness, but a voice that forbade
anybody else to cry out--out of turn.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Uncle Joe,'' Time, vol. 1, Mar. 3, 1923, p. 2.
Seventy-two years later, a Speaker achieved another first with Time--
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was named its ``Man of the Year'' for 1995,
the first House Speaker ever to be so honored.\2\ These profiles of
Cannon and Gingrich are part of a complex history of the relationship
between the Speaker and the press corps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Nancy Gibbs and Karen Tumulty, ``Master of the House,'' Time, vol.
146, Dec. 25, 1995, p. 54.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several elements appear to affect the kind of relationship a Speaker
has with the press corps. Among these elements, raised as questions, are
the following: Is the Speaker the opposition voice for the party that
does not control the White House? Do the Speaker and his party (they
have all been men) have a clearly defined and explained legislative
agenda? What kind of personality does the Speaker bring to the job? Is
he confrontational? Confident? Or more of a quiet, behind-the-scenes
dealmaker?
Perhaps the most important element affecting the relationship between
the Speaker and the press has been the changing nature of the press
itself. There have been three major eras that help to understand the
volatile interaction and inter-dependence between the Speaker and the
press. The first was characterized by partisanship on the part of the
press, the second was marked by Speakers who carefully cultivated
relationships with a few congressional reporters, and the third was
defined by the advent of television and electronic broadcasting. This
chapter examines Speakers during each of the three periods, focusing on
those who had well-documented relationships with the press.
An Era of Partisanship
In the earliest days of the House, reporters and the newspapers for
which they wrote were explicitly partisan. Their goal was not merely to
report the news, but to do so in a way that helped the political party
with which they were affiliated. Many reporters found that their
fortunes rose and fell with that of their party. So, for example, when
the House convened for a lame duck session in November 1800 after the
defeat of the Federalists:
Samuel Smith of the Intelligencer and John Stewart of the Federalist
were on hand to cover its debates, and the two reporters petitioned for
a place on the House floor. Federalist Speaker Theodore Sedgwick cast a
tie-breaking vote against them, on the grounds that their presence would
destroy the dignity of the chamber and inconvenience its members. When
the Intelligencer challenged the Speaker's ruling, Sedgwick ordered
editor Smith banned from the House lobby and galleries. The election of
Thomas Jefferson, together with new Republican majorities in Congress,
vastly improved Samuel Smith's fortunes. The House welcomed him back,
and in January 1802 voted forty-seven to twenty-eight to find room on
the floor for the reporters.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington
Correspondents (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 12.
Hereafter referred to as Ritchie, Press Gallery.
At first, the most important role played by reporters in the Capitol
was that of recorders of debate, taking down for the record the debates
of what went on in the House and the Senate. Those summaries were made
available to newspapers outside Washington, which were free to use them
or not. Eventually, newspapers began hiring ``letter writing''
correspondents, who would sit in the House and Senate galleries and
compose commentaries on the actions of the two Chambers that would then
be sent home to their local newspapers. By the Civil War, there was an
identifiable press corps in Washington whose members focused most of
their attention on Capitol Hill.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Ibid., p. 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reporters not only shared the political ideology of some of the
Members they covered, they also worked for Members during congressional
recesses. Newspapers could not afford to pay reporters for a full year's
work when Congress was in recess for a good portion of the time; so
reporters turned to the people they covered to find additional work.
Many were hired as clerks for committees or secretaries for Members
themselves.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Ibid., p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This made for an interesting relationship between the Speaker and the
press corps. During the winter of 1855-1856, for example, Horace
Greeley, a powerful editor and reporter for the New York Tribune, became
deeply involved in the hotly contested race for Speaker, even though he
was not a Member of the House.\6\ Greeley wanted to see Representative
Nathaniel Banks (D-MA) elected because of Banks' antislavery policies.
Greeley filed daily dispatches from the House as Members cast ballot
after ballot trying to elect a Speaker, and he made it clear he favored
Banks and worked on his behalf. ``After the House cast its 118th
unsuccessful ballot, Representative Albert Rust (D-AR) proposed that all
leading contenders withdraw in favor of a compromise candidate.''
Greeley wrote a letter strongly opposing Rust's plan, and the day after
the letter appeared in the Tribune, Rust encountered Greeley and
severely beat him. Greeley, however, recovered sufficiently to write
stories about Banks' election as Speaker on the 133d ballot.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Greeley had been elected as a Whig to the 30th Congress, from
December 4, 1848 to March 3, 1849.
\7\ Ritchie, Press Gallery, pp. 50-51.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reporters were so involved in the politics of Washington that many
also decided to run for office themselves. The first journalist to
become Speaker of the House was Schuyler Colfax, a Republican from
Indiana, who served as Speaker from December 7, 1863 through March 1869.
Schuyler Colfax's election as Speaker had brought special pleasure to
the press . . . Now one of their own--the proprietor and occasional
letter writer to the South Bend Register--presided over the House of
Representatives. . . . To celebrate Colfax's election as Speaker, the
Washington Press corps hosted a dinner in his honor, one of the first of
what became a favored device for bringing together reporters and
politicians in a social setting. ``We journalists and men of the
newspaper press do love you, and claim you as bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh,'' said toastmaster Sam Wilkeson. ``Fill your glasses, all,
in an invocation to the gods for long life, greater successes, and ever-
increasing happiness to our editorial brother in the Speaker's Chair.''
. . . Having sprung from the press, Speaker Colfax applied the lessons
of his profession skillfully, making himself always available for
interviews, planting stories, sending flattering notes to editors,
suggesting editorials, and spreading patronage. He intended to parlay
his popularity with the press into a national following that would make
him the first journalist in the White House.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ibid., p. 67.
But the Speaker of this period who would transcend even Colfax's
popularity with the press was James G. Blaine (R-ME). Blaine came to
politics directly from journalism--he had been the part owner of the
Kennebec Journal, and later accepted the editorship of the Portland, ME,
Advertiser. Blaine was elected to Congress in 1862, and served as
Speaker for three Congresses, from 1869 to 1875. He was a contender for
the Republican Presidential nomination in both 1876 and 1880, and was
the party's nominee in 1884.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T.
White and Company, 1891), vol. 1, pp. 137-139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine used his news experience to win over the Washington press
corps. ``Blaine courted correspondents for Republican and Democratic
papers alike and learned how to give reporters what they wanted. Having
begun as an editor and reporter, rather than as a lawyer, he employed
his instinct for news and genius for self-advertisement to generate an
immense and devoted national following.'' \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Ritchie, Press Gallery, p. 131.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine took care to cultivate personal relationships with reporters,
calling them by their first names and seeking them out with news. He
also came up with unique ways to get his point of view into the
newspaper. ``Blaine invented the Sunday news release, recognizing that
anything distributed on that slow news day would get prominent display
in the Monday papers. He experimented with the semipublic letter,
intended more for the press than for its nominal recipient. He floated
trial balloons to test public sentiment, and disavowed them if they
burst.'' \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Ibid., p. 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``No man in America better understood the ways and means of reaching
the public ear through the newspaper press than Blaine,'' wrote
correspondent David Barry. Blaine actively pursued reporters, regardless
of their party, but ``if a reporter wrote critically of Blaine he found
himself cut off from this important source,'' Barry wrote. \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Ibid., p. 137.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blaine's intense attention to press relations served him well during
the Credit Mobilier scandal. Lobbyists were accused of giving Members of
Congress stock in Credit Mobilier, a Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary,
at par value, i.e., less than half its market price, sometimes without
making Members pay for the stock at all. Speaker Colfax was accused of
participating in the stock dealings, and the scandal contributed to the
demise of his career. Blaine, however, who also stood accused of
obtaining stock at less than market value, decided to take on his
accusers and managed to weather the storm.
Blaine's broker, James Mulligan, had kept letters from Blaine about
the stock deals, which investigators wanted to make public. Blaine went
to Mulligan's hotel room in Washington and took the letters. Then, from
the floor of the House, Blaine read selected portions designed to clear
himself of the charges. To the amazement of his opponents, he was
successful, though it became clear later that he had edited the letters
rather substantially in their reading to the House.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Ibid., pp. 139-142.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Credit Mobilier scandal left a lasting imprint on the relationship
between the press and Congress, as noted by Henry Boyton, an influential
reporter for the Cincinnati Gazette in post-Civil War Washington. Boyton
wrote that the scandal marked a turning point in the relations between
the press and the politicians they covered:
The general relations of friendship between the two classes continued,
however, without marked interruption to the days of the explosions over
Credit Mobilier and kindred scandals. Up to that time Newspaper Row was
daily and nightly visited by the ablest and most prominent men in public
affairs. Vice presidents, the heads of departments, heads of bureaus,
the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress, and the strongest
and most noted men of the Senate and of the House in the grandest period
of the Republic's life, were frequent and welcome visitors in the
Washington offices of the leading journals of the land. Suddenly, with
the Credit Mobilier outbreak, and others of its kind which followed it,
these pleasant relations began to dissolve under the sharp and deserved
criticism of the correspondents. To this situation succeeded long years
of estrangement. Newspaper Row was gradually deserted by the class
named.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Henry V.N. Boyton, ``The Press and Public Men,'' Century, vol. 42,
Oct. 1891, p. 855.
The press also became concerned about the many reporters who lobbied
the government at the same time they were writing stories about
Congress. In November 1877, Boyton and other leaders of the press met
with House Speaker Samuel Randall (D-PA) to discuss press gallery
accreditation. Over the next 2 years the journalists created a set of
rules that defined who could be an accredited journalist, a plan that
was adopted by a gathering of reporters in 1879. The House agreed to the
plan later the same year, and the Senate followed suit in 1884. Under
the plan, a group of five journalists, called the Standing Committee of
Correspondents, would monitor the galleries and be responsible for
ensuring that lobbyists did not use the facilities reserved for
reporters.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ritchie, Press Gallery, p. 109.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The press was also in a major transition at this time, from partisan
newspapers that covered the Capitol with an ideological intent, to
money-making businesses, where getting the news was what mattered.
``From the 1860s to the 1920s, the newspaper served less and less well
as a medium of traditional exuberant partisanship,'' wrote media scholar
Michael McGerr. By the 1870s, an independent press, focused more on a
``restrained and factual style'' had emerged, a development aided by the
creation and expansion of the Associated Press.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Michael E. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics: The American
North, 1865-1928 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 107;
Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American
Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1978), p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These elements--the development of a less partisan press, the creation
of a formalized structure for journalists within Congress and the
distance between the press and politicians following the Credit Mobilier
scandal--marked the beginning of a new period in the relationship
between the Speaker and the press, a time when many reporters were
viewed by Speakers with suspicion, but a few came to be regarded as
trusted allies and friends.
``The Boys'' of the Press
Speaker Joe Cannon, who was Speaker from 1903 to 1911, divided the
press into two groups--those who regularly covered Capitol Hill and
those who did not. For the former, Cannon had praise and even some
affection--in 1908 he was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of
Crosby S. Noyes, editor in chief of the Evening Star, then the leading
Washington daily, for example.\17\ It was the other reporters, those who
did not report out of Washington regularly, who earned Cannon's ire.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ ``Mr. Noyes at Rest,'' Washington Post, Mar. 1, 1908, p. 1.
I was always fond of the newspaper boys in Washington. Few of them
ever betrayed my confidences, and they said many nice things about me.
For the great part they were honorable men, animated by decent
instincts. It was significant that during the ``muckraking'' campaign
that flourished from about 1907 to 1911, few, if any of the regular
newspaper men in Washington took part. Their work was to report facts,
not to deal in slander and half-truths. The ``muckrakers'' were
generally men unfamiliar with Washington, politics or men in political
life. I attended Gridiron dinners regularly, for the Club was always
kind enough to ask me to go.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Joseph G. Cannon, The Memoir of Joseph Gurney ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon,
as transcribed by Helen Leseure Abdill (Danville, VA: Voorhees Printing
Co., 1996), p. 132.
This distinction between the ``regulars'' and those who did not spend
their time at the Capitol was adopted by many Speakers who followed
Cannon, regardless of their political affiliation. To some extent, it
has influenced how Speakers from Cannon on related to the press.
Cannon, known to friend and foe as ``Uncle Joe,'' was a major national
figure during his speakership, particularly in 1910 during the struggle
with a group of insurgent House Republicans over the scope of his
control. He became a favorite subject of editorial writers and
cartoonists, who called him a ``czar'' or a ``tyrant.'' The Speaker
blamed the bad press, or the ``muckraking'' as he called it, on what he
said was a cabal of newspaper reporters and editors who had wanted him
to support changing the tariff on woodpulp and print paper.
According to Cannon, a newspaper editor by the name of Herman Ridder
said he would help Cannon obtain the 1908 Republican Presidential
nomination if Cannon would support the changes to the tariff. Cannon
said later he had no idea if Ridder could have helped him win the
Republican nomination, but he thought it was clear Ridder could hurt him
for not going along. ``[A]nyone who read the papers for the three years
or so following 1907 must remember the success that he or someone else
achieved in a campaign of vilification, virtual misrepresentation, and
personal abuse of myself, along with the responsible Republican leaders
of the House.'' \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Ibid., pp. 140-141.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever the reason, Cannon certainly saw his fair share of critical
coverage by the national press, as documented by scholar Scott William
Ranger.
Extensive and sometimes biased press coverage of the rules controversy
had alerted the public to the fact that Speaker Cannon might not be
quite the benevolent character they had once believed him to be.
The Baltimore Sun cited Cannon as being ``the very embodiment of all
the sinister interests and malign influences that have brooded over this
land and exacted toil from every hearthstone.'' Both Colliers and
Success magazines had been running articles in regular installments that
not only detailed the Speaker's wrongdoings but also praised the
insurgents. When a large segment of the public responded by turning
against Cannon, some moderate Republicans realized that their own
political futures would soon be in jeopardy if they continued to support
him. The press, therefore, did the insurgents an absolutely invaluable
service. The Speaker was angered by the press assault and the public
response to it but refused to make changes in the way he ran the
House.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Scott William Rager, ``Uncle Joe Cannon: the Brakeman of the House
of Representatives, 1911-1915,'' in Roger H. Davidson, Susan Webb
Hammond, and Raymond W. Smock, eds., Masters of the House: Congressional
Leadership Over Two Centuries (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), p.
77.
The Washington Post, in a profile of Cannon, began the story like
this: ``The central figure in every discussion of the American Congress
today is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph Gurney
Cannon. He is as much of a character in American politics as was the
rugged Andrew Jackson, or the terrible John Randolph of Roanoke, or the
imperious Roscoe Conkling.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Frederick J. Haskin, ``The American Congress: XX. Speaker Cannon's
Career,'' Washington Post, Dec. 12, 1909, p. 7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Speaker, Cannon was in charge of the House press gallery, an
organization of reporters established in 1890. The 1890 agreement
between the House and the press corps established a permanent gallery on
the third floor of the Capitol from which reporters could watch House
floor action. In addition, the press gallery had office space for
reporters to make and receive phone calls and write their reports.\22\
Cannon delegated control of the gallery and the care of the press to his
secretary, L. White Busbey, a former Washington correspondent for
Chicago newspapers:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ This was the first press gallery, designed for the ``print'' press,
or those who wrote for daily newspapers. Over time, both the House and
Senate created additional, separate press galleries for the periodical
press (such as weekly magazines) and for radio and television reporters.
The Speaker had charge of the press gallery, and I turned this over to
Busbey, telling him that I would hold him fully responsible for keeping
the boys happy, and that he was not to bring any disputes to me unless
there was no escape . . . The newspaper boys always seemed to have a
hankering for stories and Busbey relieved me of too much interruption by
them. Busbey had a busy life, working to all hours.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Cannon, The Memoir of Joseph Gurney ``Uncle Joe'' Cannon, pp. 119-
120.
Speakers who followed Cannon, also appeared to enjoy the company of
Capitol Hill reporters. Speaker Frederick H. Gillett, for example,
joined a dozen members of the Senate press gallery and an equal number
of Senators in a golf game in 1922.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Henry Litchfield West, ``Scribes Easy for Senatorial Golfers,''
Washington Post, June 28, 1922, p. 10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Nicholas Longworth (R-OH), Speaker from 1925 to 1931, played
the inside game with reporters to great advantage. The charming husband
of Alice Roosevelt was extremely popular with the press. He was able to
move portions of President Coolidge's legislative program through the
House in just 2 short months, for example, and won plaudits from the
press for this achievement.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Donald C. Bacon, ``Nicholas Longworth: The Genial Czar,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 135.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Said another writer: ``. . . an indisputable aura of glamor did hover
around Nicholas Longworth. He was even profiled by a movie magazine, and
though he was the only Speaker in history to whom the klieg lights were
so attracted, there was no egoistic pretension about him.'' Further,
``Another result of Longworth's characteristic detachment--or cynicism,
some call it--was to endear him to newsmen who had been born knowing
that life would go on no matter what the Congress decided. Many of them
became enthusiastic fans of Longworth, and they tendered him the kind of
praise few politicians have ever enjoyed.'' \26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Richard B. Cheney and Lynne V. Cheney, Kings of the Hill: Power and
Personality in the House of Representatives (New York: Continuum, 1983)
pp. 156, 158. Hereafter referred to as Cheney, Kings of the Hill.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
His method of dealing with the press was described in detail in an
Associated Press article, written by Walter Chamblin, that was included
in a biography of Longworth written by his sister. The story sets the
scene in Longworth's private office just off the floor of the Chamber
after the House had adjourned for the day:
It was in this retreat that the press learned to know and to love him.
His door never was closed to a reporter and no matter how muddled the
legislative situation might be, Nick ever was smiling and genial.
Nothing pleased him more than for the correspondents to arrive with a
batch of good stories. He would laugh heartily and then would tell one
of his own. His supply seemingly was inexhaustible. It was in such a
setting that Nick liked best to discuss affairs with the press. He never
cared much for formal conferences, which are so popular with most
officials in Washington, although at times a troop of correspondents
would arrive from the Senate or downtown departments and insist on such
an interview. He always complied, but seldom spoke as freely as he did
at the informal gatherings. No matter how his social engagements might
pile up, he always found time to attend any gathering of correspondents.
He was invited to all . . . Upon a few occasions when the correspondents
felt that their prerogatives were being ignored, such as instances
usually arising with some new Representative who arrived at the Capitol
quite puffed up over the importance of his office, the Speaker each time
personally took up the battle for the press. He believed the press of
paramount importance in the functioning of the House.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Clara Longworth DeChambrun, The Making of Nicholas Longworth:
Annals of an American Family (New York: Ray Long and Richard Smith,
Inc., 1933), pp. 306-307.
This easy, comfortable behind-the-scenes relationship with the press
allowed Longworth to shape news coverage to his liking in many
instances, persuading some reporters, for example, that the House was
the predominant Chamber over the Senate during much of his
speakership.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Cheney, Kings of the Hill, p. 158.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following Longworth's unexpected death, there followed three one-term
Speakers. The first of those, John Nance Garner held views about the
press similar to those of Longworth. ``He granted few formal interviews
to the press, although he admitted a small number of correspondents into
his personal circle and sometimes used them for his political purposes.
Reporters such as Cecil Dickson, Marquis James, and especially Bascom
Timmons were as close to him as any politician.'' \29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Anthony Champagne, ``John Nance Garner,'' in Masters of the House,
p. 152.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Garner, who was Speaker from December 1931 through March 1933, held a
regular, daily briefing for the press when the House was in session,
possibly the first Speaker to do so. This tradition, of meeting with the
press before the start of the day's session to discuss the House's
schedule, continued for more than 60 years until Speaker Newt Gingrich
dropped it in 1995.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ ``Garner and Rainey Reply,'' New York Times, June 26, 1932, p. 21.;
Howard Kurtz, ``Gingrich Plans to End Daily News Briefings,'' Washington
Post, May 3, 1995, p. A7.
A Complex Relationship
Speaker Sam Rayburn was known to dislike dealing with the press. The
Texas Democrat ``actively avoided much of the media, especially
television. He refused to appear on the popular television talk show of
the day, `Meet the Press,' and routinely avoided most print and
broadcast reporters as well . . .'' \31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ Elaine S. Povich, Partners and Adversaries: The Contentious
Connection Between Congress and the Media (Arlington, VA: Freedom Forum,
1996), p. 13.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During at least some of the time he was Speaker, however, Rayburn
rented a room in the house of C.P. Trusell, a congressional reporter for
the New York Times. Rayburn and Trusell were good friends, such good
friends that the reporter eventually asked the Speaker to move out.
Trusell reportedly was having trouble keeping his information straight,
separating what he knew from his own work and what he had learned about
the goings on in the House from his friendship with Rayburn, information
that could not be reported.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ Jim Cannon, ``Congress and the media: the loss of trust,'' in
Partners and Adversaries, pp. 68-69.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn distinguished between ``the press,'' a generic group he did
not like, and certain congressional reporters, who he trusted and with
whom he was friends. Two anecdotes illustrate how Rayburn saw this
divide. One, recounted in a largely positive biography of the Speaker,
shows him helping a reporter he knew. The other shows his disdain for
television, a form of media with which he was uncomfortable.
In the first story, the teenage daughter of a reporter who had been at
several of Rayburn's press conferences had died. Early the morning after
her death, Rayburn went to the reporter's house to offer his
condolences. The book continues:
``I just came by to see what I could do to help,'' he [Rayburn] said.
A bit flustered, the father replied, ``I don't think there's anything
you can do. We're making all the arrangements.''
``Well, have you had your coffee this morning?'' Mr. Sam asked.
``No, we haven't had time.''
``Well,'' he replied promptly, ``I can at least make the coffee this
morning.''
And while Mr. Sam was puttering about in the kitchen, the reporter
said, ``Mr. Speaker, I thought you were supposed to be having breakfast
at the White House this morning.''
``Well, I was, but I called the President and told him I had a friend
who was in trouble, and I couldn't come.'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ C. Dwight Dorough, Mr. Sam (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 287.
In the second tale, Rayburn explained to Lawrence Spivak, a well-known
journalist, why he would not appear on the NBC program, ``Meet the
Press.'' ``I never go on programs such as yours because some twenty or
more years ago I did go on a panel program on the radio and all the
folks on the panel got in such an argument that I had enough.'' The
writer continues, ``Never having had a very high opinion of publicity,
he wasn't going to change his mind about it now. One of the greatest
compliments he could pay a colleague was to say, `He doesn't run around
getting his name in the newspapers all the time.' '' \34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Cheney, Kings of the Hill, pp. 177-178.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn was direct with the reporters he did decide to talk to. ``He
handled the press in the same straightforward way he had since they
first started paying him attention. The reporters who came to his office
got five minutes for their questions. His answers were short, to the
point and off the record. `You'll have to go somewhere else to get your
quotes,' he told them.'' \35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Ibid., p. 178.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was clear that Rayburn saw the value in letting certain, selected
reporters into his confidence. They were invited to the ultimate
insider's meetings, the sessions with the ``Board of Education,'' as it
was known, the late-night meetings and drinking sessions of some of the
most powerful men in Washington, led by Rayburn in his Capitol hideaway.
``In Rayburn's mind, these trusted reporters were different from the
rest of the national press; they understood and appreciated the work of
the House of Representatives. They also understood the importance of
longstanding personal relationships as Rayburn did, and would not
sacrifice those relationships for a single story. It was a true
symbiotic relationship.'' \36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Joe S. Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in Ronald M. Peters,
ed., The Speaker: Leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives
(Washington: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1994), p. 137.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn's contact with this group of media was not necessarily
designed to reach out to the country, or to try and build any kind of
grassroots coalitions. Rather, he used the reporters, many of whom
worked for the country's top news organizations, to communicate with his
fellow Members. ``Speaker Rayburn perceived relationships with reporters
as an advantage internally within the House rather than a conduit to a
national constituency. He was far more concerned with what his
colleagues read than with what the general public read.'' \37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ Ibid., p. 138.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn also continued the daily press briefings begun under earlier
Speakers. For 5 minutes before the start of the House he would meet with
reporters. The questions and the tone of those briefings made it clear
he was aiming the information at his fellow House Members primarily.
``It was purely an insider's game. Questions focused on arcane procedure
or mundane scheduling of business. . . . Observers not initiated to the
process would have a difficult time understanding what was going on.
House jargon and parliamentary shorthand punctuated answers.'' \38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was clear that the trust he gave to the reporters was repaid. In a
lengthy profile of Rayburn for the New York Times, reporter William S.
White tells the story of having been in the room when Rayburn was
notified of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he makes
it clear that he would not divulge the specifics of what Rayburn said:
His heavy and very nearly immobile face was still in the shadows and
the only movements upon it were the small and barely visible traces of
the tears. He swept them away roughly. For a long time, no one said
anything at all. Then Mr. Rayburn hunched his shoulders and, looking out
unseeingly into the dusk, he spoke slowly in short, hard, phrases as
though talking to himself. There, before friends, in words that are yet
under the seal of that room (in which this correspondent was among those
present), Mr. Rayburn took an oath for the future. Its substance was
that Sam Rayburn--Southern Democrat and all--had followed Franklin
Roosevelt in life, and that Sam Rayburn would follow Franklin Roosevelt
in death.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ William S. White, ``Sam Rayburn--The Untalkative Speaker,'' New
York Times, Feb. 27, 1949, p. SM10.
Rayburn's dislike of television extended into committee rooms. In
1952, Rayburn decided to ban radio and television broadcasts of House
committee hearings, reasoning it was an extension of the ban on
televising House action. In 1957, the chair of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, Francis E. Walter (D-PA), implicitly challenged
the ban by holding a televised field hearing in San Francisco. He was
admonished by Rayburn sufficiently so that no other chair challenged the
camera ban.\40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in The Speaker: Leadership in
the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 140.
Changing Environment
While Rayburn was a master at using the press to play his inside game,
the nature of the press and the relationship between the press and the
politicians they covered began to change in such a way that Rayburn's
successors, John McCormack (D-MA) and Carl Albert (D-OK), were not able
to use the same relationship-based technique for their media plan.
The Vietnam war and Watergate influenced the way reporters viewed both
their jobs and Members of Congress. The two events combined to change
the relationship between the reporters and their subjects into a much
more confrontational posture. Added to that, the growth of television
and broadcast as the way Americans were getting their news left Speakers
such as McCormack struggling to cope with new demands from rank-and-file
Democrats to be more of a national figure and party spokesman. That
meant more air time, making television and radio speeches--a role
McCormack was uncomfortable trying to fill. ``Both the presidency and
the television networks grew in stature and visibility during the 1960s
while Congress stood silently in the background.'' \41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Ibid, p. 141.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elected to the speakership upon the death of Rayburn, McCormack served
in the Office from 1962 until 1971. As early as 1967, however, there
were rumblings among some House Democrats that Members wanted a more
dynamic spokesman. ``The question now being asked by his Democratic
critics is whether Mr. McCormack, with his gaunt, pale visage and his
tendency to talk in patriotic platitudes, has either the intellectual
drive or the proper public image to serve as a spokesman for the
Democratic party over the next two years,'' wrote John W. Finney for the
New York Times. He quoted an anonymous young Democratic House Member as
saying ``The trouble with John McCormack is that he is completely out of
touch with modern American politics.'' \42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ John W. Finney, ``McCormack, 77, Faces Increasing But Disorganized
Criticism,'' New York Times, Dec. 22, 1968, p. 32.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to one study, McCormack was mentioned on the nightly news
broadcasts of the three major networks 17 times in 1969. Five other
Members of the House, including Minority Leader Gerald Ford were
mentioned more frequently. In 1970, McCormack jumped to the front of the
pack, being mentioned 46 times, but by 1971, he did not make the list of
the top 15 House Members to be talked about on the evening news.\43\
However, it was during McCormack's speakership that the House authorized
its committees to make their own decisions about whether to allow
broadcast coverage of their hearings or meetings, thus overturning the
ban that Rayburn put in place in 1952.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Timothy E. Cook, Making Laws and Making News: Media Strategies in
the U.S. House of Representatives (Washington: Brookings Institution,
1989), pp. 192-193.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Albert, Speaker from 1971 until 1977, also found it difficult to
adapt to the new, changing media environment. When he was elected
majority leader under McCormack in 1962, he noted that he had done so
with very little media coverage. ``I never once got on television. The
sum total of my national publicity was a [press] release when I got into
the race and a [press] release when I got up to Washington saying I
thought I had enough votes to win. I refused to go on television,
although I was invited to go on most of the news and panel shows.'' \44\
Albert continued his low-profile style throughout his time in the
leadership. ``As Majority Leader, Albert has attracted little national
attention. He has made relatively few televised appearances and has
introduced little legislation on his own,'' a feature story on Albert
said.\45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Robert L. Peabody, Leadership in Congress: Stability, Succession
and Change (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976), p. 77.
\45\ ``Carl Albert of Oklahoma: Next House Speaker,'' Congressional
Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. 28, Dec. 25, 1970, p. 3074.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, he did take some steps into the media age. Albert was the
first Speaker to hire a press secretary. During Watergate, Albert took
into account the massive needs of the press, going so far as to begin
planning for possible broadcast of House impeachment proceedings against
President Richard Nixon:
While uneasy about the carnival atmosphere that was developing around
the Judiciary Committee hearings, Speaker Albert tried hard to
accommodate the television networks and the rest of the media. When the
Judiciary Committee had completed its work, Speaker Albert authorized
his staff to make plans for the televising of impeachment proceedings in
the House. This was a key decision, because it represented a turnaround
from Rayburn's strict ban on television in the House, which had been in
effect since the day Albert came to Congress in 1947. Speaker Albert's
willingness to open the House to television during this crucial moment
in history paved the way for permanent access to the House five years
later. \46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in The Speaker: Leadership in
the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 144.
A Media Celebrity
Albert's successor, Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill (D-MA) won rave reviews
both inside and outside the House for his handling of the media. One
reporter called him ``the first media celebrity in the history of the
Speakership.'' \47\ Another attributed much of O'Neill's success to his
management of the media:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ Alan Ehrenhalt, ``Media, Power Shifts Dominate O'Neill's House,''
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, vol. XXX, Sept. 13, 1986, p.
2131.
O'Neill has built his mystique through the press. Albert feared the
press. O'Neill plays with it like a cat with a mouse. He has killed the
tough, post-Watergate press with candor and charm. Ask O'Neill about an
alleged gambling ring in a House office building and whether he has
quashed a Justice Department investigation into it. O'Neill says no, he
knew nothing about it. Then he regales the press with stories and mottos
about gambling. He tells the story of going to the Pimlico racetrack as
a young congressman and meeting J. Edgar Hoover there. Hoover offers him
a lift. He accepts. When they get back to town, Hoover discovers he has
taken the wrong car from the parking lot. There are no more questions
about the gambling ring.\48\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ Mary Russell, ``Speaker Scooping Up Power in the House,''
Washington Post, Aug. 7, 1977, p. 1.
O'Neill responded to the changing demands of the media by adopting new
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
patterns:
When I became majority leader in Washington, I was interviewed
constantly. I was always happy to talk to the press, but I drew the line
at the Sunday morning talk shows on television. After a full work week,
consisting of long days and frequent late evenings, I insisted on
keeping my weekends free for my family and friends. In 1977, when I
became Speaker, I started meeting with TV reporters each morning when I
arrived at work. Later in the morning, I would hold a news conference
before the House opened. I always told the truth, and almost never
answered with ``no comment.'' Ninety-nine percent of the time, if you're
straight with the press, they'll be straight with you.\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House: The Life and
Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill (New York: Random House, 1987),
p. 227
O'Neill realized, too, that he could use the daily Speaker's press
conference to get the party's message out to the public, as well as
fellow Members of Congress.\50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Ibid., p. 285.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite concerns from his fellow Members, O'Neill agreed to allow C-
SPAN broadcasts of House floor action, beginning in 1979, a decision he
would later say was one of the best he made as Speaker.\51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Ibid, p. 288.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As skillful as O'Neill was with the press, it was the 1980 election of
Republican President Ronald Reagan and a Republican Senate that really
thrust the Speaker on to the national stage. ``In the aftermath of the
Republican takeover of the Senate in the 1980 elections, the press
anointed Speaker O'Neill--now clearly the highest-ranked Democrat in
Washington--as chief Democratic spokesman and thus enhanced his media
access,'' wrote one congressional scholar.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ Barbara Sinclair, ``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House
Leadership,'' in Masters of the House, p. 309.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Democrats took a page from Reagan's playbook to urge O'Neill to
challenge Reagan's policies--frequently and publicly.
In the early 1980s Ronald Reagan taught House Democrats a lesson about
the uses of the media that altered their expectations of their own
leaders. Reagan's media skills and the favorable political climate
allowed him to dominate public debate and thereby dictate the policy
agenda and propagate a highly negative image of the Democratic party.
Unable as individuals to counter this threat to their policy and
reelection goals, Democrats expected their leaders to take on the task,
to participate effectively in national political discourse and thereby
promote the membership's policy agenda and protect and enhance the
party's image. Unlike rank-and-file House members, the party leadership
did have considerable access to the national media.\53\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ Ibid, p. 290.
It was a part of a growing realization that the climate of Congress
itself had changed. No longer was it enough to make the case for
legislation within the Capitol, the public needed to be involved as
well. ``A decade ago, nearly all influential House members would have
said that legislative arguments are won on the floor, by the tireless
personal cultivation of colleagues. Nowadays, many of them say that sort
of work is only part of the story. Increasingly, they believe, floor
fights are won by orchestrating a campaign aimed over the heads of the
members, at the country at large. . . . `Sometimes to pass a bill,'
[House Majority Leader] Foley says, `you have to change the attitude of
the country.' '' \54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker O'Neill used his Office as a ``bully pulpit'' to challenge the
Reagan White House, particularly during his daily press briefings:
An O'Neill press conference these days is a media event, not only
because dozens of print and broadcast reporters crowd his office to hear
him, but because much of what he says is designed for their benefit.
O'Neill often begins with a prepared statement challenging one or
another aspect of Reagan administration policy, drafted for him by press
secretary Christopher J. Matthews, a glib wordsmith and specialist in
one-liners. Often, O'Neill's comments are repeated on the evening news
that night; even more often they are printed in the New York Times or
the Washington Post the next day.\55\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Ehrenhalt, ``Media, Power Shifts Dominate O'Neill's House,'' p.
2131.
Republicans saw this as an opportunity to use O'Neill as a target for
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
their anti-Democrat campaign--a strategy that did not succeed:
As part of their 1982 election campaign, Republicans tried to make the
Speaker, a heavy, rumpled man with a cartoonist's dream of an old pol
face, into a symbol of big, out-of-control government; generic ads with
an O'Neill look-alike were run nationwide. As a result, O'Neill became
much better known to the public at large than any Speaker before him.
(Presumably much to the Republicans' surprise, by the mid-1980s O'Neill
not only became a nationally known figure but a highly popular one.)
\56\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\56\ Sinclair, ``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House Leadership,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 309.
At the end of his speakership, Tip O'Neill was a nationally known
figure. ``Sam Rayburn could have walked down the streets of Spokane,
Wash., without anybody noticing him,'' Majority Whip Thomas S. Foley of
Washington [said in 1986], ``Tip O'Neill couldn't do that. And it's very
unlikely that any future Speaker will be anonymous to the country.''
\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Ehrenhalt, ``Media, Power Shifts Dominate O'Neill's House,'' p.
2131.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
O'Neill remained a popular public figure after leaving office in 1986.
``That Speaker O'Neill's autobiography was a best seller and that he
received contracts for a variety of high profile commercial endorsements
after leaving office showed just how high a Speaker's visibility could
climb in the television age,'' wrote one scholar.\58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ Foote, ``The Speaker and the Media,'' in The Speaker: Leadership in
the U.S. House of Representatives, p. 150.
Democrats after O'Neill
Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX) continued in the steps of his predecessor,
reaching out to the press and maintaining high visibility as an
outspoken opponent of many Reagan administration policies, particularly
those in Central America. His relationship with the media had peaks and
valleys and some of his encounters with the press became verbal battles.
``Speaker Wright courted the media aggressively and was more available
for television appearances than any of his predecessors. . . . Yet, he
also had a more contentious relationship with journalists than previous
Speakers, once calling them `enemies of government.' '' \59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ Ibid, p. 151.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wright and the Democratic leadership of the House decided to use the
daily press conference even more than O'Neill had to push their
priorities. The leadership would meet prior to the press conference and
create a message for the day. ``Upon completion of the press conference,
the other party leaders would remain to talk to reporters in an effort
to reinforce Wright's points. Wright also extended contacts to broadcast
reporters immediately following the daily print meeting.'' \60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Douglas B. Harris, ``The Rise of the Public Speakership,''
Political Science Quarterly, vol. 113, Summer 1998, pp. 201-202.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Wright resigned as Speaker in May 1989, his successor, Thomas S.
Foley, had a much warmer relationship with the press. Foley cultivated
reporters by, among other things, having regular early morning
breakfasts with the Capitol's bureau chiefs and major newspaper
columnists.\61\ He also decided to release an unedited transcript of the
daily press conferences, which made it easier for reporters to check
their quotes and for those reporters who had missed the session to know
what had happened. Foley's relationship with the press is evidenced by
the following anecdote:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Jeffrey R. Biggs and Thomas S. Foley, Honor in the House (Pullman,
WA: Washington State University Press, 1999), p. 114.
Symbolic of Foley's relationship with the congressional press was the
press conference day when members of the press presented him with a T-
shirt that many of them had shown up wearing. A cartoon from the
Baltimore Sun portrayed the Speaker as a bonneted and exasperated nanny
surrounded by a pack of childlike adults dressed in knickers and in the
middle of a food fight. The text quoted Foley from his June 10, 1993
press conference when he was asked whether there was a lack of
leadership being marshaled on behalf of the president's agenda. Foley's
response: Everybody is exercising sufficient leadership. It is the
followership we are having trouble with.\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Biggs, Honor in the House, p. 131, italics in original.
Foley recognized the limits of what he could do in his daily meeting
with the press. ``While the traditional daily Speaker's press conference
served to influence the perceptions of opinion leaders in Congress and
the congressional media, it proved to be a very limited vehicle for
reaching the American people,'' he wrote in his book.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ Quoted in Ibid., p. 180.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foley wrote that he wondered if he should have opened up the daily
briefings, known to reporters as pad and pen briefings, to broadcast
media. ``If I had it to do over again, I would have experimented
occasionally with radio and television coverage. The electronic media
were represented at the press conferences, but without tape recorders or
cameras. It was, perhaps, an anachronism for a Speaker to be carrying on
his principal communication with the press through the print media at
the same time that the entire House proceedings were being carried live
on cable television's C-SPAN.'' \64\ Foley acknowledged that the
audience he wanted to reach required a broader outlet:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ Ibid., pp. 180-181.
When you went on a television program you were trying to reach the
public, the press beyond the program itself, and your own congressional
colleagues. It depends on the issue, but part of the way you influence
your colleagues is by having some impact on public opinion and creating
a mood or attitude toward legislation, or explaining what might
otherwise be difficult for the public to understand. You don't do that
all alone, but it's part of the task of being Speaker to try to explain
the Congress to justify what might be unpopular legislation, to defend
the institution during periods when it comes under fire or attack. I
think members appreciate that.\65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\65\ Ibid., p. 128.
A Television-Age Speaker
No other Speaker to date has had the media exposure of Newt Gingrich
(R-GA), nor experienced the highs and lows of such coverage in such a
short period of time (he was Speaker from 1995 to 1999). In part,
Gingrich's appeal to the media was based on his long-standing reliance
on reporters to convey his message to the public. Elected to the House
at the same time that cameras for C-SPAN began covering House floor
action, Gingrich became well known to C-SPAN watchers for delivering
impassioned 1-hour speeches after the daily business of the House
sessions was completed. It was C-SPAN that elevated his national
visibility, especially after one contentious episode.
As one reporter noted, Gingrich spoke daily to:
[A] sea of empty seats and a nationwide C-SPAN audience largely
unaware that the chamber was deserted. This practice so nettled Speaker
Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill of Massachusetts that he ordered the camera
operators to pull back and expose the charade. The fracas that followed
led O'Neill to lose his temper and speak of Gingrich's behavior as ``the
lowest thing I've ever seen.'' O'Neill's remark had to be stricken from
the record as an offense to House rules, the first time since 1797 a
Speaker had been rebuked for language.\66\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\66\ Ronald D. Elving, ``CQ Roundtable: The Media Whirlwind of Speaker
Gingrich,'' CQ Weekly, vol. 51, Dec. 9, 1995, p. 3774. Online version.
In brief, Gingrich's use of the media likely contributed to his
``climb up the leadership ladder,'' and eventual election as
Speaker.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ Sinclair, ``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House Leadership,'' in
Masters of the House, p. 315.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gingrich became Speaker when media coverage of Congress was increasing
both in kind and in frequency, from the number of print media outlets to
Internet publications to radio talk shows. As Gingrich stated: ``But by
January of 1995, when the new Contract with America class was being
sworn in, the amount of congressional media coverage had expanded
immensely. In addition to C-SPAN, there was now CNN, a twenty-four-hours
a day news channel, a daily Congressional Quarterly bulletin, and two
`local' newspapers, Roll Call and The Hill. In short, we now had a giant
screen and loudspeaker to catch all our missteps and misstatements.''
\68\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Gingrich, Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report, p. 5.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Speaker, Gingrich decided to permit television and radio coverage
of his daily press briefings. Gingrich explains the decision like this:
Because we had been so successful at getting our message out before
the election, my press secretary Tony Blankley and I still hoped that we
might still get at least part of the press on our side. So we decided to
hold daily televised press briefings. The daily press briefing was an
institution that Democratic Speakers had used for years, but their
briefings had been restricted to reporters without cameras. We on the
other hand had decided to show how bold and up-to-the-minute media-wise
we were. . . . CNN indicated how important it considered these briefings
by carrying them live. That alone should have been the tip-off to us
that we were playing with fire. But we plunged on. It will thus surprise
no one to learn that our press briefings turned out to be an ongoing
headache. They got to be little more than a game of ``pin the tail on
the Speaker.'' \69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ Ibid., pp. 36-37.
A congressional reporter who covered Gingrich on a daily basis
explained the significance of allowing media coverage of the Speaker's
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
briefings.
In the pre-camera era, speakers comfortably gave one-word answers and
reporters barked out short, cryptic questions. In the camera era,
answers go on for pages and the questions are elaborate, even
pretentious. . . . In the pre-camera era, the reporters who gathered
around the speaker's desk in his private office were mostly anonymous
worker-bees. In the camera era, network White House correspondents
swallow their pride and settle their expensive suits into one of the
coveted eight seats at Gingrich's table . . . . In the pre-camera era,
reporters could run through a dozen or so questions. Jokes were welcome.
Humor is a rarity in the camera era--after all, editors have television
sets, too. . . . With a regular crowd of about 30 newspaper and magazine
reporters and TV producers, Gingrich starts the 20-minute briefing with
an opening monologue.\70\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Jeanne Cummings, ``When Gingrich Holds Court, Washington Listens,''
Austin American-Statesman, Apr. 2, 1995, p. J1.
After a particularly intense exchange between Gingrich and a reporter
for Pacifica Radio, the Speaker decided to pull the plug on the daily
press briefings. They had lasted just a few months of 1995. ``Tony
Blankley, a spokesman for Gingrich, said May 2, that the decision was
due to `excessively flamboyant questions' from reporters. The staff was
also concerned that as they made the Speaker available to meet the daily
and varying demands of reporters, Gingrich was in the limelight far too
often. In all, Gingrich had 30 briefings between Jan. 4 and March 29
before stopping the sessions.'' \71\ During the remainder of his
speakership, Gingrich met irregularly with reporters. His successor, J.
Dennis Hastert (R-IL) conducts infrequent ``pad and pen'' briefings with
journalists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\71\ Donna Cassata, ``Gingrich to End News Briefings,'' CQ Weekly, vol.
51, May 6, 1995, p. 1224. Online version.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The media were also at the heart of what Gingrich called the ``single
most avoidable mistake I made during my first three years as Speaker.''
He calls it the saga of Air Force One.\72\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\72\ Gingrich, Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report, p. 42.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israeli Prime Minister Rabin had been assassinated in November 1995.
President Bill Clinton flew to Israel for the funeral and asked several
Members to join him on Air Force One, including Speaker Gingrich and
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS). At the time, President Clinton
and congressional Republicans were having trouble agreeing on how to
address the budget for that year, problems that eventually led several
Federal agencies to close down later that year because they had not
received an appropriation. The Republicans had hoped that on the plane
ride back from Rabin's funeral they might have an opportunity to sit
down and discuss the budget situation with the President. But Gingrich
and Dole were seated at the back of the plane, and they did not have the
opportunity to speak with Clinton about this. In addition, Gingrich and
Dole were asked to deplane from the rear, again nowhere near Clinton.
Several days later, Gingrich went to a morning breakfast to talk with
reporters. There, he says he told reporters that the plane incident
showed how hard it was to do business with the Clinton administration.
``If he is genuinely interested in reaching an agreement with us,'' I
said, ``why didn't he discuss one with us when we were only a few feet
away on an airplane?'' Then, I continued, digging my grave a little
deeper, ``if he wanted to indicate his seriousness about working with
us, why did he leave the plane by himself and make us go out the back
way?'' I said it was both selfish and self-destructive for the President
to hog the media by walking down those steps from the plane alone
instead of showing a little bipartisanship precisely when he claimed he
wanted to reach an agreement with us . . . By now my press secretary
Tony Blankley was positively white with horror . . . The story exploded
almost immediately. Of all the papers, and there were quite a few who
put the story on the front page, the worst was the New York Daily News,
which ran a banner headline on page one that read simply, ``Crybaby.''
\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\73\ Ibid., pp. 44-45.
Blankley characterized the next few days after the story broke as the
``single worst press moment'' of Gingrich's career. It ``all but
destroyed his speakership,'' he said.\74\ The loss of GOP House seats in
November 1996 and particularly in 1998 also contributed to the end of
Gingrich's career in the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\ Tony Blankley, Washington Times editorial page editor, telephone
conversation with author, Aug. 20, 2003.
Conclusion
The relationship between the Speaker and the press, in sum, depends to
a great extent on the individual style of the leader, the context of the
times (whether he is the opposition party leader, for example) and the
constantly changing media technology. It is unclear, for example,
whether Speaker Longworth would be as successful with the press now, in
the days of instant Internet news and live television coverage, as he
was when personal relationships were the key to getting his message out.
The individual style of the current Speaker, J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL),
appears to be headed down a different path from his predecessor
Gingrich. While Speaker Hastert does not show the blanket antipathy
toward television that Sam Rayburn did, neither does he invite the
limelight.
Chapter 6
The Speaker and the President:
Conflict and Cooperation
R. Eric Petersen
Analyst in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
It is all very well for the President of the United States to suggest
to Congress a forward-looking legislative program. That is one of the
duties of the President. It is a horse of another color to get such a
program accepted by even the President's own party in either House or
Senate . . . To accomplish this result it was necessary for the
President and the Speaker to work in close harmony.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Joseph Gurney Cannon, The Memoirs of Joseph Gurney ``Uncle Joe''
Cannon, transcribed by Helen Leseure Abdill (Danville, IL: Vermilion
County Museum Society, 1996), p. 128.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House, 1903-1911
Under the Constitution, Congress and the executive branch are coequal.
While the Constitution does not specify the relationship between the
Speaker of the House and the President of the United States, it has been
the practice in the past century that the Speaker regularly interacts
with the President on a variety of legislative and political matters. In
modern practice, political realities dictate that the Speaker and
President regularly work together as policymaking partners. In that
reality lies the potential for both tension and controversy. As
political scientist Harold Laski wrote, ``the President is at no point
the master of the legislature. He can indicate a path of action to
Congress. He can argue, bully, persuade, cajole; but he is always
outside Congress, and subject to a will he cannot dominate.'' \2\ On the
congressional side, the constitutionally grounded position of equality
is exemplified by Speaker Sam Rayburn. In an ABC news interview near the
end of his life, Speaker Rayburn asserted the constitutional position
between Speaker and President in the five decades he served in the
House. Angered at a reporter's suggestion of subservience to the
President, Rayburn replied, ``I never served under any President. I
served with eight.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Harold J. Laski, The American Presidency, An Interpretation
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1940), p. 13.
\3\ Paul F. Boller, Congressional Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991), p. 227, italics in original. See also Joseph Martin, My
Fifty Years in Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), p. 180 and Neil
MacNeil, Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (New York:
David McKay, Co., 1961), p. 67.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Much has been written about the Presidents who have served during the
past century, but observers note that comparatively little has been
written about the Speakers. Twenty years ago, then-Speaker Thomas P.
O'Neill suggested that ``there is a great deal more we need to know
about the history of the office and the lives of the men who have been
Speaker.'' \4\ Observers note that an area of inquiry that is poorly
understood is how the Speaker and the President interact as leaders of
their respective branches. In the past century, 17 men have served as
Speaker of the House of Representatives,\5\ while 18 others have been
President of the United States.\6\ As national political leaders, the
Speaker and President undertake a number of similar public functions.
Each leader is in the public eye through speeches, appearances on radio
and television, press conferences, and the print media. The President
and the Speaker each publicize the achievements of their branches. They
also assist their party members seeking election and reelection. When
the majority party in the House is not the same as that of the
President, the Speaker may act as a spokesman for the loyal opposition.
Acts of Congress become law only when signed by the Speaker, presiding
officer of the Senate, and the President. By statute, the Speaker is
second in line, behind the Vice President, to succeed to the
Presidency.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Thomas P. O'Neill, Foreword in Donald R. Kennon, The Speakers of the
U.S. House of Representatives: A Bibliography, 1789-1984 (Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. xxiii.
\5\ Those who have served in the past 100 years as Speaker of the House,
and their years of service as Speaker, are: Joseph G. Cannon, 1903-1911;
James B. ``Champ'' Clark, 1911-1919; Frederick H. Gillett, 1919-1925;
Nicholas Longworth, 1925-1931; John Nance Garner, 1931-1933; Henry T.
Rainey, 1933-1934; Joseph W. Byrns, 1935-1936; William B. Bankhead,
1936-1940; Sam Rayburn, 1940-1947, 1949-1953, and 1955-1961; Joseph W.
Martin, Jr., 1947-1949, and 1953-1955; John W. McCormack, 1962-1970;
Carl Albert, 1971-1977; Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., 1977-1987; James C.
Wright, Jr., 1987-1989; Thomas S. Foley, 1989-1995; Newt Gingrich, 1995-
1999; and J. Dennis Hastert, 1999- .
\6\ Those who have served in the past 100 years as President of the
United States, and their years in office, are Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-
1909; William Howard Taft, 1909-1913; Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921; Warren
G. Harding, 1921-1923; Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929; Herbert C. Hoover,
1929-1933; Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945; Harry S Truman, 1945-1953;
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961; John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963; Lyndon B.
Johnson, 1963-1969; Richard M. Nixon, 1969-1974; Gerald R. Ford, 1974-
1977; Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981; Ronald W. Reagan, 1981-1989; George H.W.
Bush, 1989-1993; William J. Clinton, 1993-2001; and George W. Bush,
2001- .
\7\ The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 380) provides that
if ``there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the
powers and duties of the office of the President, then the Speaker of
the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and
as Representative in Congress, act as President.'' To succeed to the
Presidency, a Speaker would also need to qualify under the terms of
Article II, Section 5 of the Constitution, which requires that the
President be a ``natural-born citizen,'' at least 35 years of age, and a
resident within the United States for 14 years. No Speaker has succeeded
to the Presidency under these conditions. The 1947 law superseded the
Succession Act of 1886 (24 Stat. 1), which placed in the line of
Presidential succession after the Vice President the Cabinet officers in
the chronological order in which their departments were created.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the activities of these two leaders may often be similar,
relations between the Speaker and the President are complex and
influenced by a number of factors. Their relationships are influenced by
the Constitution, policy necessities, perceived prerogatives of the
executive and legislative branches, world events, domestic politics, and
their personalities and governing styles. At different times, these
factors have the potential to create divergent personal, political, and
institutional consequences. Understandably, the relationship between the
two officials has been marked by periods of both conflict and
cooperation. On occasion, the relationship between the Speaker and the
President attracts widespread public notice due to an isolated incident
that comes to the attention of the public. In spring 1991, for example,
President George H.W. Bush came to the Capitol to deliver an address to
a joint session of Congress regarding the role of the U.S. military in
operations leading to the liberation of Kuwait. Departing from the
typical protocol of these occasions, Speaker Thomas Foley said:
Mr. President, it is customary in joint sessions for the Chair to
present the President to the Members of Congress directly and without
further comment. But I wish to depart from tradition tonight and express
to you, on behalf of the Congress and the country, and, through you, to
the members of our Armed Forces our warmest congratulations on the
brilliant victory of the Desert Storm Operation.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Speaker Thomas Foley, ``Joint Session of the House and Senate Held
Pursuant to the Provisions of House Concurrent Resolution 83 to Hear an
Address by the President of the United States,'' remarks in the House,
Congressional Record, vol. 137, Mar. 6, 1991, p. 5140.
Although Speakers may support Presidential actions, there also have
been important instances of institutional, political, and even personal
conflict between the two leaders over the past century. Seemingly
isolated or trivial events may upset the relationship between the
Speaker and the President in a much greater fashion than the incident
appeared to warrant at the time. Noteworthy among such incidents are the
following:
In fall 1995, Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Members of
Congress were reportedly angry with President Bill Clinton over his
treatment of congressional leaders during a diplomatic trip. Gingrich
and Clinton had traveled together on Air Force One with a delegation of
current and former U.S. officials to attend the funeral of Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had been assassinated. Before the trip,
congressional leaders were negotiating with President Clinton to set
spending levels for the Federal Government, but the leaders held no
talks regarding the budget during the flights between Washington, DC,
and Tel Aviv. On arrival in Israel, the President exited Air Force One
through the main door. The Speaker was reportedly angered that he and
other officials, including Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, and
former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, were asked to
disembark through the plane's rear door.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ John E. Yang and Eric Pianin, ``Interim Measures Advance in House;
Spending, Debt Bills Include Provisions Strongly Opposed by Clinton,''
Washington Post, Nov. 8, 1995, p. A4; Todd S. Purdue, ``November 5-11:
on Air Force One, Cabin Fever,'' New York Times, Nov. 12, 1995, p. 4;
and Newt Gingrich, Lessons Learned the Hard Way: A Personal Report (New
York: Harper Collins, 1998), pp. 42-46.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The evening before President Jimmy Carter's inauguration in
1977, a gala was held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts. Speaker O'Neill and his wife were to be seated with the President-
elect and Mrs. Carter. Speaker O'Neill requested an additional dozen
tickets for friends and members of his family, and White House staff
reportedly assured him that his guests would be seated near the stage in
an area reserved for Members of Congress. In his autobiography, Speaker
O'Neill described searching the audience for his relatives and friends.
After the program, he was reunited with them and told that their seats
were in the last row of the second balcony. On Inauguration Day, Speaker
O'Neill, concerned about the tone the incident set between Congress and
the White House, reportedly telephoned a senior Carter adviser to relate
his displeasure. In a short time, the new President's adviser appeared
in the Speaker's office to apologize in person and assure the Speaker
that the seating arrangements were the result of a mistake. In his
autobiography, Speaker O'Neill indicated that he had doubts about the
sincerity of the apology, saying that as far as he could see, the aide
appeared to regard ``a House Speaker as something you bought on sale at
Radio Shack. I could see that this was just the beginning of my problems
with these guys.'' \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House: The Life and
Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill (New York: Random House, 1987),
pp. 310-311. See also John Aloysius Farrell, Tip O'Neill and the
Democratic Century (New York: Little, Brown, 2001), pp. 450-453.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During President Theodore Roosevelt's administration, dinners
were held to honor the Cabinet, diplomatic corps and members of the
Supreme Court. An invitation to these affairs was routinely extended to
Speaker Joseph Cannon, who usually declined, often at the last minute,
because he objected to seating arrangements that did not recognize his
position in government. For the 1905 Supreme Court dinner, Cannon
reportedly learned he was to be seated below the Associate Justices of
the Supreme Court at the banquet table. On the basis of his position as
Speaker, Cannon thought it more appropriate to be seated next in line to
the Chief Justice of the United Sates and the Vice President, with the
Associate Justices, who were among the honored guests, seated after him.
In a letter to President Roosevelt, Speaker Cannon reportedly wrote that
``even if `a wooden Indian' were Speaker of the House, he would deserve
that courtesy.'' Shortly thereafter, President Roosevelt instituted a
dinner to honor the Speaker, and to invite no one in government who
might be seated more prominently than the guest of honor.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ See William Rea Gwinn, Uncle Joe Cannon, Archfoe of the Insurgency:
A History of the Rise and Fall of Cannonism (New York: Bookman
Associates, 1957), pp. 79-80; and Irwin Hood Hoover, Forty-Two Years at
the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), pp. 2992-2993. In his
memoirs, Speaker Cannon remembered a Presidential dinner given to honor
the diplomatic corps. Due to a scheduling conflict, the Speaker asked
the President's leave not to attend. Alluding to the importance placed
on such matters by other Members of the House, and precedent established
by Speaker Thomas Reed, who reportedly would not attend functions when
other government officials might outrank him, Cannon suggested that he
and Roosevelt discuss the matter and seek the assistance of the State
Department's protocol experts. The outcome of these discussions was the
Speaker's dinner. See Joseph Gurney Cannon, The Memoirs, pp. 123-124.
While the dinners for the Speaker continued after Roosevelt left office,
their efficacy was somewhat diminished. President William Howard Taft
continued the tradition of honoring the Speaker with an annual dinner,
and was accused of associating himself too closely with what some
observers thought was Cannon's autocratic style of overseeing the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite periodic conflicts between the two leaders, the Speaker and
President must work together if policy proposals are to be enacted into
law. As Speaker Joseph Cannon stated, ``a President without both houses
of Congress back of him doesn't amount to much more than a cat without
claws . . .'' \12\ To better understand the relationship between a
Speaker and President, this chapter describes how two Speakers, Joseph
Gurney Cannon, and Sam Rayburn, and two Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, interacted on the national stage. The two
pairs of leaders were chosen for pragmatic and practical purposes. The
election of Representative Cannon as Speaker marked the high point of
the autocratic speakership. Representative Rayburn's career in Congress
spanned 48 years, and the administrations of 8 Presidents, with Rayburn
serving as Speaker during periods in which the House and speakership
were vastly changed from Cannon's time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ ``Wise Sayings that Made Joe Cannon the Sage of His Party,''
Chicago Tribune, Nov. 13, 1926, p. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A review of the Speaker-President relationship during two contrasting
periods underscores the importance of political context, leadership, and
working relationships between leaders in shaping policy outcomes. The
first examines how President Theodore Roosevelt had to deal with Speaker
Cannon's ``command and control'' leadership of the House. As Speaker,
Cannon dominated the Chamber and all its committees. He often worked to
block Roosevelt's initiatives, which contributed to the revolt against
him by progressive Republicans and minority Democrats. By comparison,
Speaker Rayburn led a committee-centered institution where southern
committee chairs exercised large sway over the fate of Presidential
proposals. Rayburn employed a pragmatic leadership style of bargaining,
employing political and personal cajolery to win legislative victories
for President Franklin Roosevelt.
Conflict Between Leaders: Joseph Cannon and Theodore Roosevelt
By fall 1902, several weeks before the adjournment of the 57th
Congress (1901-1903), members of President Theodore Roosevelt's
administration concluded that Representative Joseph Gurney Cannon of
Illinois, then-chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, would be
elected Speaker at the commencement of the 58th Congress (1903-1905).
The two men knew each other from the periods when Roosevelt served at
various times as Civil Service Commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, and Vice President of the United States under William McKinley.
During Roosevelt's time with the Civil Service Commission, for example,
the agency had its budget cut by the House Committee on
Appropriations.\13\ For his part, Cannon said that his impressions of
Roosevelt from these earlier contacts were not positive.\14\ This
unfavorable opinion appears to have grown out of the two leaders'
divergent governing and political philosophies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Scott William Rager, The Fall of the House of Cannon: Uncle Joe and
His Enemies, 1903-1910 (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, 1991), pp. 34-49.
\14\ Cannon, The Memoirs, p. 127.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roosevelt believed that the government should be the great arbiter of
the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between
capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to each and dispensing favors to
none. By contrast, Speaker Cannon's world view was developed by his
early experiences as a self-made man, who had started adult life as a
store clerk. Cannon described how his life's experience had impressed
him ``with the value of conservatism, and warned me against advocating
`change for change's sake.' The span of 30 years in Congress, before I
became Speaker, had borne in upon me the dangers that lay in catch
phrases, and popular slogans, and the difficulty of transforming
reforming ideals into legislation that could be got through the Congress
of the United States in recognizable form, and that would work after it
became law.'' \15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Ibid., p. 128.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In spite of such widely divergent views, it is noteworthy that both
leaders made a generally successful effort to work together. With
Cannon's ascendance to the Speaker's chair all but assured, members of
Roosevelt's Cabinet conveyed congratulations to the incoming Speaker.
Included in the congratulations were assurances that the President and
his Cabinet understood that, regarding Roosevelt's policies, ``nothing
could be done unless there was a `very general consent in Congress.' ''
\16\ President Roosevelt personally took steps to cultivate an improved
relationship with Cannon. In August 1903, Roosevelt met with several
Senate leaders in his summer home in Oyster Bay, NY, to discuss proposed
currency and financial legislation.\17\ When the meetings were finished,
the President wrote to Cannon to assure him that no financial plan would
be proposed without first taking into account the views of the House.
After summarizing his discussions with the Senators, the President asked
Cannon, ``Now what are your views on the subject? We are all decided
that of course we would not make up our minds in any way until we found
out what your judgement was.'' \18\ Cannon reportedly responded that,
with a Presidential election to be held in 1904, he saw little benefit
from considering financial legislation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Gwinn, Uncle Joe Cannon, p. 74.
\17\ The legislative proposal considered at the Oyster Bay meeting was
the Aldrich bill, after Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich of Rhode Island.
The proposal would have authorized the use of customs receipts and
nongovernmental securities as the basis for the issuance of currency.
\18\ Gwinn, Uncle Joe Cannon, pp. 74-77.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In November 1903, a month before the legislature was scheduled to
convene, President Roosevelt called the 58th Congress into special
session to consider Cuban reciprocity, but not financial issues.\19\
With the speakership vacant, however, House rules dictated that the
first order of business was the election of Joseph Cannon as the new
Speaker. On assuming the post, Cannon and Roosevelt worked to build an
effective working relationship. Throughout their time as leaders,
Roosevelt and Cannon met regularly to discuss measures that Congress was
to consider. President Roosevelt wrote informally to the Speaker
regarding matters before the House. The material in these missives could
be used by the Speaker as he saw fit to persuade other Members regarding
the President's positions.\20\ In his autobiography, Speaker Cannon
noted that, during the time he was Speaker and Roosevelt was the
President, ``Mr Roosevelt and I were on terms of full and free
consultation. I went often to the White House in the evening, and the
President came to my house at times to talk things over. When we
differed, in principle or method, we were frank about it, and threshed
the problem out to the end.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ No legislation was passed during the special session, because the
Senate was unable to reach agreement on its own measure, and did not
adopt the version passed by the House.
\20\ Under the rules of the House, formal written communications from
the President of the United States to the Speaker of the House would be
referred to the appropriate committee.
\21\ Cannon, The Memoirs, p. 131.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Roosevelt, Cannon was the spokesman for a majority of the House
and a sounding board for the activist President. Roosevelt reportedly
conferred with the Speaker regarding all of his serious legislative
initiatives before making them public. Other notes reassured the Speaker
that the President would work with him despite publication in newspapers
of claims to the contrary. In one note to Cannon, who had returned to
his Illinois district between sessions, Roosevelt implored the Speaker
to visit the White House on his return to Washington, and dismissed
press speculation regarding differences between the two:
Stop in here as soon as you can. I care very little for what the
newspapers get in the way of passing sensationalism; but I do not want
the people of the country to get the idea that there will be any split
or clash between you and me . . .\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Joseph Cannon, Jan. 13, 1905, in
Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols.
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), vol. 4, p. 1101.
While Roosevelt and Cannon were mostly able to look past public
speculation regarding their political relationship and work together,
the Speaker took care that the President was not given free rein by the
House. Cannon recognized that when a forceful, activist chief executive
was in office, the legislature could sometimes be led by the executive.
The Speaker's position was that while executive leadership was likely,
the House must not be driven by a President, and that ``Roosevelt was
apt to try to drive'' it.\23\ Consequently Cannon's task was to move the
President's programs forward in a House where some members had deep
reservations regarding the President's progressive inclinations.
Personally, Speaker Cannon, too, viewed certain Roosevelt policies with
dismay. Their disagreements, Cannon suggested, occurred because
``Roosevelt had the ambition to do things; I had the more confined
outlook of the legislator who had to consider ways of meeting
expenditures of the new departures and expansions in government.'' \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Cannon, The Memoirs, p. 129.
\24\ L. White Busbey, Uncle Joe Cannon: The Story of a Pioneer American,
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927, republished 1970), pp. 217-218.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A discussion regarding the President's 1905 annual message to Congress
illustrates the different outlooks of the two leaders. In preparing the
message, Roosevelt enquired of congressional leaders as to the
possibility of revising the tariff. Based on those discussions,
Roosevelt sent Cannon, who was at his home in Danville, IL, a draft of
what he would say. The draft statement included a proposal that Congress
create a minimum and maximum scale for setting tariffs that could be put
into force at the discretion of the Executive. Cannon viewed this
proposal as a power grab by the White House. On returning to Washington,
Cannon and Roosevelt discussed the matter further. In the course of
these discussions, which Cannon described as ``very frank,'' the Speaker
suggested that tariff legislation not be concluded during the lame duck
session of the 58th Congress.\25\ When the President's message arrived
on Capitol Hill, it included legislative proposals to expand the
authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix railroad rates, a
number of measures related to the District of Columbia, the creation of
a forest service in the Department of Agriculture, and several other
proposals. There was no mention of tariff revision.\26\ Tariff policies,
would, however, remain an issue between the two leaders throughout
Roosevelt's tenure as President.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Ibid., pp. 207-209; and Gwinn, Uncle Joe Cannon, pp. 91-92.
\26\ See Theodore Roosevelt, ``Fourth Annual Message to the Senate and
House of Representatives,'' Dec. 6, 1904, in James D. Richardson, comp.,
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 20 vols.
(New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1897-1911), vol. XIV, pp.
6894-6930.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The collaboration between the Speaker and the President produced
success for the President's legislative program, ``. . . modified in
practical ways by individuals and committees of the House and Senate . .
.'' \27\ During the 58th and 59th Congresses (1903-1907), Congress
enacted changes to the railroad rates, the creation of the Bureau of
Corporations in the newly established Department of Commerce and Labor,
meat inspection laws, and other measures. The success of Roosevelt's
legislative program was strongly determined by his ongoing consultation
and cordial relations with Speaker Cannon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Cannon, The Memoirs, p. 130.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, some difficulties did develop during this period, due to
political differences between the two men. The establishment of a forest
service within the Department of Agriculture and the creation of
national forests in the southern Appalachians and the White Mountains of
New Hampshire were initiatives that caused personal tension between a
conservationist President and a Speaker who, while Appropriations
Committee chairman, would consider ``not one cent for scenery.'' \28\
Personal and institutional tensions between the leaders and branches
were also exacerbated during frequent considerations of tariff policy
throughout Roosevelt's time as President.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (New York: Harcourt Brace,
1947), pp. 203-212, 242-243; quote found on p. 243.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On balance, the working relation between the two leaders appears
productive. The wear and tear of conflict and compromise, however, may
have contributed to a serious rift between the two men regarding the
Secret Service. By statute, the agency's role was to detect the
counterfeiting of currency. Since the assassination of President William
McKinley in 1901, the Secret Service had also unofficially assumed
responsibility for Presidential protection. For several years the agency
had exceeded its statutory mandate by spending some of its
appropriation, which was intended to fund anticounterfeiting laws, on
Presidential security and investigations.
In 1908, the House Committee on Appropriations amended the Sundry
Civil Appropriation bill to institute restrictions on employment in the
Secret Service as a way to curb its activities. The measure was
subsequently passed by both Chambers and signed into law by Roosevelt.
Later that year, the chief of the Secret Service requested that all
limitations on the $125,000 appropriation provided to the agency be
lifted to allow him and the Secretary of the Treasury to allocate funds
as they saw fit. The House Committee on Appropriations declined to
remove the limitation.\29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Rager, The Fall of the House of Cannon, pp. 47-48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Roosevelt's response to the committee's action was to appeal
directly to Speaker Cannon. In another personal message arguing that the
provisions regarding the employment of Secret Service agents would
``work very great damage to the government in its endeavor to prevent
and punish crime,'' \30\ Roosevelt suggested that only criminals need
fear the proposed changes. Before Speaker Cannon could solicit the
thoughts of House Members, or respond to Roosevelt's personal message,
the President's annual message arrived on Capitol Hill. In a departure
from previous practice, Speaker Cannon reported that he had neither been
consulted, nor seen a draft of the document before the message was
officially presented. Cannon described himself ``as much surprised as
any one when it was found that this Message contained an assault upon
Congress, and especially upon the House of Representatives,'' due to the
limitations on the activities of the Secret Service.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Busbey, Uncle Joe Cannon, p. 231.
\31\ Ibid., pp. 231-232.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The President's message included a passage referring to the issue of
the limitations imposed on the Secret Service. Regarding that matter,
Roosevelt wrote, in part:
Last year an amendment was incorporated in the measure providing for
the Secret Service, which provided that there be no detail from the
Secret Service and no transfer therefrom. It is not too much to say that
this amendment has been of benefit only, and could be of benefit only,
to the criminal classes . . . The chief argument in favor of the
provision was that the Congressmen did not themselves wish to be
investigated by Secret Service men. Very little of such investigation
has been done in the past; but it is true that the work of the Secret
Service agents was partially responsible for the indictment and
conviction of a Senator and Congressman for land frauds in Oregon. I do
not believe that it is in the public interest to protect criminally
[sic] in any branch of the public service, and exactly as we have again
and again during the past seven years prosecuted and convicted such
criminals who were in the executive branch of the Government, so in my
belief we should be given ample means to prosecute them if found in the
legislative branch. But if this is not considered desirable a special
exception could be made in the law prohibiting the use of the Secret
Service force in investigating Members of the Congress.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ Theodore Roosevelt, ``Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and House
of Representatives,'' Dec. 8, 1908, in Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, vol. XVI, pp. 7198-7240; quote found on pp. 7225-7226.
The House responded to this message with what Speaker Cannon described
as indignation. On December 9, 1908, Representative James Breck Perkins,
a friend of Roosevelt's and fellow Republican from New York, introduced
H. Res. 451 (60th Congress) to authorize the Speaker to appoint a
special committee to consider what action the Chamber should take in
response to Roosevelt's message. In introducing the measure,
Representative Perkins said ``to the Congress is granted great power.
And upon it are imposed great responsibilities. We can not neglect our
duties nor shirk our responsibilities. The dignity of that body . . .
should be properly maintained. The statements made by the President of
the United States can not be lightly disregarded . . .'' \33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Representative James Breck Perkins, ``Question of Privilege,''
remarks in the House, Congressional Record, vol. 43, Dec. 11, 1908, p.
140.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cannon supported the special committee to appease House Members who
wished to immediately introduce a measure to censure the President.
After a week of deliberation, the committee, on December 17, was
prepared to report a measure to the House when it convened at noon. As
Speaker Cannon was about to assume the chair and call the House to
order, he received word from the President that he was to come to the
White House for a consultation with the President. Upon being told that
the Speaker was in the hall of the House, the President reportedly
directed that the message be delivered to the Speaker personally, and
that the consultation be held before the House considered the report of
the special committee. Speaker Cannon indicated that:
. . . when the Secretary to the Speaker brought the message to the
Chair, Mr. Perkins was on his feet demanding recognition to present his
report . . . I held the gavel in the air for a moment as my secretary
delivered the President's telephone message, which was probably the only
one of its kind ever sent by the President to the Speaker of the House.
I was indignant, but the business in hand saved me from making any
comment. I simply brought down the gavel and recognized Mr. Perkins.
Then I told my secretary to telephone the President's secretary just
what had occurred and to say that the Speaker would be pleased to call
upon the President as soon as the report of the committee was disposed
of.\34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Busbey, Uncle Joe Cannon, pp. 235-236.
The special committee unanimously reported a resolution that the
President be requested to provide any evidence upon which he based his
claims, including: (1) that Members of Congress did not wish to be
investigated by the Secret Service; (2) any evidence connecting any
Member of the current Congress to criminal activity; and (3) whether the
President had referred any Member to the courts for trial or reported
any illicit behavior by Members to the House of Representatives.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Representative James Breck Perkins, ``The Secret Service--
President's Annual Message,'' remarks in the House, Congressional
Record, vol. 43, Dec. 17, 1908, p. 373.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The resolution was adopted by the House on December 17, 1908, and
forwarded to the President. On January 4, 1909, the President responded
with a special message, the contents of which Cannon described as ``more
offensive than the one to which the House had taken exception.'' \36\
Roosevelt's message included references to a newspaper article written
by a reporter who was currently serving as Speaker Cannon's personal
secretary. Again, the reaction of the House was to interpret the
President's response as an attack on a coequal branch of government. In
addition, some Members considered the inclusion of work done by the
Speaker's secretary before he was employed by the government as a veiled
broadside at the Speaker himself. In due course, the newspaper article
was referred to the special committee established to respond to the
first report. After three days of deliberation, the committee reported
back, recommending that the House table the message from the President.
After extensive debate, the House voted 212 to 36 to accept the
committee's tabling proposal, and the President's message received no
further consideration by the House.\37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Busbey, Uncle Joe Cannon, p. 239.
\37\ ``Annual Message of the President--Secret Service,'' Congressional
Record, vol. 43, Jan. 8, 1909, pp. 645-684. See also Rager, ``The Fall
of the House of Cannon,'' pp. 47-49.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tabling an item in the House constitutes the immediate, final, and
adverse disposition of a matter under consideration. At the time of the
controversy between Roosevelt and the House, messages from the President
and other executive branch communications were usually received by the
House, and referred to the appropriate committee for consideration. As
these communications were suggestive, and did not compel Congress to
take specific action, the committee referral signified the effective end
of congressional consideration. When the House went to the effort of
introducing, debating, and voting on a motion to table the President's
message, it signaled its symbolic refusal to accept the message. This
was and is a rare occurrence. Before Roosevelt's Secret Service
controversy, the House had not taken steps to refuse a Presidential
message since the administration of President Andrew Jackson, more than
70 years earlier. A few weeks later, Roosevelt's term ended. Cannon
continued as Speaker in the 61st Congress, and proceeded to forge a
relationship with the new President, William Howard Taft.
Cooperation Between Leaders: Sam Rayburn and Franklin D. Roosevelt
When Representative Sam Rayburn of Texas was elected Speaker on
September 16, 1940, following the death of Speaker William B. Bankhead,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt [FDR] was completing his second term as
President. Like Theodore Roosevelt and Joseph Cannon, Rayburn and FDR
had previous interactions, although Rayburn had come to view FDR more
positively than Cannon saw Theodore Roosevelt. During FDR's first term,
Rayburn had been chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign
Commerce. Many of FDR's New Deal proposals were referred to the Rayburn-
led panel, including measures which became the Securities Act of 1933;
Home Owners Loan Act; Banking Act of 1933; National Industrial Recovery
Act; Emergency Railroad Transportation Act of 1933; Securities Exchange
Act of 1934; and Communications Act of 1934.\38\ Further, Rayburn, who
was majority leader during the 75th and 76th Congresses (1937-1940),
regularly served as Speaker pro tempore because of Bankhead's ill
health, and worked with FDR on a number of legislative issues, including
the President's unsuccessful effort to change the number of justices on
the Supreme Court.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Booth Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn: A Political Partnership
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1971), pp. 45-53.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite general political agreement between the President and
congressional leaders during FDR's terms, Rayburn and Speaker Bankhead
were often unaware of the President's intentions regarding policy and
legislative proposals. Legislative initiatives, such as FDR's proposals
to enlarge the Supreme Court, and the contents of the President's 1937
annual message to Congress, were unknown to the House leaders until they
were delivered to the Chamber.\39\ Often, Speaker Bankhead would be
embarrassed when he made a statement to the media, only to find that the
President had already issued a message contradicting the Speaker. In one
instance when this occurred, Rayburn told Jimmy Roosevelt, the
President's son and liaison to Congress, to ``tell your father if I'm
ever Speaker this kind of thing won't happen to me more than once.''
\40\ Rayburn reportedly believed that FDR would have more success with
his legislative initiatives if communications were better between the
White House and Capitol Hill. To address this problem, Rayburn set out
to establish regular meetings between FDR and congressional leaders. He
told Tommy Corcoran, a lobbyist with access to the White House that:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ ``Basic Law Change Gains in Congress,'' New York Times, Jan. 8,
1937, p. 1. For a discussion of Speaker Bankhead's interactions with
FDR, see William J. Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,''
Journal of Southern History, vol. 21, Aug. 1956, pp. 354-358.
\40\ Alfred Steinberg, Sam Rayburn: A Biography (New York: Hawthorn
Books, 1975), p. 140.
the President ought to be having a meeting every week with his House and
Senate Leaders so we could tell him what we're planning, and he could
tell us his plans. It could eliminate a lot of confusion. See what you
could do--but don't you dare let him know I suggested it 'cause he
thinks he ``borned'' every idea that ever was.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ D.B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (Austin,
TX: Texas Monthly Press, 1987), p. 227.
At a subsequent White House meeting, FDR informed Rayburn that he had
been thinking that ``maybe it would be a good idea if I had a meeting
with Bill . . .'' (Speaker Bankhead), Rayburn, Vice President John Nance
Garner,\42\ and Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, who was majority
leader of the Senate. Roosevelt proposed that the leaders could meet
about once a week to discuss and coordinate planning. Rayburn replied
that the suggestion was one of the smartest ideas that he had ever
heard.\43\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ John Nance Garner of Texas, had been Speaker of the House in the
72d Congress (1931-1933).
\43\ Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, p. 227.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the time Rayburn became Speaker, he and FDR had worked out their
communications issues and were beginning to turn to legislative and
policy matters. With war raging in Europe and Japan engaging in
aggression in Asia, both leaders recognized that defense and
preparedness issues would consume much of their time in the coming
months. Rayburn believed strongly that the American system of government
was best served by a strong, independent legislature. While the new
Speaker liked and admired FDR, he was determined not to yield to the
executive branch any constitutional prerogatives granted to the
Congress.\44\ At the same time, Rayburn understood that, in times of
national jeopardy, the country needed to be led by the President. ``When
the nation is in danger,'' Rayburn believed, ``you have to follow your
leader. The man in the White House is the only leader this nation has .
. . Although we may disagree with him, we must follow our president in
times of peril . . .'' \45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Ibid., p. 245.
\45\ Ibid., p. 101.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global events soon gave Rayburn the opportunity to act on his beliefs.
On January 6, 1941, Speaker Rayburn's 59th birthday, President Roosevelt
addressed a joint session of Congress to deliver his Annual Message to
the Congress. Around the world, the forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan
had engaged in invasions and other aggression. In Europe, France had
fallen in 1940, and as Roosevelt stood before Congress, the United
Kingdom was enduring regular attacks by the Nazi air force. In the
course of the speech, FDR warned of the possibility that the United
States could find itself involved in the conflict.\46\ The President
specifically requested authority from Congress to produce munitions and
other war supplies that could be provided to countries that were at war
with Germany, Italy and Japan, and whose defense was considered vital to
the defense of the United States. This aid was to be directed primarily
to the United Kingdom, but other countries would also be eligible for
assistance. As these countries were unlikely to be able to pay for these
materials, FDR also proposed funding their acquisition of ships, planes,
tanks, and guns, through a program that would become popularly known as
Lend-Lease.\47\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Franklin D. Roosevelt, ``The Annual Message to the Congress, Jan.
6, 1941,'' in Samuel I. Rosenman, comp., The Public Papers and Addresses
of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 vols. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1938-
1950), vol. 3, pp. 663-678.
\47\ Steinberg, Sam Rayburn, pp. 166-167.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On January 10, 1941, the President sent to Congress the first of
several measures designed to move the Nation forward in war preparation.
At Rayburn's behest, Representative John McCormack of Massachusetts, who
served as majority leader,\48\ introduced the lend-lease measure, which
was deliberately assigned the number H.R. 1776. The measure provided the
President with the authority to transfer title to, exchange, lease,
lend, or otherwise dispose of any defense article to any government
whose defense the President deemed vital to the defense of the United
States. The proposal called for $7 billion to fund the provision of war
materials to nations that could not afford to pay. Under the proposal,
the President would be the sole authority to decide which countries
would receive military assistance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ McCormack later served as Speaker during the 87th through 91st
Congresses (1961-1970).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opponents of lend-lease expressed concern that the measure, if passed,
would invest too much power in the President. These concerns focused on
what appeared to some to be a Presidential request for a ``blank check''
which could be used with little congressional oversight. Others saw the
measure as an outright abandonment by Congress of its power to declare
war, allowing it to be transferred to the President so he could draw the
United States into the global conflict.\49\ For his part, Speaker
Rayburn publicly supported granting the President wide latitude in
carrying out the lend-lease program. ``If we are to aid the
democracies,'' Rayburn said, ``Congress must enact a law giving the
power to somebody to administer the law. There could be no one man in
this country as well qualified to administer it as the President.''
Rayburn also discussed the possible consequence of failing to provide
the President with the proposed authority, saying ``either we give the
President the flexible powers necessary to help Britain, or by our
inaction, we strengthen Hitler's power to conquer Britain and attack
us.'' \50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn, pp. 159-162.
\50\ Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, pp. 257-258.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Privately, however, Rayburn communicated to the President the concerns
of Members, and informed the President that the bill was dead without
changes. At FDR's urging, Rayburn led efforts in the House to craft a
compromise that addressed the concerns of the House. Working with the
President, Representative Sol Bloom, chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, and other committee members, Rayburn was able to
negotiate amendments that preserved the basic outline of FDR's proposal
while addressing the concerns that the measure would represent too large
a grant of power to the executive. These included a prohibition on
American shipping convoys transporting war materials, a requirement that
the President report three times a month to Congress regarding the
program's progress, and a 2-year limit on the program. In addition, the
$7 billion the President requested would have to go through scrutiny of
the regular appropriations process.
On the floor, where debate began February 3, Speaker Rayburn, Majority
Leader McCormack, and Chairman Bloom managed the progress of the lend-
lease measure through 5 days of debate. Several Members who were opposed
to the proposal offered amendments designed to scuttle the legislation.
Many of these were declared nongermane by the chair. The House rejected
19 amendments before passing H.R. 1776 by a vote of 260 to 165.\51\ One
month later, the Senate passed lend-lease with minor amendments. Rayburn
convened the House soon thereafter, and, with little debate, the Chamber
accepted the changes. An hour after the House gave final approval, the
measure was signed into law by President Roosevelt.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Transcripts of the consideration of H.R. 1776 in the House can be
found in the Congressional Record, vol. 87, Feb. 3-7, 1941, pp. 484-519,
522-568, 573-678, 710-749, and 753-815.
\52\ 55 Stat. 31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Throughout 1941, Congress worked with the President to develop the
Nation's capacity to defend itself and its allies. In one significant
action, Congress approved an administration-backed measure to
reauthorize the draft, and extend the time of enlistment for draftee
soldiers under the Selective Service Act from 1 year to 30 months.
Rayburn was opposed to the extension when it was first proposed. After
meeting with the President, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and Army
Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, the Speaker reluctantly
conceded the necessity of the extension, and agreed to advance the
measure in the House. The Speaker faced a House that was very reluctant
to extend the mandatory period of military enlistment. In addition to
the efforts of the whip organization run by Representative Pat Boland,
Rayburn personally approached several Members for their support, telling
them to ``do this for me. I won't forget it.'' \53\ One Member
reportedly said that the Speaker was quite successful at the effort:
``Mr. Sam is terribly convincing . . . There he stands his left hand on
your right shoulder, holding your coat button, looking at you out of
honest eyes that reflect the sincerest emotion.'' Rayburn's effort
proved indispensable as the House ultimately approved the draft
extension by 1 vote, 203 to 202.\54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ Alvin M. Josephy, On the Hill: A History of the American Congress
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 334.
\54\ Steinberg, Sam Rayburn, p. 170.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As 1941, and the 1st session of the 77th Congress drew to a close,
Rayburn and FDR collaborated once again on a national defense measure.
For several months, German submarines and surface ships had been
attacking American merchant ships. The Roosevelt administration wanted
to repeal sections of the Neutrality Resolution, passed by the 74th
Congress in 1935,\55\ to permit the arming of American merchant ships,
and to authorize those ships to enter combat zones and the ports of
belligerent nations. In response, the House passed a bill that
authorized the arming of merchant ships, but did not permit their entry
into belligerent ports. In the Senate, amendments were added that
allowed the President to send the ships to any port in the world. The
Senate-passed version of the bill also authorized the President to order
merchant ships to defend themselves against attack. The Senate version
was returned to the House for review.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ 50 Stat. 1081.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following a day of debate on the Senate amendments, Rayburn's vote
count showed that the merchant ships bill would be defeated. Rayburn and
Majority Leader McCormack met with FDR to work out a strategy to win
House acceptance of the Senate amendments. The three leaders agreed that
the Speaker would provide a written letter summarizing the concerns of
House Members, and that the President would provide a written reply.
When the House resumed the debate on the Senate amendments. Rayburn
monitored the debate throughout the day. With 11 minutes of debate on
the Senate amendments remaining, Rayburn descended from the chair to
speak from the well of the House regarding his views and the position of
President Roosevelt:
A great deal has been said about the position of the President. Does
the President want these amendments? Does he advocate them? . . . Last
evening late the gentleman from Massachusetts \56\ and I addressed the
following letter to the President of the United States:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\56\ Majority Leader McCormack.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A number of Members have asked us what effect the failure on the part
of the House to take favorable action on the Senate amendments would
have on our position in foreign countries, and especially in Germany.
Some of these Members have stated that they hoped you would make a
direct expression on this matter.\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Representative Sam Rayburn, ``Amending the Neutrality Act,''
remarks in the House, Congressional Record, vol. 87, Nov. 13, 1941, pp.
8890-8891.
Rayburn then read to the House the letter from FDR that he and
Majority Leader McCormack had worked out with the President the previous
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
evening. The President's letter said in part:
I had no thought of expressing to the House my views to the effect, in
foreign countries, and especially in Germany, of favorable or
unfavorable action on the Senate amendments.
But in view of your letter, I am replying as simply and clearly as I
know how . . .
. . . In regard to the repeal of sections 2 and 3 of the Neutrality
Act, I need only call your attention to three elements. The first
concerns the continued sinking of American-flag ships in many parts of
the ocean. The second relates to great operational advantages in making
continuous voyages to any belligerent port in any part of the world;
thus, in all probability increasing the total percentage of goods--
foodstuffs and munitions--actually delivered to those nations fighting
Hitlerism. The third is the decision by the Congress and the Executive
that this Nation, for its own present and future defense, must
strengthen the supply line to all of those who are keeping Hitlerism far
from the Americas.
With all of this in mind, the world is obviously watching the course
of this legislation.
In the British Empire, in China, and in Russia--all of whom are
fighting a defensive war against invasion--the effect of the failure of
the Congress to repeal sections 2 and 3 of the Neutrality Act would
definitely be discouraging. I am confident that it would not destroy
their defense or morale, though it would weaken their position from the
point of view of food and munitions.
Failure to repeal these sections would, of course, cause rejoicing in
the Axis nations. Failure would bolster aggressive steps and intentions
in Germany, and in the other well-known aggressor nations under the
leadership of Hitler.
Our own position in the struggle against aggression would definitely
be weakened, not only in Europe and in Asia, but also among our sister
republics in the Americas. Foreign nations, friends and enemies, would
misinterpret our own mind and purpose . . . \58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ Ibid., pp. 8890-8891.
Reading the President's letter consumed approximately 10 minutes. In
the remaining moments of debate, Rayburn endorsed the President's
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
approach, and added his own thoughts, saying:
In the moment, let me say this: Let us not cast a vote today that will
mean rejoicing in Germany, or Italy, or Japan. Let me say that with all
my heart, this moment, that the failure to enact these amendments will
have repercussions too frightful to contemplate, and might break up the
most serious conferences that have ever been held at this moment between
the representatives of Japan and the representatives of the United
States of America. Let us show the world by our vote, at least a
majority vote, where we stand. Let me appeal to you, whether you love
one man or hate another, to stand up today for civilization as it is
typified in the United States of America.\59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ Ibid.
As time for debate expired, the roll call began. In the end, the House
accepted the Senate amendments by a vote of 212 to 194.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States forces in Pearl
Harbor, HI. Soon after the attack, Speaker Rayburn returned to
Washington from a personal trip to Richmond, VA, and received a message
that the President wanted to meet congressional leaders that evening. At
the conclusion of the meeting, Rayburn was asked by a reporter if
Congress would support a war declaration. Rayburn replied, ``I think
that is one thing on which there would be unity.'' \60\ The next day,
the President addressed a joint session of Congress to request a
declaration of war against Japan. Following the joint session, each
Chamber convened and passed a joint resolution declaring a state of war
between the United States and Japan. The President signed the measure
into law that afternoon.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ C.P. Russell, ``Congress Decided,'' New York Times, Dec. 8, 1941,
p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In his first full year as Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn worked
closely with President Franklin Roosevelt to roll back a neutral,
isolationist policy, prepare the Nation for war, and assist nations
already fighting the Axis. When the United States entered the conflict,
the Speaker and the President successfully urged the Nation to produce
the materials essential to combat the enemy, maintain morale on the home
front, and bring ``the war to its earliest possible conclusion.'' \61\
The first few months after the United States joined the conflict were
marked by extensive gains for the Axis powers. In the Pacific theater,
Japanese forces captured Guam, Wake Island, parts of the Aleutian
Islands and the Philippines. In the Atlantic, the naval forces of
Germany, which declared war on the United States 4 days after the Pearl
Harbor attack, launched effective submarine attacks on American merchant
ships. Roosevelt's 1942 Annual Message to the Congress formed the basis
of the American response. In the address, the President called for
increased production of airplanes, tanks, and merchant shipping.\62\
When the goals of Roosevelt's program were questioned in the media and
by the public, Speaker Rayburn embarked on a series of speaking
engagements around the country to defend the proposed goals.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Sam Rayburn interview with Walter C. Hornaday, Jan. 7, 1944, in
H.G. Delaney and Edward Hake Phillips, eds., Speak Mister Speaker
(Bonham, TX: Sam Rayburn Foundation, 1978), p. 104.
\62\ Roosevelt, ``The Annual Message to the Congress, Jan. 6, 1941,'' in
The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, pp. 32-42.
\63\ Steinberg, Sam Rayburn, pp. 210-211.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the House, Rayburn guided numerous measures to passage that
strengthened the American war effort. Measures passed included changes
in tax law that allowed war industries to write off capital expenditures
at an accelerated rate; the establishment and funding of several new
executive branch agencies that controlled the distribution of raw
materials, civilian goods production and rationing, prices, war
propaganda, and economic warfare overseas; amendment of military draft
laws to conscript 18-year-old men; and bills that prevented labor
actions in war industries. Less publicly, Rayburn, Majority Leader
McCormack, and Minority Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts were
briefed by Secretary Stimson, General Marshall, and Dr. Vannevar Bush
about a secret plan to construct an atomic bomb. Initial efforts to fund
the program had come through illegal transfers of military
appropriations. When the administration officials tried to tell the
congressional leaders about the project, Rayburn cut them off, saying
``I don't want to know . . . because if I don't know a secret I can't
let it leak out.'' A few weeks later, Rayburn persuaded Representative
Clarence Cannon, who was chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, to
quietly insert an appropriation of $1.6 billion for the Manhattan
Project.\64\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ Ibid., pp. 211-213; quote, p. 212. See also Mooney, Roosevelt and
Rayburn, pp. 177-182.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summarizing congressional action and cooperation with the President in
a speech in Texas in November 1942, Rayburn mentioned several other
actions Congress had taken in support of the President's war program,
saying:
. . . let no one tell you that the seventy-seventh Congress and the
executive branch of the government have not worked together. The
President asked for 185,000 airplanes. Congress provided the authority
and the appropriation. He asked for billions to build war plants. He got
them. He asked for amendments to the Neutrality Act for . . . lend-lease
shipments across the sea. He got them. He asked for authority to take
over Axis ships. He got it. The executive recommended a wage and price
bill and requested legislation by October 1. He got it on October 2 . .
. We have made every attempt to weld our peacetime government machinery
into a compact fist of steel.\65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\65\ Sam Rayburn speech to the Texas Forum of the Air, Nov. 1, 1942, in
Delaney and Phillips, eds., Speak Mister Speaker, p. 93.
While the war effort advanced, Rayburn's efforts appear to have come
at a political price. Despite broad public support for the war, some of
the new policies adopted by Congress, such as the extension of the
Selective Service Act, and rationing measures, were not popular. Some
have argued that this public displeasure led to a loss of more than 50
Democratic seats in the House in the 1942 elections. This left the
Chamber with 222 Democrats and 209 Republicans, at the beginning of the
78th Congress in 1943.\66\ During the first few weeks of the new
session, several administration-backed measures were defeated by the
House, despite Rayburn's efforts. Over the course of the session, a
sense of national purpose appears to have overcome partisan and
factional preferences in the House, and the President's proposals
received more favorable consideration. Beyond the Chamber, Rayburn
continued to tour the country as a spokesman and partner of the
President. The Speaker began to carry out symbolic duties as well,
including dedicating hospitals, war production facilities, and receiving
honorary degrees.\67\ Despite the occasional, temporary setbacks in
Congress, FDR held Rayburn in high esteem. On the occasion of Rayburn's
second anniversary as Speaker, Roosevelt acknowledged the milestone in a
letter to Rayburn that said ``the speakership has assumed a special
importance because of the gravity of issues with which you have
continually had to deal . . . the country has need of you.'' \68\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\66\ House membership and party division is based on results reported by
the Clerk of the House, based on immediate results of elections held in
November 1942. Four vacancies were reported. U.S. Congress, Joint
Committee on Printing, 2003-2004 Official Congressional Directory, 108th
Congress, 108th Cong., 1st sess., S. Pub. 108-18 (Washington, GPO,
2003), p. 547.
\67\ C. Dwight Dorough, Mr. Sam (New York: Random House, 1962), pp. 348-
357.
\68\ Franklin Delano Roosevelt letter to Sam Rayburn, Sept. 16, 1942, in
Delaney and Phillips, eds., Speak Mister Speaker, p. 91.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rayburn and Roosevelt would continue to work together on war measures
and other issues until Roosevelt died in 1945. On the afternoon of April
12, 1945, Speaker Rayburn adjourned the House at 5 o'clock and was in
his private Capitol office known as the ``Board of Education,'' where he
often met with Members to discuss matters before the House. On this day,
Vice President Harry S Truman was due at the close of the day's Senate
session. Before the Vice President arrived, Rayburn received a call from
the White House; Truman was to call as soon as he arrived. When Truman
reached the Speaker's office, he called the White House and was told to
come to the executive mansion. After he left, a special radio bulletin
informed Rayburn and the Nation that President Roosevelt had died at
Warm Springs, GA, earlier that afternoon. Later that evening, Speaker
Rayburn went to the White House to see Truman take the oath of office as
President.
The only Member of Congress to hold the speakership in four different
decades, Rayburn served with, not under, Presidents Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy.
Some time after World War II ended, Rayburn reflected on his
collaboration with Roosevelt:
I would go to the White House with the other congressional leaders,
and we would talk things out frankly and openly. Sometimes we agreed,
and sometimes we disagreed, but in the end we would find more points of
agreement than disagreement. And we would get things done. We had to get
things done.\69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn, p. 164, italics in original.
Conclusion: Toward a More Complete Understanding of Leaders
Although his focus was World War II and Franklin Roosevelt, Rayburn's
observation suggests a starting point for efforts to understand the
nature of the relationship between the Speaker and the President over
the last century. The cases of Theodore Roosevelt and Joe Cannon, and
Franklin Roosevelt and Sam Rayburn, strongly suggest that in war, peace,
periods of prosperity, or periods of national emergency, things still
need to get done, and that the Speaker and President are integral actors
in achieving those ends. The institutional environment established by
separation of powers brings together two leaders who have different, and
sometimes contentious, governing responsibilities. To some extent, the
relationship between the two sets of leaders bridged that gulf and
facilitated legislative activity. In both cases, Cannon and Rayburn
served as an intermediary between the House and the President, who is
always on the outside of the Legislature. Each Speaker reflected the
mood and will of the House, and provided advice to the Presidents on the
basis of those observations. When both Presidents followed the advice,
whether Cannon's suggestion to avoid the tariff issue in 1907, or
Rayburn's suggestion to revise a lend-lease program that was sure to be
defeated without changes in 1941, both Presidents enjoyed the benefits
of reduced conflict and the advancement of their legislative programs.
When the two Chief Executives ignored advice, or failed to seek
consultation with the Speakers, as with Theodore Roosevelt's contretemps
over the Secret Service, or the setbacks FDR's New Deal programs
suffered as a result of his failed court reorganization, each suffered
political damage.
Both cases strongly suggest that to govern, Speakers and Presidents
must surmount the challenges of divergent constitutional
responsibilities, political contexts, and personal chemistry. Without
recourse to similar studies of the relationship between other Speakers
and Presidents over the last century, however, it is unclear whether
these findings are generally applicable to the other 15 Speakers and 16
Presidents that have served during this time. The volatility of
political contexts and interpersonal relationships shown in the Cannon
and Rayburn eras, as well as Speaker O'Neill's observation that there is
much still to be learned about the Office and men who have been Speaker,
strongly suggests that further inquiry into the relationship between
other Speakers and Presidents would make a valuable contribution to
understanding American Government.
Chapter 7
Speakers, Presidents, and National Emergencies
Harold C. Relyea
Specialist in American National Government
Congressional Research Service
At various times in American history, emergencies have arisen--posing,
in varying degrees of severity, the loss of life, property, or public
order--and threatened the well-being of the Nation. The Constitution
created a government of limited powers, and emergency powers, as such,
failed to attract much attention during the Philadelphia Convention of
1787 which created the charter for the new government. It may be argued,
however, that the granting of emergency powers to Congress is implicit
in its Article I, section 8 authority to ``provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare''; the commerce clause; its war, Armed
Forces, and militia powers; and the ``necessary and proper'' clause
empowering it to make such laws as are required to fulfill the
executions of ``the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by
this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof.'' The President was authorized to call
special sessions of Congress, perhaps doing so in order that
arrangements for responding to an emergency might be legislated for
executive implementation.
A national emergency may be said to be gravely threatening to the
country, and recognizable in its most extreme form as auguring the
demise of the nation. The more extreme the threat, likely more
widespread will be the consensus that a national emergency exists. At
times, however, the term has been artfully used as political rhetoric to
rally public support, or employed nebulously. According to a dictionary
definition, an emergency is ``an unforeseen combination of circumstances
or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.'' \1\ In the
midst of the Great Depression, a 1934 majority opinion of the Supreme
Court characterized an emergency in terms of urgency and relative
infrequency of occurrence, as well as equivalence to a public calamity
resulting from fire, flood, or like disaster not reasonably subject to
anticipation.\2\ Constitutional law scholar Edward S. Corwin once
explained emergency conditions as being those ``which have not attained
enough of stability or recurrency to admit of their being dealt with
according to rule.'' \3\ During Senate committee hearings on national
emergency powers in 1973, a political scientist described an emergency,
saying: ``It denotes the existence of conditions of varying nature,
intensity and duration, which are perceived to threaten life or well-
being beyond tolerable limits.'' \4\ The term, he explained, ``connotes
the existence of conditions suddenly intensifying the degree of existing
danger to life or well-being beyond that which is accepted as normal.''
\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Henry Bosley Woolf, ed., Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
(Springfield, MA: G&C Merriam, 1974), p. 372.
\2\ Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 440
(1934).
\3\ Edward S. Corwin, The President: Office and Powers, 1787-1957, 4th
rev. ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1957), p. 3.
\4\ U.S. Senate, Special Committee on the Termination of the National
Emergency, National Emergency, hearing, 93d Cong., 1st sess., Apr. 11,
1973 (Washington: GPO, 1973), p. 277.
\5\ Ibid., p. 279.
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In responding to an emergency situation, Presidents have exercised
such powers as were available by explicit grant or interpretive
implication--so-called implied powers--or otherwise acted of necessity,
trusting to a subsequent acceptance of their actions by Congress, the
courts, and the citizenry. They have, as well, sought statutory bestowal
of new powers. In such circumstances, the Speakers of the House of
Representatives have played varied roles. Presidents also have
occasionally taken an emergency action which they assumed to be
constitutionally permissible. Thus, in the American governmental
experience, the exercise of emergency powers has been somewhat dependent
upon the Chief Executive's view of the office. The authority of a
President in this regard, however, is not determined by the incumbent
alone. Other institutions and their leaders, such as the Speaker of the
House, may have a tempering effect on, or constitute either an obstacle
to, or a sustainer of, the President's actions in response to an
emergency.
In the account that follows, four of the most challenging national
emergencies in the American governmental experience--the Civil War,
World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II--are reviewed with a
view to the role of the Speaker during these crises. That role has been
a varied one due to several factors, not the least of which are
personality, political partisanship, ideology, institutional stature,
and statesmanship.
The Civil War
For several decades after the inauguration of the Federal Government
under the Constitution, controversy and conflict over slavery had
steadily grown in the Nation until it erupted in regional rebellion and
insurrection in late 1860. News of the election of President Abraham
Lincoln, who was known to be hostile to slavery, prompted a public
convention in South Carolina. Convening a few days before Christmas, the
assembled voted unanimously to dissolve the union between South Carolina
and the other States. During the next 2 months, seven States of the
Lower South followed South Carolina in secession. Simultaneously, State
troops began seizing Federal arsenals and forts located within the
secessionist territory. In his fourth and final annual message to
Congress on December 3, 1860, President James Buchanan conceded that,
due to the resignation of Federal judicial officials throughout South
Carolina, ``the whole machinery of the Federal Government necessary for
the distribution of remedial justice among the people has been
demolished.'' He contended, however, that ``the Executive has no
authority to decide what shall be the relations between the Federal
Government and South Carolina.'' Any attempt in this regard, he felt,
would ``be a naked act of usurpation.'' Consequently, Buchanan indicated
that it was his ``duty to submit to Congress the whole question in all
its bearings,'' observing that ``the emergency may soon arise when you
may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess
the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union.''
Having ``arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated
to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government,'' he
proposed that Congress should call a constitutional convention, or ask
the States to call one, for purposes of adopting a constitutional
amendment recognizing the right of property in slaves in the States
where slavery existed or might thereafter occur.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers
of the Presidents, vol. 7 (New York: Bureau of National Literature,
1897), pp. 3165-3167.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the time of Lincoln's inauguration (March 4, 1861), the Confederate
provisional government had been established (February 4); Jefferson
Davis had been elected (February 9) and installed as the President of
the Confederacy (February 18); an army had been assembled by the
secessionist States; Federal troops, who had been withdrawn to Fort
Sumter in Charleston Harbor, were becoming desperate for relief and
resupply; and the 36th Congress had adjourned (March 3). A dividing
nation was poised to witness ``the high-water mark of the exercise of
executive power in the United States.'' Indeed, in retrospect, it has
been observed: ``No one can ever know just what Lincoln conceived to be
limits of his powers.'' \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Wilfred E. Binkley, President and Congress (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1947), p. 126.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A month after his inauguration, the new President notified South
Carolina authorities that an expedition was en route solely to provision
the Fort Sumter troops. The receipt of this message prompted a demand
that the garrison's commander immediately surrender. The commander
demurred, and, on April 12, the fort and its inhabitants, over the next
34 hours, were subjected to continuous, intense fire from shore
batteries until they finally surrendered. The attack galvanized the
North for a defense of the Union. Lincoln, however, did not immediately
call Congress into special session. Instead, for reasons not altogether
clear, he not only delayed convening Congress, but also, with broad
support in the North, engaged in a series of actions which intruded upon
the constitutional authority of the legislature. These included ordering
75,000 of ``the militia of the several States of the Union'' into
Federal service ``to cause the laws to be duly executed,'' and calling
Congress into special session on July 4 ``to consider and determine,
such measures, as, in their wisdom, the public safety, and interest may
seem to demand;'' blockading the ports of the secessionist States;
adding 19 vessels to the Navy ``for purposes of public defense;''
extending the initial blockade to the ports of Virginia and North
Carolina; and enlarging the Armed Forces with 22,714 men for the regular
Army, 18,000 personnel for the Navy, and 42,032 volunteers for 3-year
terms of service.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, vol. 7, pp. 3214-3217.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In his July 4 special session message to Congress, Lincoln indicated
that his actions expanding the Armed Forces, ``whether strictly legal or
not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular and a public
necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify
them. It is believed,'' he continued, ``that nothing has been done
beyond the constitutional competency of Congress.'' \9\ Indeed, in an
act of August 6, 1861, Lincoln's ``acts, proclamations, and orders''
concerning the Army, Navy, militia, and volunteers from the States were
``approved and in all respects legalized and made valid, to the same
intent and with the same effect as if they had been issued and done
under the previous express authority and direction of the Congress.''
\10\ During the next 4 years of civil war, Congress would continue to be
largely supportive of Lincoln's prosecution of the insurrection.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Ibid., p. 3225.
\10\ 12 Stat. 326.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House Environment.--The 37th Congress, which Lincoln convened in
July, initially met for about a month. Members returned in December for
a second session, which consumed about 200 days of the next year, and a
third session, beginning in December 1862 and ending in early March
1863. The President had party majorities in both Chambers: about two-
thirds of the Senate was Republican and the House counted 106
Republicans, 42 Democrats, and 28 Unionists. The 1862 elections shifted
the House balance to 102 Republicans and 75 Democrats. Despite the
numerical dominance of the Republicans, however, ``no one individual or
faction was able to establish firm control of the congressional agendas
during the Civil War.'' \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Allan G. Bogue, The Congressman's Civil War (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. xviii.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Investigation and oversight activities by congressional committees
increased during the Civil War, ``when 15 of 35 select committees were
primarily concerned with wrongdoing or improper performance of duties,''
and similar probes were being conducted by at least six standing
committees. The war affected these inquiries because it added urgency to
proper administrative performance and prompted enlarged Federal
expenditures. There were, as well, committee examinations of matters
more closely connected with the war.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Ibid., pp. 60-88.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps the best known of the wartime oversight panels was the Joint
Committee on the Conduct of the War. While some of its tactics--secret
testimony, leaks to the press, disallowance of an opportunity to
confront or cross examine accusers--and its bias against West Point
officers remain unacceptable, its probes of the Fort Pillow massacre, in
which Union black troops were murdered and not allowed to surrender, and
the poor condition of Union soldiers returned from Confederate prisons
``were among its more positive achievements.'' Indeed, ``a number of its
investigations exposed corruption, financial mismanagement, and crimes
against humanity,'' with the result that the panel ``deserves praise not
only for exposing these abuses but also for using such disclosures to
invigorate northern public opinion and bolster the resolve to continue
the war. Had the committee's work always been modeled on these
investigations,'' it has been rightly concluded, ``there would be little
debate about its positive, albeit minor, contribution to the Union war
effort.'' \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Bruce Tap, Over Lincoln's Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of
the War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 253, 255.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By one estimate, the ``most influential member of the House of
Representatives during this period was Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania,'' whose ``influence over the House exceeded that of its
speakers.'' \14\ An attorney and former member of the Pennsylvania
legislature, he had initially been elected to the House of
Representatives as a Whig in 1848. He was subsequently elected to the
House as a Republican in 1858, and soon became the leader of the
radicals who strongly opposed slavery. He chaired the Ways and Means
Committee during the 37th and 38th Congresses, and died in office in the
summer of 1868.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Ronald M. Peters, Jr., The American Speakership: The Office in
Historical Perspective (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1990), p. 54; cf. Hubert Bruce Fuller, The Speakers of the House
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1909), pp. 152-157.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Galusha A. Grow.--Born and reared in Pennsylvania, Grow had
been a practicing attorney before he was first elected to the House of
Representatives as a Democrat in 1850. He was returned to the 33d and
34th Congresses as a Democrat, but slavery and related issues prompted
him to change party affiliation and he was elected to the 35th, 36th,
and 37th Congresses as a Republican. A redrawn district contributed to
his electoral defeat in 1862, and he would not return to the House until
1883 when he was elected to fill a seat left vacant by the death of the
incumbent. Grow's oratorical and leadership qualities contributed to his
initially being nominated by former Speaker Nathaniel Banks for the
speakership in 1857. Although Grow had the support of nearly all
Republicans, he lost to Democrat James L. Orr of South Carolina.\15\ He
was nominated again for the speakership in 1860, but the more moderate
William Pennington of New Jersey was the choice.\16\ A long-time
champion of the Homestead Act, Grow was among the leaders who, having
brought the legislation to final passage, saw their efforts defeated by
President Buchanan's veto. The bill enacted by the 37th Congress,
however, was successfully carried into law in May 1862, a few months
before Grow would be defeated for reelection.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Robert D. Illisevich, Galusha A. Grow: The People's Candidate
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), p. 156.
\16\ Ibid., pp. 182-183.
\17\ Ibid., pp. 173-191, 196-197; 12 Stat. 392.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the convening of the 37th Congress, Grow had the support of
Thaddeus Stevens, who nominated him for the speakership. Less radical
contenders were Schuyler Colfax of Indiana and Frank Blair of Missouri.
The situation was urgent, and ``the Republicans had agreed not to
tolerate any protracted conflict over the speakership.'' On the first
ballot, Grow had 71 votes, 9 short of victory. ``Blair, in second place
with forty, withdrew and urged his supporters to switch their votes;
twenty-eight did,'' and ``Grow won with ninety-nine votes.'' \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Ibid., pp. 202-203.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevens was instrumental in Grow's capture of the speakership. The two
men had become acquainted some time ago in their native Pennsylvania.
They had come to hold similarly strong views opposing slavery and
supporting the preservation of the Union, and both were resistant to the
efforts of Simon Cameron and Andrew Curtin to control the State
Republican Party. Stevens had nominated Grow for the speakership in
1860, and Grow had recommended Stevens to President-elect Lincoln for a
Cabinet position.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Ibid., pp. 194-195.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``When it came time to make committee assignments, Grow did what was
expected of him--he appointed radicals and friends.'' He also annoyed
some Cabinet secretaries for not consulting with them on appointments
that affected their departments.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Ibid., p. 203.
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Described as ``firm, calm, and precise in construing the rules'' of
the House, Grow deferred to Stevens in the party caucus and ``Stevens
was the domineering personality on the floor,'' but he would
occasionally challenge his friend regarding procedure.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Ibid., pp. 204-205.
One good example occurred on July 18, 1861, when Henry May of Maryland
asked for the floor to defend himself against charges that he had had
``criminal intercourse'' with the rebels in Richmond. John Hutchins of
Ohio objected to the way in which May attacked the military authorities
in Baltimore. Stevens said May was out of order, but Grow ruled that May
was entitled to the floor. Stevens put his protest into the form of a
motion, which the chair refused to entertain. When Stevens appealed the
decision, Grow insisted he had no control over the train of remarks May
might pursue and, therefore, could not rule him out of order. The chair
was overruled, but May was permitted to continue.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Ibid., p. 205.
Perhaps surprising to some, Grow, the radical, got along ``admirably''
with the President, and reportedly ``believed Lincoln to be almost
infallible, a leader who never rubbed Congress the wrong way and who
handled men masterfully.'' \23\ Grow, Stevens, and a caucus of a dozen
other radicals, accepted Lincoln's moderate approach to emancipation,
supporting the President's proposal for Federal assistance to any State
that adopted a plan of gradual emancipation, as well as legislation for
immediate emancipation in the District of Columbia.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Ibid.
\24\ Ibid., p. 207.
It was Grow's fortune to be Speaker during one of the nation's
critical moments. The Thirty-seventh Congress faced an awesome task. It
had to raise, organize, and equip military forces, and to find the means
to support them and the government as well. Yet its performance record
was impressive. Before it adjourned in early August, the special session
had passed more than sixty bills, and productivity was to continue into
the second and third sessions. Fortunately, the Republicans enjoyed a
comfortable majority and were able when necessary to ride roughshod over
the Democratic opposition. A call for the question often ended the
Democrat's efforts at prolonged debate.\25\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Ibid., p. 204.
Speaker Schuyler Colfax.--Grow's electoral defeat in 1862 assured that
the 38th Congress would have a new Speaker of the House.\26\ The choice
was Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, a newspaperman who had unsuccessfully
sought election to the 32d Congress as a Whig. Two years later, running
as a Republican, he was sent to the House and remained there for the
next 5 Congresses (1855-1864). He and Grow ``became friends and close
allies in their struggle for a free Kansas and a homestead bill.'' \27\
However, his relationship with Stevens, according to one assessment, was
somewhat different than that of his predecessor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Concerning Colfax's preparations and support in this regard, see
Willard H. Smith, Schuyler Colfax: The Changing Fortunes of a Political
Idol (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1952), pp. 182-184, 196.
\27\ Illisevich, Galusha A. Grow: The People's Candidate, p. 112.
Colfax possessed neither will nor mind of his own. Thaddeus Stevens
furnished him with these mental attributes. The fact that Stevens
permitted him to remain as speaker for six years furnishes the best
index of his character. He was the alter ego.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Fuller, The Speakers of the House, p. 158; cf. Smith, Schuyler
Colfax, pp. 189-190.
By contrast, an 1868 campaign pamphlet by an anonymous author offered
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the following description of Colfax's speakership.
Every session of Congress has been marked by great bitterness of
feeling, and yet so just has been his ruling, so courteous and kind his
manner to foes as well as friends, that he has been popular with both
parties. Probably not one man in a thousand could have passed through
the trying scenes which he has, with the same equanimity and approbation
of both friends and foes.\29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Anonymous, The Life and Times of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of
the United States House of Representatives and Republican Candidates for
the Vice-Presidency (New York: E.B. Treat, 1868), p. 12; the author is
identified on the title page as ``a distinguished historian.''
Indeed, Colfax was well regarded as a presiding officer, and his
party, still under the iron rule of Stevens in the caucus, enjoyed
dominant majorities during his tenure as Speaker.\30\ As a
Representative, however, he appears to have left no individual mark upon
the statute books. Moreover, ``Colfax's influence on the development or
passage of specific legislation is unclear.'' \31\ In a biography
published shortly after the former Speaker's death, Ovando J. Hollister
summed up his late brother-in-law's role in the House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Bogue, The Congressman's Civil War, p. 116.
\31\ Ibid., p. 118.
The two successive re-elections of Speaker Colfax attest the great
satisfaction he gave in this high office. These were as eventful times
as ever chanced in the annals of men, and the actors played their part
in a manly way, worthy of their place in the line of generations that
has won from the oppressor, maintained, and transmitted liberty. Neither
before nor since have there been greater Houses than those which called
Schuyler Colfax to be their presiding officer; at no time in our history
were the people and their Congresses in closer sympathy, and this was
due in part to the Speaker's faculty of wise and successful political
management.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ O.J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Colfax (New York: Funk and
Wagnalls, 1886), p. 216.
That political management included consultations with Cabinet members
concerning their preferences for Representatives assigned to the House
committees with which they had to deal. It also involved scheming and
connivance that, according to an entry in the diary of Secretary of the
Navy Gideon Wells, resulted in Lincoln considering him to be ``a little
intriguer,--plausible, aspiring beyond his capacity, and not
trustworthy.'' The diary of John Hay, Lincoln's secretary, reflected
similar White House doubts about Colfax.\33\ Lincoln had preferred
others for the speakership, but when it fell to Colfax, the President
met with him, only to receive ``what was not exactly a pledge of support
but a promise of neutrality in the upcoming fights in Congress between
Radicals and Conservatives.'' \34\ It was, seemingly, less than he had
enjoyed with Grow.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Bogue, The Congressman's Civil War, pp. 116-117; another historian
has written that the exact relationship between Colfax and Lincoln ``is
difficult to ascertain,'' but expressed doubt that it was ``the intimate
relationship'' portrayed by Hollister; see Smith, Schuyler Colfax, pp.
168-169.
\34\ David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995),
p. 469.
World War I
When war swept over Europe during the latter months of 1914, the
United States, in terms of emergency conditions confronting the Nation,
was unaffected by the conflict. Initially pursuing a policy of
neutrality, President Woodrow Wilson, in September 1915, reluctantly
agreed to allow American bankers to make general loans to the
belligerent nations. These loans, foreign bond purchases, and foreign
trade tended to favor Great Britain and France. Earlier, in February
1915, Germany had proclaimed the waters around the British Isles a war
zone which neutral ships might enter at their own risk. In May, the
British transatlantic steamer Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine
with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans. Disclosures of
German espionage and sabotage in the United States later in the year,
unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany as of February 1917, and March
revelations of German intrigue to form an alliance with Mexico
contributed to the President calling a special session of Congress on
April 2, when he asked for a declaration of war, which was given final
approval 4 days later.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ 40 Stat. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Wilson led the Nation into war, the ``preponderance of his crisis
authority,'' it has been noted, ``was delegated to him by statutes of
Congress.'' Indeed, ``Wilson chose to demand express legislative
authority for almost every unusual step he felt impelled to take.'' By
comparison, the source of Lincoln's power ``was the Constitution, and he
operated in spite of Congress,'' while the ``basis of Wilson's power was
a group of statutes, and he cooperated with Congress.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in
the Modern Democracies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1948), p. 242.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The President also exercised certain discretion over and above that
provided by statute. For example, he armed American merchantmen in
February 1917; created a propaganda and censorship entity in April
1917--the Committee on Public Information--which had no statutory
authority for its limitations on the First Amendment; and he created
various emergency agencies under the broad authority of the Council of
National Defense, which had been statutorily mandated in 1916.\37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ Concerning the Committee on Public Information, see Stephen L.
Vaughn, Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and the
Committee on Public Information (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1980); concerning the Council of National Defense, its
mandate may be found at 39 Stat. 649-650 and its operations are
discussed in Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Industrial America in the World War:
The Strategy Behind the Line 1917-1918 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923);
see also, generally, William Franklin Willoughby, Government
Organization in War Time and After (New York: D. Appleton, 1919).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``Among the important statutory delegations to the President,'' it has
been recounted, ``were acts empowering him to take over and operate the
railroads and water systems, to regulate and commandeer all ship-
building facilities in the United States, to regulate and prohibit
exports'' and ``to raise an army by conscription.'' Others authorized
him ``to allocate priorities in transportation, to regulate the conduct
of resident enemy aliens, to take over and operate the telegraph and
telephone systems, to redistribute functions among the executive
agencies of the federal government, to control the foreign language
press, and to censor all communications to and from foreign countries.''
\38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, p. 243.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In November 1918, Republican majorities were elected to both Houses of
Congress, and an armistice was signed in Europe, bringing a cessation of
warfare. As peace negotiations, with Wilson participating, began in
Paris in mid-January, many temporary wartime authorities began to
expire; most of the remaining war statutes and agencies were terminated
by an act of March 3, 1921.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ 41 Stat. 1359.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House Environment.--The Presidential contest of 1912 had resulted
in the election of Woodrow Wilson, the first Democrat to occupy the
White House since 1897. His party held a substantial margin of seats
(291 to 127) in the House at the start of his administration, which
quickly dwindled during the next two Congresses and disappeared in 1918;
an initial seven-seat margin in the Senate grew slightly during the next
two Congresses before the opposition gained a two-seat majority in 1918.
The 63d Congress convened about a month after Wilson's March 4, 1913,
inauguration. On April 8, a day after their assembly, the two Houses in
joint session were personally addressed by Wilson--``the first President
to do so since Jefferson stopped the practice in 1801. He wanted the
members of Congress to see that he was a real person,'' one commentator
has observed, ``and a partner in their work, he told them, not `a mere
department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island
of jealous power'.'' \40\ It was the beginning of a new relationship
between the first and second branches.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., On the Hill: A History of the American
Congress (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 293.
During the new President's first years in office, relations between
the White House and Congress underwent a drastic change. [Theodore]
Roosevelt had fought Congress and had often gone over its head to the
people to get it to act, but he was never able to establish the primacy
of his office over the conservative leadership in the legislature.
[William Howard] Taft had shied away from even contesting for dominance.
But it was now a different Congress. . . . [Wilson's] Democratic
majorities were well organized and led by, and to a large extent
composed of, men who shared the chief executive's goals, were as eager
as he to compile a record of party achievement, and were willing to
follow or cooperate with him. It was a situation made to order for a man
of Wilson's commitment and temperament. . . . Believing strongly in
party government and in his responsibility to be the nation's political
head, Wilson gave forceful leadership to his party in Congress from his
first day in office, telling it what he wanted it to do, introducing and
sponsoring legislation, working closely with the Democratic leaders,
committee heads, and individual members to achieve his programs, and in
the process strengthening and broadening the powers and prestige of the
presidency.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Ibid.
The outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914 found the President and
Congress initially in agreement on a policy of strict neutrality. German
submarine warfare soon created a division of opinion between the
neutralists and peace forces, on the one hand, and those demanding the
defense of American's rights on the high seas, on the other. This
division led to conflicts in 1915 and 1916 between the White House and
congressional Democrats. In the first instance, Wilson's refusal to
issue a warning to Americans against traveling on armed merchantmen not
only prompted protests from Democrats in both houses, but also
resolutions mandating such a warning and an entree for congressional
formulation of foreign policy. Vigorous efforts by the President, key
Republicans in Congress, and the press, got the resolutions tabled. The
second controversy arose over Presidentially proposed military
preparedness legislation, which included a new national volunteer
``Continental Army'' program. The measure was held captive in committee
by a peace bloc led by the House Majority Leader, Claude Kitchen. Wilson
had to compromise: the resulting legislation provided for an immediate
expansion of the regular Army, enlargement of the National Guard, and
integration of the Guard into Army organization and command.\42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ Ibid., pp. 297-298.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although Wilson emphasized a neutrality theme in his 1916 campaign for
reelection, he was almost defeated, edging by his opponent with a
plurality of 23 electoral votes, and saw his party strength in the House
reduced to a majority of only a few seats. At the end of January 1917,
Germany stunned Wilson with the announcement that it was resuming
unrestricted submarine warfare. Shortly thereafter, an American ship was
torpedoed and sunk without warning, prompting the President to break
diplomatic relations with Germany. Near the end of February, Wilson
asked Congress for authority to arm merchant ships and to use other
``instrumentalities or methods'' to protect American shipping. The
House, on March 1, overwhelmingly gave approval to the first part of the
President's request; adamant noninterventionists in the Senate launched
a filibuster against the authorization. Subsequently, Wilson went ahead
with the ship armament on his own authority and called for a special
session of Congress on April 16, then changed the convening to April 2.
That evening he asked the 65th Congress for a declaration of war against
Germany. This was accomplished 4 days later.\43\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ Ibid., pp. 299-301.
There followed the passage of a stream of war legislation, beginning
with the appropriations of $4 billion for the army and navy and
authorization for a Liberty Loan of bonds to be sold to the public (four
Liberty Loan drives during the war and a Victory Loan in 1919 raised a
total of $20.5 billion). A Selective Service Bill providing for
universal conscription caused bitter controversy in the House, where
Speaker [Champ] Clark left his chair to oppose the measure. Its
constitutionality--sending drafted men outside the United States--seemed
open to question, but it was enacted on May 18, 1917.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Ibid., p. 301.
The stream of war legislation continued, including ``several acts,
urged by the administration and supported by the fervent patriotism and
anti-German feeling of a great majority of the American people and their
representatives in Congress, [which] broke sharply with the relatively
benign atmosphere of political tolerance and freedom of dissent of the
progressive period. Paralleling . . . emergency controls on business,
they seriously abridged civil liberties and traditional American
rights.'' \45\ Meanwhile, in Europe, the arrival of American troops was
decisive in stemming German offensives and launching fierce
counterdrives that moved Allied forces toward the German border.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ Ibid., p. 302.
As the conflict in Europe neared an end, Wilson's uncompromising
determination to handle foreign affairs himself and impose on the world
his idealistic vision of an enduring peace headed him on a collision
course with the Senate. On January 8, 1918, he delivered a stirring
address to the Sixty-fifth Congress, boldly outlining fourteen points as
a basis for a moral peace. Among them were proposals for open diplomacy,
freedom of the seas, the reduction of armaments, and ``a general
association of nations.'' Liberals in America and the Allied countries
supported the Fourteen Points with enthusiasm, but many of the
Republicans and militants in Congress were cynical, fearing that Wilson
would not be stern enough with Germany and showing signs of resentment
at his aggrandizement of the role of sole arbiter of post-war
settlements.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Ibid., p. 303.
The conflict continued and became more acute, with many Republicans
separating from Wilson and demanding that he call for Germany's
unconditional surrender. Wilson responded, in part, by appealing to the
voting public to give him stronger party control of each House in the
November 5, 1918, congressional elections. Republicans viewed the
President's tactic as an attack on their patriotism and a violation of
the wartime truce on politics. When the returns came in, ``the
Republicans won the House by fifty seats and the Senate by two seats,
[and] Wilson not only lost his hold over Congress and his goal of a
strong national unity behind him, but because of his ill-advised appeal
seemed even to have suffered a repudiation of his peace policies on the
eve of the war's end.'' \47\ That end came on November 11 with a general
armistice in Europe. Wilson's efforts to negotiate a peace ultimately
came to an end in fall 1919 when the Senate, divided into three
irreconcilable camps, failed to approve any form of the Versailles
Treaty.\48\ During a campaign to rally public support for the treaty,
Wilson collapsed in Pueblo, CO, on September 25, and, after having
returned to Washington, suffered a debilitating stroke on October 2. The
declaration of war against Germany (and Austria-Hungary) was
subsequently terminated by joint resolution on July 2, 1921.\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ Ibid., pp. 303-304.
\48\ The controversy actually continued into the early months of 1920,
but without any resolve of the impasse realized earlier.
\49\ 42 Stat. 105.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Champ Clark.--When President Wilson addressed a joint session
of the 63d Congress on April 8, 1913, James Beauchamp ``Champ'' Clark of
Missouri was beginning his second speakership. A State legislator, he
had been unsuccessful in his bid for the Democratic nomination for a
House seat in 1890. Two years later, he won his party's nomination and
was elected as a Representative, but lost the reelection contest to a
Republican in 1894. Regaining his House seat in 1896, he served
continuously thereafter until 1920. In the House, he was a floor leader
(1907-1911) before being elected to the speakership in April 1911.
During the 60th Congress, he had led the Democrats who joined a group of
Republican insurgents in a revolt against the dictatorial Speaker Joseph
G. Cannon and his power over the Committee on Rules. While the House had
voted in 1910 to remove the Speaker from serving on the committee,
public dissatisfaction with the Republican majority in that Chamber
resulted in a Democratic landslide in the elections of that year and the
basis for Clark subsequently becoming Speaker.
As a consequence of his distaste for Cannon's dictatorial ways, Clark
changed the Speaker's role in House affairs, leaving the business of
floor scheduling and party caucus management to the floor leader, Oscar
Underwood of Alabama. Under this arrangement, the floor leader and
caucus guided the party program. Clark, as Speaker, was an impartial
presiding officer of the House, but he could, and often did, temporarily
step down from his position to participate actively in legislative
debate.\50\ As a result of his role in the overthrow of Cannon and his
frequent discussion of legislative issues, Clark became the leading
Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1912. At the party nominating
convention, Clark ran ahead of both William Jennings Bryan, his
political adversary, and Woodrow Wilson, but was ultimately defeated
when Bryan threw his support to Wilson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Peters, The American Speakership, pp. 92-94.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During Clark's speakership, the Democrats exercised party governance
through a binding caucus, with Underwood using individual pieces of
legislation for such approval.\51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Ibid., p. 93.
The caucus rules established a simple majority as a quorum for
business, with two-thirds of those members present and voting required
to approve a motion to bind. It was not always necessary for the
leadership to control two-thirds of the rank and file, but rather some
lesser number, ranging down to two-thirds of a quorum. Of 291 Democratic
members of the Sixty-third Congress, for example, the number required to
bind might have been as few as ninety-eight.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ Ibid., p. 94.
The Speaker could speak in the caucus or offer a motion to bind it,
but he could not control it. Similarly, he could influence the members
of the Committee on Rules regarding the floor agenda and debate, but he
could not control them. As a consequence, compared with the Democratic
floor leader and committee chairmen, it is understandable that the
Speaker might not have been viewed as the best agent for realizing the
President's legislative agenda. By one estimate, the ``operation of the
caucus system used by the Democrats attained its maximum effectiveness
during Wilson's first administration, especially during the Sixty-third
Congress while Underwood served as majority leader.'' Why?
``Progressivism had its moment in the sun, and the Democrats were able
to govern the nation just so long as the policy consensus kept the party
united behind the administration's program.'' \53\ War in Europe
militated against that consensus, as did Underwood's departure for the
Senate in 1915, resulting in the succession of Claude Kitchen of North
Carolina as floor leader.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ Ibid., p. 97.
Basic differences in political philosophy between Wilson and Kitchen
led to a clash of political wills, and they did not work as closely
together as had Wilson and Underwood. Because of this, Wilson began
using congressman John Nance Garner of Texas as his intermediary to the
House. The Democrats had suffered heavy losses in the election of 1914,
bringing their congressional majority down from 290 seats to 231. With
the growing involvement of the United States in European affairs,
Americans became increasingly concerned about the possibility of
engagement in a general European war. Running on the theme that he had
``kept us out of war,'' Wilson was reelected in 1916, but the party
retained control of the House of Representatives by the narrowest of
margins, electing an identical 215 members to the Republicans, and
relying on the support of five independent members to retain
organizational control. Wilson did not keep America out of the war, and
during his second administration he won congressional support for his
war program only at the cost of bitter divisions within the party, which
proved fatal in the 1918 congressional elections, when the Republicans
swept the Congress.\54\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ Ibid., pp. 97-98.
Clark admired Kitchen, calling him ``one of the most brilliant
debaters this generation has known--fluent, intelligent, witty,
sarcastic, affable, courageous, and at times eloquent.'' \55\ He
occasionally voted, as a matter of conscience, contrary to the position
of the President. Joining Kitchen, Clark opposed the administration's
highly controversial military conscription plan, and denounced the
proposal on the House floor in April 1917.\56\ He also proved to be a
valuable ally of the White House, however, such as when he frustrated
efforts in September 1917 to establish a powerful joint congressional
committee to oversee the conduct of the American war effort, and
privately assured Wilson that he would render any service to defeat
legislation creating, separate from the traditional Cabinet, a war
cabinet or council, composed of three distinguished citizens, ``with
almost unlimited jurisdiction over plans and policies, to insure the
most vigorous prosecution of the war.'' \57\ When the President lent
support in July 1918 to a local effort to deny Representative George
Huddleston of Alabama the Democratic nomination for reelection to the
House, Clark and Kitchen provided their colleague with letters praising
his patriotic service in Congress. Their intervention was denounced
locally as the interference of a pair of ``super pacifists,'' but
Huddleston captured the nomination and was returned to the House.\58\ In
the closing pages of his autobiography, Clark characterized Wilson as
``a great President,'' but, perhaps best explained his own role when
refuting a newspaper allegation that he had campaigned for Wilson in
1912 in the hope of obtaining a Cabinet position. ``The man who wrote
that,'' counseled Clark, ``did not have sense enough to know that the
Speakership of the House of Representatives is a much bigger place than
is any Cabinet position, and he was not well enough acquainted with me
to know that I would not accept all ten Cabinet portfolios rolled into
one, for I would not be a clerk for any man.'' \59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Champ Clark, My Quarter Century of American Politics, vol. 2 (New
York: Harper and Brothers, 1920), p. 339.
\56\ Seward W. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the
War Congress, 1916-1918 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press,
1966), p. 17.
\57\ Ibid., pp. 57, 89.
\58\ Ibid., pp. 163-164.
\59\ Clark, My Quarter Century of American Politics, vol. 2, pp. 442-
443.
The Great Depression
In his final State of the Union Message of December 4, 1928, President
Calvin Coolidge advised the legislators that no previous Congress ``has
met a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present
time,'' and concluded that the ``country can regard the present with
satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism.'' \60\ One year
later, the dreamworld envisioned by Coolidge vanished and was replaced
by a nightmare. On October 24, 1929, an over-speculated stock market
suddenly experienced a deluge of selling, which sent prices plummeting.
Panic ensued. In the howling melee of the stock exchange, brokers fought
to sell before it was too late. Rapidly, it became too late.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Fred L. Israel, ed., The State of the Union Messages of the
Presidents, 1790-1966, vol. 3 (New York: Chelsea House-Robert Hector,
1966), p. 2727.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Economic crisis was not new to America. The country had experienced
financial setbacks of nationwide proportion in 1857, 1875, and 1893.
History, however, was an enemy in the devising of strategy to deal with
the depression of 1929. The periods of economic difficulty of the past
were but a tumble when compared with the plunge of the Great Depression.
This was the first problem experienced by those attempting to rectify
the plight of the country: they did not recognize the ramifications of
the situation or the extent of damage done and continuing to be done.
Perhaps, too, the administrative machinery was not available or
sufficiently developed to halt the downward economic spiral. It may have
been that the President's philosophy of government was inadequate for
meeting the exigency. In the face of all efforts to halt its progress,
the cancer of economic disaster continued to devastate American society
mercilessly.
The depression demoralized the Nation: it destroyed individual dignity
and self-respect, shattered family structure, and begged actions which
civilized society had almost forgotten. In brief, it created a most
desperate situation, ripe for exploitation by zealots, fanatics, or
demagogs. It also created an emergency which, unlike exigencies of the
past, dealt a kind of violence to the public that neither Armed Forces
nor military weaponry could repel. It was a new type of crisis leading
to a broad extension of executive power.
In 1932, a malcontent and despairing electorate voted against
President Herbert C. Hoover, Coolidge's successor. Although a dedicated
public servant of demonstrated ability, he was replaced with Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who came to the Presidency from the governorship of New York,
and had previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the
Wilson administration. In his inaugural address, the new President was
eloquent, telling the American people ``that the only thing we have to
fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which
paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.'' More
important, on the exertion of leadership during crisis, he expressed
hope that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority
would prove to be adequate ``to meet the unprecedented tasks before
us,'' but acknowledged that ``temporary departure from that normal
balance'' might be necessary. ``I am prepared under my constitutional
duty to recommend the measures that a stricken Nation in the midst of a
stricken world may require,'' he said, but, in the event Congress did
not cooperate ``and in the event that the national emergency is still
critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then
confront me''--using ``broad Executive power to wage a war against the
emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in
fact invaded by a foreign foe.'' \61\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York:
Random House, 1938), pp. 11, 15.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House Environment.--The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt
called for a special session of Congress. When the proclamation for the
gathering was issued, no purpose for the March 9 assembly was indicated.
Nonetheless, the President's party enjoyed overwhelming majorities in
the House (310 to 117) and Senate (60 to 35). Roosevelt had arrived in
Washington with drafts of two proclamations, one calling for the special
session of Congress and the other declaring a so-called ``bank
holiday,'' which would temporarily close the Nation's banks and restrict
the export of gold by invoking provisions of the Trading With the Enemy
Act.\62\ The bank holiday proclamation was issued on March 6. Between
the evening of the inauguration and the opening of Congress, Roosevelt's
lieutenants, aided by Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, Ogden Mills,
drafted an emergency banking bill. When Congress convened, the House had
no copies of the measure and had to rely upon the Speaker reading from a
draft text. After 38 minutes of debate, the House passed the bill. That
evening, the Senate followed suit. The President then issued a second
proclamation, pursuant to the new banking law, continuing the bank
holiday and the terms and provisions of the March 6 proclamation.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1959), p. 4.
\63\ 48 Stat. 1; Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Year of Crisis, 1933, pp. 24-26, 48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thereafter ensued the famous ``hundred days'' when the 73d Congress
enacted a series of 15 major relief and recovery laws, many of which
provided specific emergency powers to the President or broad general
authority to address the crisis gripping the Nation. The Emergency
Banking Relief Act, for example, authorized the President to declare a
condition of national emergency and, ``under such rules and regulations
as he may prescribe,'' regulate banking and related financial matters
affecting the economy. This statute also continued the Chief Executive's
authority to suspend the operations of member banks of the Federal
Reserve System.\64\ Under the authority of the Civilian Conservation
Corps Reforestation Relief Act, the President was granted broad power
``to provide for employing citizens of the United States who are
unemployed, in the construction, maintenance, and carrying on of works
of a public nature in connection with the forestation of lands belonging
to the United States or to the several States.'' Authority also was
granted to house, care for, and compensate such individuals as might be
recruited to carry out programs established pursuant to the act.\65\
After declaring the existence of a national emergency with regard to
unemployment and the disorganization of industry, the National
Industrial Recovery Act authorized the President to establish an
industrial code system and a public works program to facilitate the
restoration of prosperity. The President could establish administrative
agencies to carry out the provisions of the act, and might delegate the
functions and powers vested in him by the statute to those entities.\66\
Additional recovery programs would be given approval by the 74th
Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ 48 Stat. 1.
\65\ 48 Stat. 22.
\66\ 48 Stat. 195.
These federal programs served widespread, enduring, and organized
interests in American society. The political coalition to which they
gave rise lent definition to American political life, and the
consequences were felt in the Congress. The tendency towards stability
was already present, especially within the Democratic party, and the
seniority system had entrenched the power of southern Democrats. The
newcomers who came to town in 1933 and 1935 did not upset it; instead,
those who stayed on enlisted themselves in its long apprenticeship. By
cooperating with those at the top of the power structure, those at the
bottom served their own interests and those of their constituents. This
was a game ideally suited to the character and temperament of the
Democratic party, a party marked by diversity and devoted to logrolling.
From the Roosevelt administration, to the oligopoly on Capitol Hill,
through the growing bureaucracy, to the congressional constituencies,
everyone found something to gain.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ Peters, The American Speakership, pp. 106-107.
Indeed, ``Roosevelt was careful to defer to the Democratic barons in
the Congress on the control of federal spending,'' and harmony prevailed
because Federal largesse was particularly sought by the southern States
where the Great Depression had hit the hardest.\68\ ``Conservative
southern opposition to Roosevelt remained quiescent,'' it has been
observed, ``until the court-packing episode of 1937, which triggered the
development of the conservative coalition in the Congress. Roosevelt's
decision to purge the Congress of southern Democrats who had opposed his
reelection in 1936 sealed many southerners in opposition to him.'' \69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Ibid., p. 107.
\69\ Ibid., p. 108; in February 1937, President Roosevelt sent Congress
a draft bill to change the composition of the Federal judiciary, and, in
particular, to allow him to expand the membership of the Supreme Court,
which had recently struck down New Deal recovery legislation; the
following year, he made appeals to party faithful for the defeat of some
southern Democrats seeking reelection to Congress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apart from Congress, New Deal efforts at combating the Depression, in
the estimate of one analyst, also resulted in a transformation of the
Presidency as well as inter-branch relations.
Since FDR, the public's expectations of the presidency have been
different than they were before. The public expects leadership from the
president, and it is the president who sets the basic elements of the
national political agenda. But if the president can and must set the
major items on the agenda, he cannot enact them by himself. Instead, he
must seek to persuade the Congress to follow his leadership. This led to
a strengthening of the link between the president and the speakership.
On occasion speakers had been supporters of presidents, but there
existed no norm that demanded it prior to the New Deal. Since the New
Deal, speakers, especially Democratic speakers, have viewed it as their
obligation to support presidents of their own party. Thus, the New Deal
had the ironic effect of solidifying congressional power in the
committee system, which the speaker could influence but not control, and
of imposing on the speaker the duty of supporting a president of his own
party. From 1932 forward, speakers would be caught in a crossfire
between the congressional power structure and their obligation to the
White House.\70\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Ibid., pp. 108-109.
Speaker Henry T. Rainey.--Formerly a practicing attorney and county
master in chancery in Illinois, Henry T. Rainey was first elected to the
House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1902. He served in the 58th
Congress and the 8 succeeding Congresses (1903-1921). Unsuccessful in
his 1920 campaign, he was returned 2 years later to the 68th Congress
and served in the next five Congresses (1923-1934) until his death in
office. When the Democrats, after 12 years, were returned to majority
status in the House in 1931, ``power in the party was centered in the
Texas delegation'' with John Nance Garner, ``a leading force in the
party since the Wilson administration,'' elected Speaker.\71\ That year,
``the southern Democrats controlled twenty-seven of forty-seven
chairmanships'' of the House committees.\72\ Emerging as the new floor
leader for the Democrats was Rainey, renowned for his ``progressive
political independence,'' according to his biographer, but a man who had
gained the support of his more conservative colleagues through his
reelection successes and efforts on behalf of farmers and agricultural
relief.\73\ However, in his new position, Rainey ``was never able to win
acceptance within the establishment'' of House southern Democrats ``and
his relationship with Speaker Garner was strained.'' \74\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\71\ Ibid., p. 110.
\72\ Ibid., p. 109.
\73\ Robert A. Waller, Rainey of Illinois: A Political Biography, 1903-
1934 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1977), p. 159; see also
Ibid., pp. 138-158.
\74\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 114.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ironically, ``Garner's leadership of the Democratic party in the House
brought to him great public visibility,'' as well as ``ample political
assets to enable him to contend for the presidency in 1932.'' \75\
Supported by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, Garner won the
California primary election and entered the Democratic National
Convention with the solid support of the delegations from that State and
Texas. With the convention deadlocked after three ballots, Garner threw
his support to Roosevelt to be the party's Presidential candidate and
was rewarded with the Vice Presidential position on the ticket. When the
Democrats won the Presidential contest, the speakership for the 73d
Congress became open.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\75\ Ibid., p. 113.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainey had been elected his party's floor leader in 1931 ``with a
coalition of southern and northern support,'' but ``he remained very
much an outrider in a leadership structure that was dominated by the
southern oligarchy.'' \76\ Several factors contributed to his election
to succeed Garner as Speaker. In addition to Rainey, four southerners
and a New York City Representative emerged as contenders for the
speakership, with the result that ``the party suffered a complete
geographic split, with candidates from each of its major regions.'' \77\
Within the institution of the House, Rainey was the second-longest-
serving Member, and had earned the respect of many of his Democratic
colleagues as their floor leader and as one in that role who ``was not
disloyal to Garner.'' Moreover, ``Rainey's election was ensured by the
election of 129 new Democrats; of these, ninety-five were from the
North, twelve from border states, and seventeen from the South,'' with
Illinois, his home State, electing the most new Democratic Members--11
in total.\78\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\76\ Ibid., p. 114.
\77\ Ibid., p. 115.
\78\ Ibid., pp. 114-115.
These new members were politically tied to President Roosevelt's
commitment to political action. Rainey had for several years advocated a
diffusion of the power structure in the House through the creation of a
party steering and policy committee similar to that employed by the
Republicans. In 1933 he made this proposal a key element in his campaign
platform for the speakership. The concept of a party steering committee
had been strongly opposed by Garner, who favored the management of the
House by the speaker and the committee chairmen. But the idea was very
attractive to new members, who could have no hope of influence under the
leadership of the old guard. . . . Rainey became the first speaker since
Champ Clark to come to the office committed to reform, and like Clark he
was committed to decentralizing reforms.\79\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\79\ Ibid., p. 115; Rainey's biographer notes that when he announced his
intention to seek the speakership, ``Rainey indicated that he expected
considerable support from the newly elected Democrats in the lower
House,'' and identified other factors lending support to his bid for the
speakership, such as being ``a rallying point for all northern Democrats
who were tired of seeing most of the party plums go to the South,''
having a ``rural and small town background [which] would help balance a
party which drew heavily from the urban areas and the Solid South,''
having the precedent that ``[f]our of the Democratic Speakers since the
Forty-seventh Congress . . . elevated from the post of majority leader
and a fifth from acting majority leader,'' and perhaps even the
``striking personal appearance'' of the candidate; see Waller, Rainey of
Illinois, pp. 174-175.
However, after becoming Speaker, Rainey eventually made only slight
changes in the committee system. ``Among forty-five standing committee
chairmen of the House,'' by one estimate, ``there were no uncompensated
violations of seniority.'' \80\ He would, nonetheless, carefully manage
the House committee system in other ways, while attempting to pursue his
reform proposals and lend support to the new President's efforts at
achieving economic recovery.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\80\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 116.
Speaker Rainey's commitment to diffuse power in the House ran head-on
into the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt and his first hundred days.
However much the speaker and his supporters might have wanted collegial
decision making, the country demanded immediate action that could only
come about by firm control of the House. Rainey did appoint a steering
and policy committee for the Democrats, and created a variety of special
committees designed to involve members in the canvassing of opinion. But
the real business of the House was being done at the other end of
Pennsylvania Avenue, and Speaker Rainey's job was primarily to see to it
that the president's program was expedited. In order to accomplish this,
the speaker held up the appointment of most committees during the
special session called by Roosevelt to deal with the crisis. He
appointed a special committee to deal with the Economy Act, a budget-
cutting measure that gave broad power to the president to cut federal
expenditures, and he used the Rules Committee to bring the New Deal
legislation to the House under special orders that severely limited the
capacity of the membership to amend the bills as reported by
committees.\81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\81\ Ibid., p. 117.
As Speaker, Rainey, according to his biographer, ``was in an ideal
position to serve as middleman between executive wishes and legislative
fulfillment.'' \82\ Prior to the convening of the 73d Congress, Rainey,
in a January 1933 meeting with Roosevelt, had proposed a program to
balance the budget and warned that increasing taxes ``would be inviting
revolution.'' It was, by one estimate, ``an instance in which a
congressional leader had prepared a complete fiscal program for the
President-elect.'' \83\ Subsequently, authority for the President to cut
Federal expenditures to realize a balanced budget was included in
legislation to maintain government credit.\84\ However, it also enabled
the President to reduce the pensions and allowances of war veterans. In
the course of an unsuccessful attempt to bind the party on the measure
in caucus, Rainey learned of an amendment backed by the veterans' lobby
to prevent the President from completely discontinuing a pension or
other allowance or reduce them by more than 25 percent. Given that
``Democratic unity was shattered by the economy bill,'' the legislation
was brought to the floor ``under a rule providing a two-hour limit, no
opportunity for amendments, and one motion to recommit by anyone
opposing the proposition.'' To avoid the veterans' lobby amendment,
arrangements were made for another Democrat, ``an ardent veterans'
supporter,'' to seek to be recognized in order to move to recommit the
entire bill. Rainey, as prearranged, recognized this man and, as
expected, his motion was defeated, but the terms of the rule had been
satisfied on this point. When the Member with the veterans' lobby
amendment protested, contending that he believed he had caucus agreement
that he would have an opportunity to offer his amendment to the
recommitted measure, ``Rainey coldly replied that he had no knowledge of
a binding agreement.'' Moreover, he voted with those approving the bill.
Thus, ``the Speaker used his right to recognize with decisive effect,
and saved the administration from an embarrassing defeat during its
first few days in office.'' \85\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\82\ Waller, Rainey of Illinois, p. 181; this biographer also
acknowledges that ``the record upon which to construct the climax of
Rainey's career is limited severely'' because ``Franklin Roosevelt did
not preserve memoranda of his personal conferences and phone
conversations'' and ``most of the key legislative transactions were
handled in this fashion;'' Ibid., p. 181.
\83\ Ibid., p. 182.
\84\ 48 Stat. 8.
\85\ Waller, Rainey of Illinois, pp. 182-183.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another occasion, ``Rainey used his influence as Speaker to block
legislation that was not a part of the President's urgent program.'' As
the Senate began considering an industrial recovery bill limiting labor
to a 5-day week and 6-hour day, ``Rainey predicted that if it should
pass the Senate, it would be sidetracked in the House temporarily to
clear the way for more urgent bills.'' When a companion bill to the
Senate legislation was reported in the House, ``Rainey was not inclined
to give the matter preferential treatment on the House floor, and
supported the administration in its demand for considerable revision.''
During the delay, the White House developed its own measure--to be known
as the National Industrial Recovery Act--embracing the reduced labor
hours objectives of the competing House and Senate 30-hour week
bills.\86\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\86\ Ibid., pp. 183-184.
Once the new measure was ready, Rainey announced that both the thirty-
hour week bills had been put on ice. Several House committees wanted
jurisdiction over the new bill. The Speaker assigned it to the Ways and
Means Committee, although it was not directly a revenue measure. Rainey
used his discretionary power in assigning bills to committee to foster
the Roosevelt program. By the close of the session, the bill for
industrial self-government was ready for the President's signature. The
thirty-hour measures were left in limbo.\87\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\87\ Ibid., p. 184.
Not every piece of Presidential legislation offered to achieve
economic recovery, however, required the Speaker's attention. For
example, to enact Roosevelt's ``federal emergency relief, supervision of
stock market operations, relief of small home owners, and railroad
reorganization and relief'' proposals, ``Rainey's services as master
parliamentarian were not needed.'' Nonetheless, the Chief Executive was
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
appreciative of the assistance he provided.
Rainey had identified himself fully with the President's program.
While the Speaker is not called upon to vote during roll calls, the
Illinoisan established a record by being enscribed as supporting New
Deal measures on twenty-three separate occasions during the hundred
days. At the close of the session, Roosevelt made a point of thanking
the legislators through Rainey for their cooperation and teamwork in
meeting the nation's problems.\88\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\88\ Ibid., p. 185.
When the House convened in January 1934 to begin the 2d session of the
73d Congress, Rainey predicted ``a short, harmonious and constructive
session.'' The approaching fall elections, however, provided House
Members a clear and understandable reason to assert themselves to gain
visibility and an individual record that would justify being returned to
office. This situation, together with the ``presidential decision to
outline needed legislation in his annual message and let Congress iron
out the details proved a detriment to a short and harmonious session,
but it was nonetheless a productive term.'' \89\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\89\ Ibid., p. 187.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the session got underway, Rainey soon engendered Presidential
displeasure on three issues. The first involved a bill providing special
consideration for silver in financial transactions. In March, Rainey
publicly praised the recently reported measure, and said it would likely
pass the House and not incur White House objection. In fact, both the
President and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau were, by one
estimate, ``horrified at this bill's implications.'' Rainey subsequently
got into a heated public dispute with Morgenthau over silver policy,
moved the controversial silver bill, and was surprised by its approval
by the House, which necessitated White House efforts to strike a
compromise on the legislation in the Senate. More tension between the
Speaker and the President ensued, but Roosevelt ultimately obtained
sufficient compromise on the disputed legislation in the Senate that a
veto was avoided. ``The silver inflation debate was the only major
occasion on which the Speaker differed markedly with the President,''
but it was the first of three controversies that left Roosevelt with
less than full confidence in Rainey.\90\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\90\ Ibid., pp. 189-191.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second controversy involved legislation--the Patman bonus bill--
authorizing an immediate payment to World War I veterans based upon
their service certificates. During the latter half of February,
supporters of the bonus bill obtained the requisite number of signatures
on a discharge petition to force the measure out of committee. At that
time, the President warned the House, through Rainey, that it was not
the appropriate time to approve such legislation. Both Rainey and
Roosevelt were unwilling to expend the $2.4 billion authorized by the
bill. When some question arose as to whether or not the President would
allow the proposal to become law without his signature, Rainey wrote for
clarification and received what became a highly public and unequivocal
response from Roosevelt saying he would veto the legislation. The House,
nonetheless, elected to follow an independent course and, in early
March, voted by a 3 to 1 margin to approve the discharge petition.
Thereafter, the House approved the bonus bill on a 295 to 125 vote, but
when it arrived in the Senate, it was reported adversely and died
without a floor vote. Nonetheless, ``Rainey had been unsuccessful in
getting the House to follow the President's guiding hand.'' \91\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\91\ Ibid., pp. 191-192.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The third controversy arose with the Independent Offices
Appropriations bill and adherence to the President's economy program. In
early January, ``Rainey had pledged that the House would keep
`absolutely' within the budget recommendation limits submitted by the
President,'' which was done when the Independent Offices measure was
considered, but ``only by an adroit series of parliamentary moves.'' As
passed by the House, the bill was ``perfectly acceptable to the
President.'' Senate leaders were unsuccessful in their efforts to defeat
amendments providing for the restoration of government employee pay
cuts. When the legislation came back to the House, Rainey did not follow
custom and send it to a conference committee, but took the somewhat
unusual step of referring it back to the committee of origin, presumably
to be crafted into a version acceptable to both the Senate and the
President. The Appropriations Committee, however, declined to redraft
the Senate version, and Democratic leaders failed in two caucuses to
bind their House Members to ignore the Senate amendments to the
legislation. When the Rules Committee reported a special rule on the
measure that would have sent it to a conference committee without
instructions from the House, the rule was overwhelmingly defeated. The
bill was then open to amendment from the House floor, and among those
successfully added was the full restoration of veterans' benefits
reduced by the Economy Act of 1933. Ultimately, House amendments added
$228 million to the President's original recommendations, which both
Houses accepted. The President, however, did not, and he vetoed the
bill. Rainey confidently predicted the veto would be sustained, but he
completely misjudged the situation. The House voted 310 to 72 to
override, with no fewer than 209 Democrats bolting.\92\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\92\ Ibid., pp. 192-194.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the aftermath of this tumult--``Rainey helped to lead one revolt
and was unsuccessful in halting the two others''--speculation and rumor
soon arose that the President was sufficiently displeased with his
party's House leaders that he would welcome a change. Emerging from a
White House meeting in April, Rainey volunteered that the President
``wanted me to stay where I am'' as Speaker of the House.\93\ After the
2d session of the 73d Congress ended in mid-June, Rainey embarked upon
an extensive speaking tour as an ambassador for the New Deal. On August
10, due to fatigue and a slight cold, he elected to be admitted to a
hospital in St. Louis for a few days' rest. Speaker Rainey died
unexpectedly on August 19, 1934, 1 day short of his 74th birthday.\94\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\93\ Ibid., p. 197.
\94\ Ibid., pp. 202-203.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Joseph W. Byrns.--An attorney and former member of the
Tennessee legislature, Joe Byrns was elected to the House in 1908 as a
Democrat and served in the 61st and 13 succeeding Congresses. During the
72d Congress, he chaired the Appropriations Committee. He was among
those who sought the speakership for the 73d Congress, and was made
floor leader by the coalition that elected Rainey as Speaker. Although
he was part of the House leadership that had displeased the President in
1934, his party colleagues in the House had high regard for him, not
only as their floor leader, but also as the chairman of their
Congressional Campaign Committee. ``With his help,'' it has been
observed, ``the Democrats had actually increased their representation in
the House in the off-year election of 1934,'' with the result that many
in his party who had been returned to their seats or were newcomers
``felt themselves indebted to him.'' \95\ Many newspapers expected Byrns
to be the next Speaker after Rainey's death. He had a few competitors
for the position, the strongest of whom might have been Sam Rayburn of
Texas, but he subsequently withdrew for several reasons, not the least
of which was his State's control of several committee chairmanships and
the Vice Presidency. Ultimately, the same coalition of northeastern,
border, and midwestern Democrats who had installed Rainey as Speaker
elected Byrns, with southern supporters, to that position.\96\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\95\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 119.
\96\ Ann B. Irish, A Political Biography: Joseph W. Byrns of Tennessee
(Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2001), pp. 190-199.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While some of the President's ``brains trust'' advisers urged him to
announce his support for Rayburn, whom they favored as Speaker,
Roosevelt remained discreetly silent about the contest. By one estimate,
``Byrns was probably not his preference, but he may have thought that
Byrns would win.'' \97\ Nonetheless, ``among all the candidates for the
speakership, the only one who had stood with FDR in opposition to the
[veterans] bonus in the previous session had been Byrns.'' \98\
Moreover, ``Byrns was known for party loyalty, for always being a
regular party supporter. While he had served as majority leader,'' it
has been observed, ``his strong and continuing support of New Deal
legislation, even those measures which he philosophically opposed,
illustrated his party loyalty.'' \99\ In a radio address given shortly
after the convening of the 74th Congress, Speaker Byrns indicated that
it was ``not the function of Congress to initiate executive policies.''
That was the President's responsibility, and Congress ``is and should be
proud to accept his leadership,'' he said. Of the issues he foresaw
ahead, he hoped a noninflationary way could be found to pay the
veterans' bonus.\100\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\97\ Ibid., p. 193.
\98\ Ibid., p. 196.
\99\ Ibid., p. 202.
\100\ Ibid., pp. 216-217.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byrns soon brought the bonus question before the House, the
legislative solution being to provide the necessary $2 billion by
printing more money--a clearly inflationary course of action. He was
among the 90 Members who voted against the legislation. In the aftermath
of Senate approval of the bill, the President personally delivered his
veto message to a joint session of the two Houses of Congress when, at
the conclusion of his remarks, he handed the rejected legislation to
Byrns. Immediately thereafter, the House voted overwhelmingly to
override the veto, ``but Byrns was one of the 98 in opposition.'' The
next day, the Senate vote for an override was insufficient, but Speaker
Byrns' loyalty to the President was, by then, on the record.\101\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\101\ Ibid., pp. 220-221.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byrns next became involved in negotiating a massive emergency relief
appropriations bill. Many House Members wanted to specify the kinds of
jobs that would be created by the legislation, thereby limiting the
discretionary authority of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, whom
they felt was unresponsive to congressional concerns. In a meeting on
this matter, Roosevelt, Byrns, and Appropriations Committee Chairman
James Buchanan reached a compromise: the funds would be appropriated
without directions to the President regarding their expenditure, but the
President would allocate the money himself rather than designating Ickes
to perform this task. Byrns obtained caucus agreement to the compromise
and the bill received overwhelming party support, with only 10 Democrats
voting against it in the House. ``Byrns had held his party in line; here
was an example of his ability to forge consensus among the very
different kinds of Democrats in the House.'' He and Vice President
Garner subsequently intervened with the conference committee on the
legislation to obtain a version acceptable to the President.\102\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\102\ Ibid., pp. 221-222.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next came the Social Security Program. Byrns exerted his influence
early, referring the legislation to the Ways and Means Committee, whose
members he perceived were more favorable to the proposal than the
skeptical members of the Labor Committee. When there was hesitation to
report the bill, Byrns convinced committee members ``that if they wanted
to kill the measure, it should be defeated on the floor during public
debate, not in a secret committee session.'' On the matter of a rule for
bringing the legislation to the floor, ``Byrns insisted the debate be as
open as possible so that members would feel trusted, not coerced.'' He
``based his desire for an open debate on the social security bill on
assurance from Pat Boland's whip organization that the bill would
pass.'' Indications were that an alternative plan to the President's
proposal did not have much support. Such proved to be the case; Byrns'
strategy succeeded.\103\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\103\ Ibid., pp. 223-224.
The House had to consider a number of additional important bills, and
in expediting (or blocking) them, the speaker was influential mostly in
little-noticed ways. These included persuading committees to finish
their consideration so that bills could come to the floor, helping
convince the Rules Committee to schedule bills for floor debate, and
urging efficient floor consideration.\104\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\104\ Ibid., p. 224.
The President's gratification with Byrns became apparent in early May
1935 when ``Roosevelt lightheartedly scolded Senate leaders, suggesting
they could learn from Speaker Byrns's methods and adopt legislation more
expeditiously.'' \105\ When illness prevented William Bankhead from
carrying out his duties as Democratic floor leader, Byrns sometimes
functioned as Speaker and majority leader, ``and won compliments for his
dual leadership role during Bankhead's absence.'' \106\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\105\ Ibid., p. 226.
\106\ Ibid., p. 227.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the sometimes fractious House came to the close of the 1st
session of the 74th Congress in late August, it was clearly evident that
``Byrns had helped the administration achieve its goals,'' the last 3
months being so productive that many termed them the ``second hundred
days.'' \107\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\107\ Ibid., p. 232.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Returning from travel in Asia late in the year, Byrns foresaw
``nothing on the horizon that should cause any controversies'' in the
next session, but quickly added that ``one never knows what is going to
happen in the legislative halls at Washington.'' The unforeseen did
burst on the scene a few days after the new session got underway: the
Supreme Court invalidated the Agricultural Adjustment Act, with the
result that the Nation was left with no farm program. Byrns arranged for
efficient House consideration and passage of a constitutionally
acceptable replacement program.\108\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\108\ Ibid., pp. 241-242.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
More predictable was the early reappearance of veterans' bonus
legislation. The track record on this issue was familiar by now, and
support for such legislation was strengthened by a modest upturn in the
economy and a looming national election. Byrns thought the passage of
such a bill was inevitable. The White House may have concurred, but when
the measure was sent to the President, he perfunctorily vetoed it, only
to have his rejection overridden by both houses.\109\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\109\ Ibid., pp. 242-243.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Due, in part, to Bankhead's return to perform his floor leader duties,
``Byrns was not nearly as prominent in the 1936 session as he had been a
year earlier,'' and ``because the long 1935 session had been so
productive, the 1936 session saw less controversy and less necessity for
a speaker to use his position publicly to achieve a result.'' As it
happened, ``Byrns had no chance to compile his own summary of this
session's accomplishments,'' it has been observed, ``but he must have
felt satisfaction as he saw the Seventy-fourth Congress meeting the
goals he had suggested at the outset of his speakership.'' \110\
Approximately 2 weeks prior to the end of the Congress, Speaker Byrns
died suddenly on June 4, 1936.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\110\ Ibid., p. 249.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker William B. Bankhead.--Advised by the House Parliamentarian of
the need for a new Speaker in order that the business of the 74th
Congress could be concluded, House leaders turned to Will Bankhead.\111\
An attorney, State legislator, and city attorney of Huntsville, Bankhead
was first elected to the House of Representatives from Alabama in 1915,
serving in the 65th and 11 succeeding Congresses. His father had been a
Member of the House and the Senate, and during his own service in the
House, his brother was a Senator. Unsuccessful in his bid to become
House majority leader in 1932, he became the acting chairman and then
chairman of the Rules Committee during the 74th Congress. Two years
later, his election as majority leader was secured. In his later
congressional career, Bankhead was beset by health problems. He suffered
major heart attacks in 1932 and 1935, and ``labored with a weak heart
during the remainder of his life.'' \112\ As a consequence, Bankhead
formed a close working relationship with his deputy, Majority Leader Sam
Rayburn. ``Working in close cooperation with the administration, Sam
Rayburn,'' according to one assessment, ``provided the strength that
Bankhead lacked.'' \113\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\111\ Ibid., p. 252.
\112\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 120.
\113\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the time of the death of Speaker Byrns in June 1936, the
``Depression continued, but people had confidence that their federal
government was working to end their distress.'' \114\ For many, the
sense of desperation within the country had subsided and the relief
legislation Congress was being asked to enact by the Roosevelt
administration was of a smaller quantity and somewhat less urgent
character than the New Deal proposals of 1933-1934. Indeed, the
exclusively domestic focus of the first Roosevelt administration was
supplemented with growing defense and foreign policy considerations
during the second term. It was in this changing policy environment that
Bankhead played his leadership role.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\114\ Irish, A Political Biography, p. 249.
Bankhead's party loyalty was beyond question; the high regard in which
he was held by minority leaders Bertrand H. Snell and Joseph W. Martin,
Jr. and others is a testimony to his fairness as a presiding officer.
His congressional colleagues remember him as the only Speaker who could
get order in the House merely by standing up. Gavel rapping was seldom
necessary. He followed House precedent and seldom made a formal speech.
When he did leave the chair to speak in behalf of a particular bill, he
was listened to with much more than usual interest.\115\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\115\ Walter J. Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,''
Journal of Southern History, vol. 21, August 1955, p. 354.
Bankhead's efforts (and those of Rayburn) to assist the White House
with securing the passage of legislation addressing the emergency
conditions of the Great Depression were complicated, and sometimes
hampered, by other legislative issues and the President's demands
regarding them. For example, ``the congressional leaders were not
consulted and knew nothing of the President's explosive judiciary
reorganization plan until they were called to the White House a few
hours before it was made public.'' \116\ Subsequently, among the more
``serious consequences'' of this legislation was ``the split it produced
in the Democratic ranks'' with the result that ``congressional leaders
encountered unexpected opposition to less controversial administration
measures.'' \117\ The President's executive reorganization legislation,
which was proposed shortly after his judiciary reorganization plan was
unveiled, was affected, the bill being perceived ``as giving the
President dictatorial power.'' The executive reorganization legislation
``continued to be a headache for Bankhead and other party leaders until
a greatly watered-down version was passed in 1939.'' \118\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\116\ Ibid., p. 355; see also Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm,
1937-1940: A History (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 84-87.
\117\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 356.
\118\ Ibid.; see, generally, Richard Polenberg, Reorganizing Roosevelt's
Government: The Controversy Over Executive Reorganization, 1936-1939
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other fractious issues militating against Bankhead's efforts to gain
support for the President's relief proposals included the Ludlow
resolution, which proposed to amend the Constitution to require a
national referendum to validate any congressional declaration of war and
neutrality legislation.\119\ ``The year 1938,'' by one estimate, ``saw
the culmination of domestic reforms and the shifting of attention to
international affairs.'' \120\ Bankhead served Roosevelt as a
legislative leader through the President's second term. He was not the
only such leader consulted by the President. ``Roosevelt, preferring to
deal with Congress in his own way, frequently chose to consult directly
with chairmen whose committees held the fate of his program,'' and, it
was said, by engaging in such consultations, ``FDR embarrassed Bankhead
to demonstrate his own dominance over Congress.'' \121\ Although
Bankhead was not among those ``urging the President to seek re-election,
he announced his full support of the Roosevelt program and his readiness
to support the President should he decide to seek another term.'' \122\
At the July 1940 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, he stood as
a candidate to be Roosevelt's Vice Presidential running mate, but was
not successful. Nonetheless, he subsequently called upon all Democrats
to support the party ticket. Following his own advice, Speaker Bankhead,
about to launch the Democratic campaign in Maryland with a speech in
Baltimore, collapsed suddenly in his hotel room and died a few days
later on September 15, 1940.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\119\ Davis, FDR: Into the Storm, 1937-1940, pp. 189-190, 392-394, 399-
415, 449-458.
\120\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 357.
\121\ D.B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography (Lanham,
MD: Madison Books, 1987), p. 245.
\122\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 358.
World War II
At the time of Speaker Bankhead's death, nations of Europe had been at
war for 12 months, and Japan's aggression in China had been underway for
an even longer period of time. The formal entry of the United States
into World War II occurred on December 8, 1941, with a declaration of
war against Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor in the
Hawaiian Islands and other U.S. possessions that had occurred the
previous day.\123\ Three days later, on December 11, war was declared
against Germany and Italy.\124\ As a result of the 1940 elections,
President Roosevelt had been returned to office for an unprecedented
third term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\123\ 55 Stat. 795.
\124\ 55 Stat. 796, 797.
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During Roosevelt's first and second Presidential terms (1933-1940), as
totalitarian regimes began threatening the peace of Europe and Asia,
Congress adopted a series of Neutrality Acts restricting arms shipments
and travel by American citizens on the vessels of belligerent
nations.\125\ Two months after war commenced in Europe in September
1939, Congress, at the President's request, modified the neutrality law
by repealing the arms embargo and authorizing ``cash and carry'' exports
of arms and munitions to belligerent powers.\126\ Some advanced
weapons--aircraft carriers and long-range bombers--were procured for
``defensive'' purposes. More bold during the period of professed
neutrality was the President's unilateral transfer of 50 retired
American destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for American defense
bases in British territories located in the Caribbean. The President
also negotiated a series of defense agreements whereby American troops
were either stationed on foreign territory or were utilized to replace
the troops of nations at war in nonbelligerent tasks so that these
countries might commit their own military personnel to combat. Such was
the case with Canada when, in August 1940, it was announced that the
U.S. Navy, in effect, would police the Canadian and American coasts,
providing mutual defense to both borders. Canadian seamen would, of
course, be released to aid the British Navy. In April 1941, American
military and naval personnel, with the agreement of Denmark, were
located in Greenland. In November, the Netherlands concurred with the
introduction of American troops into Dutch Guiana.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\125\ 49 Stat. 1081, 1152; 50 Stat. 121.
\126\ 54 Stat. 4.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the declarations of war and the impending international crisis,
Roosevelt, by one estimate, became ``a President who went beyond Wilson
and even Lincoln in the bold and successful exertion of his
constitutional and statutory powers.'' Congress ``gave the President all
the power he needed to wage a victorious total war, but stubbornly
refused to be shunted to the back of the stage by the leading man.'' The
Supreme Court ``gave judicial sanction to whatever powers and actions
the President and Congress found necessary to the prosecution of the
war, and then post bellum had a lot of strong but unavailing things to
say about the limits of the Constitution-at-War.'' \127\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\127\ Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship, p. 265; for a catalog of
emergency powers granted to the President during the period of the war,
see U.S. Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service, Acts of
Congress Applicable in Time of Emergency, Public Affairs Bulletin 35
(Washington: Legislative Reference Service, 1945).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House Environment.--The 1940 elections gave the Democrats large
majorities in the House (268 to 162) and Senate (66 to 28). As a result
of the 1942 elections, these margins narrowed in the House (218 to 208),
although less so in the Senate (58 to 37). The 1944 elections
strengthened the Democratic majority in the House (242 to 190), but
resulted in only a slight change in the Senate (56 to 38).
Once war came, Congress quickly adjusted itself to the conditions of
war, and it was by no means the anachronism that many--including some of
its own members--predicted it would be. Issues were raised which needed
to be resolved politically, and, as before the war, the President and
the government agencies continued to ask Congress for funds and for
authority. The President was given great powers, but he was not a
dictator, and Congress did not become a rubber stamp in delegating
power. The relationship with the President and the numerous war agencies
raised many problems, for though it was agreed that the prosecution of
the war came within the province of the President, Congress did not wish
to delegate all authority over domestic issues to the expanding
bureaucracy. A wartime President was expected to have more power, to be
able to act without certain congressional restraints, but once this
major premise was granted, the allowable sphere of congressional action
had still to be determined.\128\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\128\ Roland Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1956), pp. 4-5.
In the House, Speaker Bankhead and Majority Leader Rayburn had
encountered determined opposition to administration legislation from
southern Democrats in 1938, but, ``when administration foreign policy
was involved, the South was inclined to be cooperative.'' \129\ Such
cooperation generally became more widespread as war erupted in Europe
late the following year, and culminated in the declarations of war in
December 1941. When the 1942 elections reduced the Democratic majority
in the House, ``sniping at the administration increased'' during the
78th Congress.\130\ The wartime bureaucracy was a primary object of
attack and derision.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\129\ Heacock, ``William B. Bankhead and the New Deal,'' p. 357.
\130\ Josephy, On the Hill, p. 336.
In the growing tensions and frustrations of the war economy, citizens
registered complaints of every kind to their Congressmen--against
administrative ineptitudes, against highhanded bureaucrats, controls,
and rationing, against the forty-hour week and strikes, and against real
or assumed injustices to relatives in the armed forces. Many members of
both houses were quick to champion such causes, waging something of a
guerrilla war in the two chambers and through the newspapers and radio
against war agencies and their administrators. Much of the drumfire was
of more than momentary significance, for it reflected a growing
offensive to try to dismantle Roosevelt's prewar domestic reforms and
halt any moves that tended to impose new social ideas.\131\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\131\ Ibid.
It also contributed to a phenomenon, described below, which often
produced consternation and discomfort for both the administration and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the principal congressional leaders of the President's political party.
The proliferation of investigation committees was one of the singular
characteristics of the war Congress. The emphasis on investigation, on
the control of policy after the passage of an Act, was a spontaneous
congressional reaction, as it were, to the increasing number of
activities with which the administrative branch was concerned. At the
beginning of the war, the major investigation committees were the Truman
Committee (Senate Special Committee Investigating the National Defense
Program), which was interested in questions relating to production; the
Tolan Committee (House Committee on Inter-state Migration), which
broadened its activities from migratory labor to include also general
problems relating to the organization of production; the Murray and
Patman Committees (Senate and House Committees on Small Business); the
Maloney Committee (Senate Special Committee to Investigate Gasoline and
Fuel-Oil Shortages); and the House and Senate Committees on Military
Affairs and on Naval Affairs. There was considerable overlapping of
committee interests inasmuch as jurisdictions were not precisely
determined. Some dozen different committees were concerned with such
controversial subjects as rubber production; manpower policy was
considered by the Labor Committee as well as by the Military Affairs,
Appropriations, Judiciary, and Agricultural Committees, and by the
Truman and Tolan Committees.\132\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\132\ Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War, p. 19;
concerning the Truman committee, see Donald H. Riddle, The Truman
Committee: A Study in Congressional Responsibility (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1964); Harry A. Toulmin, Jr., Diary of
Democracy: The Senate War Investigating Committee (New York: Richard R.
Smith, 1947); Theodore Wilson, ``The Truman Committee, 1941,'' in Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Roger Bruns, eds., Congress Investigates: A
Documented History, 1792-1974, vol. 4 (New York: Chelsea House, 1975),
pp. 3115-3136.
Generally, the congressional situation did not improve as the
prospects for victory in Europe and the Pacific steadily became stronger
during 1943 and 1944 and Roosevelt's return to the White House for a
fourth Presidential term grew more likely. By one estimate, the ``1944
session of Congress, attuned to the presidential election of that year,
was more partisan and quarrelsome than the one of the year before.''
\133\ In the subsequent playout of history, Roosevelt retained the
Presidency and his party increased its majority hold on the House, but
his tenure in office ended suddenly on April 12, 1945, with his death in
Warm Springs, GA. Shortly thereafter, on May 8, came the Allies' victory
in Europe, followed by victory over Japan on August 15.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\133\ Josephy, On the Hill, p. 338.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Sam Rayburn.--First elected to the speakership on September
16, 1940, to succeed the fallen Will Bankhead, Samuel T. Rayburn
remained in this position throughout the years of World War II, and
subsequently became the longest serving Speaker--over 17 years--in
American history. A Texas attorney and State legislator, he was first
elected to the House in 1912 as a Democrat, serving in the 63d and the
24 succeeding Congresses. Rayburn became the chairman of the Interstate
and Foreign Commerce Committee during the 72d Congress and remained in
that leadership position for the next two Congresses. In this capacity,
he had endeared himself to the Roosevelt administration by assisting
with the passage of some of the most controversial New Deal
legislation.\134\ Moreover, within a few years after entering the House,
Rayburn became a protege of the influential John Nance Garner, who
became an intermediary to the House for President Wilson, Speaker of the
House (1931-1932), and Vice President (1933-1941).\135\ His close ties
to Roosevelt and Garner, as well as his being a member of the powerful
Texas congressional delegation, militated against his initial attempts
to gain a top House leadership position in 1934.\136\ ``Speaker Byrns's
death in 1936 opened the door for Rayburn,'' it has been said, ``and
Speaker Bankhead's death four years later closed it behind him.'' \137\
Moreover, his long experience in the House would serve him well. Indeed,
according to one considered view, ``Sam Rayburn entered upon the duties
of Speaker of the House with better training for the speakership than
any of the forty-two men who had preceded him.'' \138\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\134\ Peters, The American Speakership, p. 123.
\135\ Ibid., p. 120.
\136\ Ibid., pp. 118-119.
\137\ Ibid., p. 121.
\138\ Booth Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn: A Political Partnership
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1971), p. 147.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House environment initially encountered by Speaker Rayburn in 1941
was familiar from his recent majority leader experience. ``The
Democratic majority was substantial, but it included a number of members
who were prepared to oppose the administration on almost any given
issue,'' according to one assessment.\139\ Moreover, there were
dangerous cross currents at work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\139\ Ibid., p. 155.
The delicate situation was made more so by the necessity of winning
congressional acceptance of a shift in the official government posture
toward the war in Europe. The President, while pushing for a strong
defense program, had sedulously endeavored to turn popular thinking away
from the possibility that the nation might become involved in armed
combat.\140\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\140\ Ibid.
The President quickly tested Rayburn's skills as a legislative manager
working on his behalf. In early January, administration draftsmen began
developing a bill authorizing the President to have the Armed Forces
place orders for such defense articles as they required, as well as for
such additional quantities of such materials as the United States might
lend or lease to other nations. Great Britain, which had just repelled
savage and sustained German air attacks, would be the immediate
beneficiary. Rayburn contributed to perfecting the final version of the
lend-lease legislation, which was introduced by Majority Leader John
McCormack as H.R. 1776, ``A Bill to Further Promote the Defense of the
United States.'' \141\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\141\ See, generally, Warren F. Kimball, The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-
Lease, 1939-1941 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969).
The bill defined defense articles so broadly as to make nearly
anything a defense article if the President said so. It authorized the
Chief Executive to order any government official to have manufactured in
arsenals, shipyards, factories or to procure in any way any defense
article for the use of any country the President named--
``notwithstanding the provisions of other laws.'' The President also
could order any defense article to be sold, exchanged, transferred,
leased, lent, or tested, inspected, proved, repaired, outfitted or
reconditioned, for the use of any party he might name--again without
regard to other laws. The bill provided that defense information might
be communicated to any government the President named and that any
defense article could be released for export to any country he named.
And it authorized the President to issue such orders as he considered
necessary to carry out any part of the act.\142\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\142\ Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn, p. 159.
Rayburn began gathering votes in support of the legislation. He could
count on the southern Democrats, who were ``almost unanimously
interventionist while the Republicans were hopelessly split.'' After
canvassing other colleagues, he perfected four specific modifications,
to be approved in committee, which would garner additional votes for the
measure on the floor. ``Rayburn thought it might also be well, as an
insurance measure, to do some trading with representatives from farm
states by providing that cash payments would be made for food and other
raw materials provided under terms of the bill.'' Finally, ``during the
two days of debate Rayburn successfully stifled efforts by isolationist
members to amend it into innocuousness.'' The House adopted the
legislation in early February by a margin of almost 100 votes.\143\ It
was subsequently signed into law on March 11, 1941.\144\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\143\ Ibid., pp. 160-162.
\144\ 55 Stat. 31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An even more daunting task, however, soon fell to Rayburn. The
military conscription law enacted in September 1940, providing that Army
draftees would be in uniform for only 1 year of training, would expire
unless it was statutorily extended before the end of August. In
continuing the draft law, Roosevelt wanted to extend tours of service to
18 months. Opposition to extending the law was widespread and highly
emotional. Initially, Rayburn personally appealed to many of his
colleagues, being ``no less convinced than Roosevelt that an extension
of the draft was imperative for national security.'' \145\ Up to the
moment the final vote began, the outcome was uncertain. The clerk
completed the first call of names and then started the second required
call to obtain the votes of those who had not initially answered. The
result was a tie, which meant defeat for the draft extension bill, but
many Members were coming to the well of the House to be recognized to
change their votes. When this process reached a point where the vote was
203 to 202 in favor of the legislation, Rayburn announced the final vote
and declared the bill had passed. Protests broke out. The Speaker
recognized a Member opposed to the bill, who asked for a recapitulation
of the vote, a purely mechanical examination of the vote to determine
that each Member had been correctly recorded. When this was completed,
Rayburn declared there was no correction in the vote, ``the vote stands,
and without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table.'' The
tabling of the motion to reconsider meant that no reconsideration could
occur without unanimous consent. The draft extension bill had been saved
in the House by a single vote and the adroit action of the Speaker.\146\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\145\ Mooney, Roosevelt and Rayburn, pp. 164-165.
\146\ Alfred Steinberg, Sam Rayburn: A Biography (New York: Hawthorn
Books, 1975), pp. 171-172.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the closing weeks of 1941, Rayburn was instrumental in obtaining
passage of amendments to the Neutrality Acts which would allow armed
American merchant ships to enter combat zones or the ports of
belligerent nations. He gained some votes by persuading the President to
send him a letter making a personal appeal for the amendments. This he
read on the floor to the Members, but, to garner a sufficient number of
votes for the amendments, he also agreed to allow an antistrike bill,
which he had blocked because he considered it unfair, to come to the
floor. ``If Rayburn deserved credit for winning repeal of the neutrality
restrictions,'' it was observed, ``he also shared blame for allowing a
harsh antistrike measure to pass the House a few days later.'' \147\ The
political climate, necessitating such tradeoffs, would shift
significantly shortly thereafter with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the
entry of the United States into World War II.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\147\ Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, p. 272.
United, at least, in their desire to win the war, Democrats and
Republicans temporarily put aside their differences to give Franklin
Roosevelt the basic laws he needed to strengthen the war effort.
Victories came deceptively easy for the House leadership as Congress
handed the President vast wartime powers, appropriated staggering sums
for the military, found new revenue to finance the war by adding some 25
million Americans to the tax rolls, and expanded the draft to include
18-year-olds. ``No administration in time of war ever had greater
cooperation than we have given the present administration,'' said House
Republican Leader Joe Martin.\148\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\148\ Ibid., p. 279.
This last action--extending the draft to 18-year-olds--was costly for
Democrats in the House and Rayburn could see the result when he convened
the 1943 session: 50 Members from his party in the previous Congress
were gone, and his margin over the minority was 11 votes. The
precariousness of the situation soon became apparent when a large number
of southern Democrats failed to appear on the House floor to cast their
votes for an initial group of administration bills, causing them to be
defeated. Rayburn, however, declined to punish the absentees.\149\
Nonetheless, his efforts on behalf of the administration during the year
brought him public praise from both the President and the First
Lady.\150\ There was even a fleeting possibility that Rayburn might
become Roosevelt's Vice Presidential running mate on the 1944
ticket.\151\ Rayburn was reelected to the House where he once again was
installed as Speaker and the Democrats again held a 50 vote margin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\149\ Steinberg, Sam Rayburn, p. 213.
\150\ Ibid., p. 215.
\151\ Ibid., pp. 215-220, 222; Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, pp. 291-297.
Renewed optimism gripped Washington as 1945 began. It promised to be
an eventful year. The Democrats firmly controlled Congress. Political
appointees could see four more years of job security ahead. In Europe,
the allies were drawing a tight ring around Hitler's Germany; in the
Pacific, U.S. Marines were advancing rapidly toward a final showdown
with Japan. The war would be over in a year, according to most
predictions.\152\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\152\ Hardeman and Bacon, Rayburn, p. 301.
Indeed, it was an eventful year: the Presidency of Franklin D.
Roosevelt came to an end with his death, and the end of World War II
came with the dawning of the Atomic Age. The career of Sam Rayburn as
Speaker of the House, however, continued for many years after the
conclusion of the national emergencies which had first tested his
leadership.
Chapter 8
The Changing Speakership
Ronald M. Peters, Jr.
Regents' Professor, Carl Albert Research and Studies Center and
Department of Political Science, University of Oklahoma
The speakership is a unique office due to its dual institutional and
partisan functions. On the one hand, the Speaker of the House is its
constitutionally designated presiding officer. As such, the Speaker has
an obligation to preserve the prerogatives and respect the integrity of
the House as a whole and of all of its Members without regard to party
affiliation. The Speaker's main parliamentary obligation is to enable
the House to perform its legislative functions. To the office is
entrusted the responsibility to facilitate the legislative process so
that the Congress can perform its constitutional role. On the other
hand, the Speaker is the leader of the majority party and is responsible
for offering political and policy direction, attending to the electoral
needs of Members of his own party, and enabling his party to gain or
retain a legislative majority so that it can press its policies into
public law.
In the 30 years since the reform movement of the early seventies, the
speakership has undergone substantial change. The evolving character of
the office has demonstrated two tendencies: a shift in emphasis from the
parliamentary role of presiding officer to the political role of party
leader, and a shift in attention from legislation to events external to
the legislative process. This change can be easily illustrated by
contrasting the way that Speaker Carl Albert (D-OK, Speaker from 1971 to
1977) and current Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) allocated their time.
Albert presided over the reform movement. A protege of Speaker Sam
Rayburn (D-TX), Albert bridged the transition from the pre-reform to the
post-reform eras. He straddled the transition from the old order to the
new, but his orientation toward the speakership was distinctly
traditional. Albert was well known for a punctilious attendance on his
duties as presiding officer, recognizing Members to speak, ruling on
points of order, and so forth.\1\ He was often to be found in the chair,
and felt that it was the best place to be if one wanted to feel the
pulse of the institution, as Members knew where to find him and would
frequently come to visit with him. When not presiding, Albert was
typically to be found in his office, arriving at 7 each morning and
usually not leaving the building until the early evening. His attendance
at political functions was intermittent, and participation in
fundraising events was rare. Albert did initiate some changes consistent
with the new order. He proposed a legislative agenda, was the first to
use an ad hoc committee to process legislation, the first to utilize a
party task force to define a party position, and the first to hire a
full-time press secretary. Nonetheless, Albert recognized his obligation
to fulfill the Speaker's parliamentary role. This was clearly
illustrated in his approach to the impeachment proceedings for President
Nixon and the handling of Vice President Agnew's resignation, during
which Albert was insistent that no partisan advantage be taken.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The Speaker does not preside over the Committee of the Whole House,
where most amendments to legislation are considered. He does preside
over the House itself on final consideration of legislation, unless he
chooses to name a Speaker pro tempore. Speaker Albert usually did not
name a Speaker pro tempore unless he was unable to preside for some
reason. Speaker Hastert routinely appoints Speakers pro tempore.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Hastert's schedule is fuller and his days perhaps even longer
than Albert's, but his time is spent differently. He is rarely in the
chair. Instead, his time is spent in an endless series of meetings with
members of the extended leadership group, members from various
committees working on pending legislation, various factional
organizations within the Republican conference, staff meetings to
develop legislative strategy, meetings to set strategies for upcoming
campaigns and elections, and of course, the meetings, phone calls,
receptions, and trips necessary to sustain the legislative party's
fundraising base. Whereas Speaker Albert had his primary residence in
Washington, DC, Speaker Hastert maintains his primary residency in his
Illinois district, and spends many weekends at home there.\2\ Speaker
Albert rarely traveled to campaign or to solicit campaign funds; Speaker
Hastert visits scores of legislative districts each year, and is his
legislative party's primary fundraiser. When Hastert was elected Speaker
it was anticipated that he would take a different approach to the office
than had his predecessor, Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Gingrich had offered
himself as a national leader of the Republican Party and wanted to use
the speakership as a platform for his policy positions. He was also the
field general of the Republican revolution, raising money and
campaigning for Members. Hastert, in contrast, was to be a ``man of the
House,'' returning the House to ``regular order,'' and respecting the
prerogatives of the committees. When we consider how Hastert spends his
time, however, it looks a lot more like Gingrich than like Albert.
Hastert travels often, has raised more money than Gingrich did, and is
deeply engaged in both legislative and political strategy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Jonathan Franzen, ``The Listener,'' New Yorker, Oct. 6, 2003, pp.
84-99.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How did the speakership evolve from Albert to Hastert, and what have
been among the most important aspects of this transformation serving to
define the speakership today? To address these questions, we first
discuss the political context that defines the speakership today. Then,
we consider the changing character of the Speaker's role within the
legislative process, the ``inside game.'' Third, we characterize the
increasing external demands on the Speaker, the ``outside game.''
Fourth, we assess the relationship between the Speaker's internal and
external role in the context of what has been called the ``permanent
campaign.'' Fifth, we consider the Speaker's important relationship to
the Presidency. We conclude by considering the effect on the speakership
of political party and the personal characteristics of individual
Speakers.
The Political Context
In a stable, democratic regime the process of change often occurs so
incrementally that we do not take note of the changes until they have
already occurred. Occasionally, of course, there is a sharp break with
the past. Such was the case when the reform movement fundamentally
realigned the power structure in the House, empowering the Speaker and
diminishing to a degree the power of the committees. But we can now see
that the changing character of the speakership was not due to the
changes wrought by the reform movement as much as it was to an
underlying realignment in American politics. The reformers themselves
did not foresee this. They were liberal Democrats who wanted to break
the grip of the southern, conservative committee chairs of their own
party; but they certainly had no notion of empowering Republicans.\3\
They wanted to strengthen the speakership because this would serve their
own policy goals; but they had no desire to create a ``czar'' for the
House. The liberal Democrats believed that the majority of the American
people supported their policy positions, and that a more open and
accountable legislative body would embrace those policies; they did not
anticipate that the more open and accountable process could be accessed
by conservative Republicans whose aim was to drive them from power. But
this is in fact what happened.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Burton D. Sheppard, Rethinking Congressional Reform (New York:
Schenkman, 1985).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The realignment in the American political system that brought about
the transition from a Congress dominated by the Democrats to one that,
albeit narrowly divided, is at present under Republican control, took a
full generation to materialize. It began with the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 which, as President Johnson well understood, opened
the door to the South to the Republican Party. It was delayed for 20
years in part because the Watergate scandal enabled the Democrats to
seize and subsequently to hold a substantial number of previously
Republican districts in the elections of 1974 and 1976. It culminated in
the election of Republican House and Senate majorities in the 1994
election. By the 2000 election, the American people appeared to be about
evenly divided in their support of Democrats and Republican; but the
constitutional structure gives more square miles to the GOP, with the
Democrats piling up substantial majorities in congressional districts
that are stacked on the two coasts and in the big cities of the Midwest.
With population shifting to the South and Southwest, and with the
conversion of the South from Democratic to Republican control, the
political landscape has been radically transformed since the reform
movement in the House of Representatives. One result has been the
``homogenization'' of the two parties.\4\ Most Democrats and Republicans
now hold safe seats. As the two parties have sorted out the districts,
each party has become more ideologically homogenous. Democrats are more
solidly liberal with a small and dwindling number of conservatives;
Republicans are now more solidly conservative with a small and dwindling
number of moderates. Thus, two evenly divided congressional parties face
each other across a wider ideological chasm. There are two principal
consequences of this: first, each party must place greater emphasis on
elections in order to hold place; second, the majority party (presently
the Republicans) must gather legislative majorities from within its own
ranks since it can anticipate few, if any, crossover votes from the
minority (now the Democrats).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ David W. Rhode, Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The House of Representatives was a main battleground of this partisan
realignment. Beginning with the election of 1978, a new generation of
younger, more conservative, and more confrontational Republicans came to
the House determined to bring to the House a Republican majority.\5\
Their leader was Newt Gingrich. During the eighties, Gingrich and his
allies in the ``Conservative Opportunity Society'' sought every
opportunity to challenge the Democrats--their policies, their leaders,
and their management of the House. The Republican's goal was to turn
seats held by Democrats into seats held by Republicans. This Republican
onslaught forced the Democrats to take defensive measures in both the
legislative and electoral processes. Legislatively, the Democrats sought
to use their majorities to control the House agenda in order to prevent
the Republicans from forcing floor votes on politically inspired
amendments. This greatly enhanced the role of the Speaker and the Rules
Committee as agents of party governance. Electorally, the Democrats
sought to strengthen their fundraising capacity, candidate recruitment,
and electoral strategy. As their leader, Speakers O'Neill, Wright, and
Foley became increasingly engaged in electoral activities. These
activities were not confined to a campaign season, but instead extended
through the calendar year with planning for the next election beginning
as soon as the current election was over.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein, Storming the Gates (Boston: Little
Brown, 1996).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the Republican triumph in the 1994 elections, party control of
the House of Representatives has been up for grabs. The Republican 26-
seat majority was initially expanded by the recruitment of five party-
switching Democrats, but then dwindled with the elections of 1996 and
1998 to establish the very narrow Republican House majority we observe
today.\6\ In the description of Michael Barone:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ At the outset of the 108th Congress there were 229 Republicans, 205
Democrats, and 1 Independent who organized with the Democrats.
The United States at the end of the 20th century was a nation divided
down the middle. In 1996, Bill Clinton was re-elected with 49.2 percent
of the vote. That same year, Republicans held the House, as their
candidates led Democrats by 48.9 percent to 48.5 percent. In 1998,
Republicans again held onto the House, as their candidates led in the
popular vote by 48.9 percent to 47.8 percent. On November, 7, 2000--
although the final result was not known until 5 weeks later--George W.
Bush won 47.9 percent of the vote, and Al Gore won 48.4 percent. The
same day, House Republican candidates led Democrats by 49.2 percent to
47.9 percent.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Michael Barone, ``The 49 Percent Nation,'' National Journal, June 8,
2001, pp. 1710-1716.
Congressional redistricting pursuant to the 2000 census has reinforced
the current stalemate. The term limits movement reached its zenith in
the late eighties and early nineties when it appeared that the only
incumbent Members of the House likely to be defeated were under
indictment or the shadow of scandal. In 1988, only six incumbents were
defeated. The stability of incumbency provided little basis for
anticipating the Republican victory in 1994. Rapid turnover marked the
elections of 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1996. Not only were the two parties
narrowly divided, but average seniority plummeted as long-serving
Members retired or were defeated. Given the close competition for
control of the House one might have expected that a pattern of regular
turnover, incumbent vulnerability, and changes in partisan control might
have emerged. Instead, the House has become as stable as it was before,
even though it is more narrowly divided. In the 2000 redistricting,
Republicans and Democrats worked at the state and national levels to
create safe-seat districts for incumbents with the result that only a
few dozen House seats are competitive in a typical election year. In the
2002 congressional elections, 96 percent of incumbents were
reelected.\8\
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\8\ The effect of redistricting is not only to secure safe seats for
incumbents; it also has the effect of tying those incumbents to primary
election voters who are typically more partisan than general election
voters. This accentuates the partisanship in the House. Previously,
safe-seat incumbents had more leeway to vote against the leadership; now
they have less. For a recent discussion see Jeffrey Toobin, ``The Great
Election Grab,'' New Yorker, Dec. 8, 2003, pp. 63-80.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus, the political context in which the speakership functions today
is defined by a stable but narrow division between the majority
Republicans and the minority Democrats. Should the Democrats succeed in
electing a majority of Members in a future election, it seems very
likely that their majority would be as narrow as that which the
Republicans now enjoy. The result is that the two parties continuously
contest power, policy, and politics. This has occasioned new roles for
the Speaker both within the House and external to it.
The Inside Game
The reform movement offered new power and influence to the Speaker.\9\
The most significant change under the rules of the House pertained to
bill referral. The Speaker was empowered, in 1975, to offer multiple and
sequential referral of bills to committees in order to facilitate
consideration of legislation that cut across the jurisdictions of the
standing committees. Committee chairs could no longer stand behind
jurisdictional claims in order to delay legislation or dictate its
terms. More important changes occurred within the rules of the
Democratic Caucus. The Speaker was given real control over the Rules
Committee, naming its chair and designating the majority members, making
it for the first time since the revolt against Speaker Cannon in 1910 a
reliable arm of the leadership. This meant that the Speaker would be
able to control terms of floor consideration for bills and could keep
legislation off of the floor entirely by denying a rule. The power of
naming Democrats to committees was transferred from the Democratic
Caucus of the Ways and Means Committee, which held this responsibility
since the days of Champ Clark and Oscar Underwood, to the party's
Steering and Policy Committee, several members of which were named by
the Speaker. The Steering and Policy Committee also made nominations to
the Democratic Caucus for committee chairs. Within the committees, a
bidding process was established for selecting subcommittee chairs,
further eroding the power of the committee chairs. These changes
dramatically strengthened the power of the Speaker vis-a-vis that of the
committees and their chairs, as the reformers intended.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Sheppard, Rethinking Congressional Reform. See also Ronald M.
Peters, Jr., The American Speakership, 2d ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins, 1997), pp. 146-208.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These changes also placed demands upon the Speaker. No longer could a
Speaker sit back and allow others to decide committee assignments, chair
appointments, bill referrals, and the terms of floor consideration. Now
the Speaker had to take a hand and take a stand. Sam Rayburn had been
happy to avoid these choices because he knew that it would thrust him
into the middle of conflicts between the southern conservative and
northern liberal wings of his party. This is precisely what happened to
Tip O'Neill, Jim Wright, and Tom Foley. The initial effect of the
reforms occurred within the Democratic Caucus as the policies of the
Carter administration divided the Democrats along ideological and
regional lines.
Tip O'Neill's use of legislative task forces to forge floor majorities
was a response to the more diffuse legislative environment but also to
the underlying cleavages among Democrats. O'Neill found it necessary to
draw upon the powers of the speakership to shape the context of
legislation. The multiple referral of bills meant that compromise would
have to be brokered across committee and subcommittee jurisdictions. The
Speaker and his staff had to become involved early rather than late in
the legislative process. The Speaker's control of the Rules Committee
meant that he could shape the terms of floor consideration, including
the determination of amendments to be made in order. Structuring floor
consideration provided opportunities to negotiate compromise by enabling
some amendments and not others. The use of task forces to press for
passage of key bills or amendments provided a mechanism to push through
the compromises that had been made. Thus, the Speaker's role in the
legislative process became much more pervasive.
In addition to changes that empowered party leaders, there was also a
countertendency during this period toward greater autonomy of individual
Members. Tip O'Neill's most famous aphorism was that ``all politics is
local.'' Political science ratified this discovery when it found that if
you wanted to understand the Congress you had to understand the
relationship between Members and their districts.\10\ In the seventies,
a new breed of representatives was identified, comprised of Members who
were found to be more autonomous and more entrepreneurial, the ``new
American politician.'' \11\ The decentralization of power in the House
reflected the aspirations of such Members. Members learned to work their
districts by a range of techniques that included good old-fashioned
constituency service, pork barreling, extensive use of the frank,
regular trips to the district, occasional townhall meetings, and other
novelties such as ``representation vans,'' mobile offices that traveled
the district.\12\ These techniques were developed first by younger
Democrats elected in the post-Watergate landslides, and they enabled the
party to consolidate its control as many Democrats hung on to previously
Republican districts. This was good news for Democratic Speakers. But
other aspects of the new politics were not so good. Under the terms of
the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974, Members could receive campaign
contributions from individuals and newly defined ``political action
committees.'' This development enabled enterprising Democrats to
establish independent and secure funding for their campaigns. The result
was that Members became less and less dependent on the political parties
and the party leadership. If all politics is local, then the tug of
constituency would pull Democrats away from centralized party positions
and make coalition-building more difficult. That was the challenge that
Tip O'Neill faced.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Richard Fenno, Home Style (Boston: Little Brown, 1978); David R.
Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1974).
\11\ Burdette Loomis, The New American Politician (New York: Basic
Books, 1988).
\12\ Fenno, Home Style.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The inside game is affected by outside forces. The political terrain
fundamentally changed with the election of Ronald Reagan and a
Republican Senate in 1980. During the Carter administration, the Speaker
was asked to play offense, building majority support for Democratic
bills. Now, O'Neill was on the defensive. The House of Representatives
was the last bastion of the Democrats facing the Reagan onslaught. Faced
with the real possibility of losing the House, Speaker O'Neill sought
means of building greater discipline within the Democratic Caucus.
Whereas during the Carter administration O'Neill had occasionally let
the chips fall where they may, he could not take that risk when faced
with Republican proposals. The Republicans were to hold the Presidency
for 12 years. For 6 of those years, the House of Representatives was the
only branch of the government controlled by the Democrats. Reaganism
would be stopped there or not at all.
The implication for the Speaker's management of the House was twofold:
on the one hand, control of the House agenda was now critically
important; on the other hand, the balance of power now lay with the
southern Democrats who had organized into the ``Conservative Democratic
Forum.'' O'Neill had to reach out to these conservatives while still
maintaining the support of liberals in opposition to the Reagan
proposals. During the first year of the Reagan administration Tip
O'Neill lost these battles as the southerners, shaky in their districts,
jumped ship to support Reagan. Thereafter, O'Neill was more successful
in holding the caucus together behind Democratic alternatives. He always
lost some Democratic votes, but was able to hold a sufficient majority
of the party on several key votes. Examples include 1981 votes on the
Voting Rights Act Extension and on the Labor/Health and Human Services
Appropriation bill, and 1982 votes on emergency housing aid, Medicare
funding, and an override of President Reagan's veto of a supplemental
appropriations bill.
The techniques that he used were not by then new but were used to new
effect. An example is the use of the Rules Committee to structure floor
debate. During the Carter administration O'Neill was less concerned with
losing votes than with politically inspired Republican amendments
designed to force Democrats on the record on controversial issues. Now,
he had to worry that Republicans might carry comprehensive substitute
amendments or motions to recommit bills to committee with instructions,
another method of substituting Democratic bills with Republican bills.
Thus, in the early eighties the House Rules Committee, led by
Congressman Richard Bolling (D-MO) introduced the use of ``King of the
Hill'' rules by which the House would consider a series of comprehensive
budget proposals, including bills offered by liberal Democrats, by
conservative Democrats, by the Congressional Black Caucus, and by the
Republicans, along with the bill proposed by the House Budget Committee
on behalf of the leadership. The last bill to pass was to be adopted
even if it had fewer votes than a previously considered proposal.
Naturally, the leadership bill was voted on last. This strategy aimed to
give as many Democrats as possible a vote to take home and a vote that
really counted, leaving the Republicans to cavil about the process.
Stringent control of process was the key device. The Democrats had
increasing recourse to modified rules that limited the number and nature
of amendments that could be offered. They sought to prevent Republicans
from offering competitive proposals or amendments that were designed to
force Democrats from conservative districts to cast hard votes. But
their main goal was to develop legislative alternatives that could
gather support across the party spectrum. This became more important
after the 1986 elections returned the Democrats to power in the Senate.
Now, the Democrats could force the action by passing party bills that
Presidents Reagan and Bush would have to sign or veto. While Republican
Senators could still mount filibusters, the Democrats had more leeway to
craft bills that could command majorities in both houses of Congress.
This created a need for even broader intra-party communications. The
response of Speakers O'Neill and Wright was to preside over the
development of an elaborate organizational system that included an
expanded Steering and Policy Committee, an enlarged whip organization,
more extensive use of task forces, and new efforts to utilize the
Democratic Caucus as an avenue for policy development and intra-party
dialog. These collaborative venues and mechanisms aimed to build
consensus among Democrats in order to enact Democratic legislation.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Peters, The American Speakership, pp. 209-286; Barbara Sinclair,
Majority Party Leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983); Barbara Sinclair,
``Tip O'Neill and Contemporary House Leadership,'' in Roger H. Davidson,
Susan Webb Hammond, and Raymond W. Smock, eds., Masters of the House:
Congressional Leadership Over Two Centuries (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1998), pp. 289-318.
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The culmination of these trends occurred in the 100th Congress under
the leadership of Speaker Jim Wright.\14\ This Congress was among the
most productive in recent American history, and its agenda was set and
driven by Speaker Wright and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-
ME). In the House, Wright used all of the tools that had evolved under
Speaker O'Neill, but did so with more determination and insistence.
Wright set the policy agenda, gave direction to committees, set
deadlines for committee consideration of bills, and used the tools of
floor control to ramrod bills to passage. Using this legislative
juggernaut (and the fact that the Democrats were in some cases spreading
benefits to Republican districts), the Democrats pushed to enactment a
number of bills with bipartisan support. Many House Republicans chafed
under the Democratic thumb, equally resentful at the Democrats and at
President Bush for his unwillingness to stand up for conservative
principles. Bush signed an extension of the Civil Rights Act as well as
major environmental bills that included provisions that many Republicans
opposed. Many perceived his worst offense was reneging on his pledge
against new taxes as part of the budget negotiations of 1990. House
Republicans initially balked, thus repudiating their own President.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ John Barry, The Ambition and the Power (New York: Viking Press,
1989); Barbara Sinclair, ``The Emergence of Strong Leadership in the
U.S. House of Representatives,'' Journal of Politics, vol. 54, no. 3,
Aug. 1993, pp. 657-683.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A key moment for Speaker Wright occurred in October 1987 when the
House was considering the budget for the fiscal year already underway.
The stock market had plunged and there was an atmosphere of panic on
Wall Street if not in Washington. Wright felt that it was imperative
that Congress act to adopt a budget. However, when the Speaker lost the
vote on the ``rule'' from the Rules Committee making the deficit
reduction bill in order for consideration, he employed a rare tactic
that would permit another ``rule'' to be taken up on the same day
without having to obtain the required two-thirds vote. (The rule book of
the House requires ``rules'' to lay over one day before they can be
considered on the floor unless that requirement is waived by a two-
thirds vote of the House.) Wright took the extraordinary step of
declaring the current legislative day adjourned, and declaring a new
legislative day in session. He then called for a new vote on the second
rule, which was adopted by the House. When, again, the Democrats were
one vote short, Wright held the vote open until a vote was changed. When
the voting board showed a majority for the Democrats, Wright declared
the vote over.
This episode played into the image of Wright as a heavy-handed
politician that many Republicans were trying to convey to the public
with their relentless assault on his ethics. And no doubt Wright's
actions were extraordinary and unusual. But this episode offers only a
dramatic example of an underlying tendency toward the use of procedural
control that had evolved since the reform movement and certainly
throughout the eighties. Wright used his formal powers to control
legislative procedure and used his influence to pressure Members to
support the party position. Wright's specific actions were sometimes
controversial, but the principle underlying them was not: the Speaker
was responsible for the party's agenda.
With Wright's resignation in 1989, Tom Foley (D-WA) became Speaker.
Foley was well suited to the challenges facing him in two respects.
First, he was a seasoned product of the new leadership, richly
experienced in the techniques of intra-party coalition building that had
evolved under O'Neill and Wright. Second, he took very seriously his
obligation, as Speaker, to restore a sense of comity across party lines.
Wright's resignation, however, only served to whet Gingrich's appetite,
and the Republican attacks on the Democrats' administration of the House
continued. Internally, the Republicans challenged Democratic management
of the House bank, restaurant, and post office. Externally, they called
for term limits. Foley sought to defend the House against these
institutional attacks, arguing that the vast majority of Members were
serious, competent, and ethical. Foley also opposed term limits on
constitutional grounds.
The Democrats might have survived the 1994 elections were it not for
key strategic decisions made early in the Clinton administration.
Congressional reform had been an issue during the 1992 campaign, and new
Democratic Members elected that year pressed the leadership to pursue an
internal reform agenda. Speaker Foley and other party leaders looked
back on the experience of the seventies and drew two lessons: reform is
always divisive and the failure to govern is usually fatal. During the
first half of the seventies the Democrats fought each other over reform
issues. During the second half of the seventies, they fought with the
Carter administration over policy issues such as health care cost
control. The chosen path now was to put reform on the rear burner in
order to unite behind an economic program in support of the Clinton
administration. This strategy led the Democrats to a major tax increase
in 1993 that passed with no Republican votes, and led the Democrats away
from any effort to address the internal reforms demanded by Republicans
and the new Democrats.
This contributed to the election of a Republican majority in 1994 and
a new Speaker in the 104th Congress, Newt Gingrich. It immediately
became clear that the Republicans intended to manage the internal
administrative and legislative affairs of the House very differently
than had the Democrats. With respect to administration, Speaker Gingrich
sought to professionalize and, where possible, privatize management. He
took control of the Office of House Administrator, which had been
created by the Democrats in the wake of the scandals at the House bank,
restaurant, and post office. This led to a tussle with the House
Administration Committee, the venue for Member control of administrative
process. Gingrich initially won this battle and was able to implement a
series of major administrative reforms, including the elimination of the
Office of Doorkeeper and the professionalization of the Office of
Sergeant at Arms. Eventually, Gingrich's hand-chosen administrator came
under attack by the House Administration Committee, and was fired. The
House Administration Committee reasserted its prerogatives.
With respect to legislation, Gingrich and his leadership circle were
determined to make sure that, under Republican control, the committees
would be subordinated to the party leadership. They placed a three-term
limit on service as committee chair and a four-term limit on the
speakership. Term limits greatly enhance the power of the Speaker
relative to the committee chairs. Speaker Gingrich also assumed the
power to appoint several committee chairs, abandoning seniority in some
important instances, and approved some of their senior staff. Proxy
voting in committees, which had been an important resource for
Democratic chairs, was abolished. With the committee system firmly in
control, he nonetheless proceeded to bypass the committees entirely in
moving key elements of the Republican Contract with America. Ad hoc task
forces were appointed to develop legislation. These task forces
sometimes worked in cooperation with lobbyists. The Democrats, members
of the committees but not of the task forces, were essentially cut out
of the legislative process.
Gingrich's conception of the speakership was essentially
parliamentary, although he conflated the role of Speaker and Prime
Minister. Under the British Constitution, the Speaker of the House of
Commons is thoroughly non-partisan. Those appointed Speaker remove
themselves from partisan politics not just during their tenure in
office, but permanently. They fulfill what we have here termed the
``constitutional'' function of presiding officer. Party leadership is
left to the Prime Minister who, when supported by a majority of party
members, is able to dominate the legislative process. The Prime Minister
also serves as Chief Executive. In a parliamentary system, there is
greater party discipline and bills are more likely to be passed along
party lines. Gingrich, as Speaker, saw himself as the leader of the
congressional party and as a national political leader for the
Republicans. As discussed further below, he sought to stand toe-to-toe
with the Presidency. With respect to internal House governance, he
sought to gather the strings of power in his own hands. Surrounded by a
rather narrow leadership circle (the Speaker's advisory group), he
sought to dictate strategy and in some cases the terms of legislation.
This is not to say that he was not consultative; the task forces,
extensive communications operation, and extended leadership staff
structure, along with the weekly meetings of the Republican conference,
provided ample opportunity for Member input. But Gingrich did not want
to be constrained by an autonomous committee structure.
The momentum generated by the 1994 election and the novelty of the
Republican takeover of the House sustained this powerful leadership
regime through the 104th Congress even as Gingrich came under attack by
the Democrats for violations of House ethics rules. As Gingrich's
position eroded, his various leadership mantras (listen, learn, help,
lead) appeared less salient to the needs of Republican Members.
Gingrich's leadership became increasingly problematical for many
Republicans. The 73 new Republicans elected in 1994 were very
conservative, and thought that the Speaker was too accommodating. More
senior Members thought that he was too overbearing. In July 1997 a coup
attempt was aborted. The committee chairs became restive, insisting on
their prerogatives. After the Republicans lost 8 seats in the 1998
election, 1 of them, Appropriations Committee Chair Robert Livingston
(R-LA), announced his candidacy for Speaker. Gingrich withdrew from the
contest and announced his planned resignation from the House. Then, in a
surprising development, Livingston himself resigned. In a crisis, the
Republicans turned to Chief Deputy Whip Dennis Hastert of Illinois as
their new Speaker.
Hastert wanted to return the House to ``regular order,'' by which he
meant that the committees would resume their legislative functions. This
led some to an impression that Hastert was more like Foley, if not
Albert. Others suggested that Republican Whip Tom DeLay was the more
influential member of the Republican leadership team. With DeLay's
election as majority leader in the 108th Congress, he has been widely
regarded as exercising more influence than previous majority leaders,
possibly suggesting a relationship between Hastert and DeLay similar to
that of Speaker Champ Clark and Majority Leader Oscar Underwood. This
perception of DeLay's power often comes from the Democratic side of the
aisle. It is important to focus on the role that Speaker Hastert
actually plays. The speakership remains more powerful under him than it
was under any of his Democratic predecessors. While Hastert is not in
the dominating position that Gingrich, for a time, was, he is not
vulnerable to the kind of internal dissension that eventually brought
Gingrich down. He is very popular among Members. Hastert decided to make
term limits for committee chairs stick and then, at the outset of the
108th Congress, his members voted to remove term limits on the
speakership. It seems plain that the Republicans are satisfied with his
leadership. A reasonable depiction of the Republican leadership under
Hastert would characterize the Speaker and his subordinate leaders as
playing different but complementary roles. As Speaker, Hastert is the
glue that holds the Republicans together. He plays a listening,
conciliating role similar to Democratic Speakers such as Tip O'Neill and
Tom Foley. In the inside game, he is the dealmaker and the closer. Tom
DeLay's role is rather different. As whip, he counted the votes and
rallied the troops. As majority leader, he presses for policies
supported by the conservative majority in the Republican conference.\15\
These party leaders appear to be doing about what their job descriptions
require.
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\15\ DeLay is also very active in promoting and enlarging the Republican
majority through fundraising and redistricting efforts, important
aspects of the outside game discussed below. See Richard E. Cohen, ``The
Evolution of Tom DeLay,'' National Journal, Nov. 15, 2003, pp. 3478-
3486.
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Under Hastert's leadership, the Republicans have sought to develop
legislation that almost all Republicans support, and then to ram that
legislation through on the House floor. Initially, the Republicans
sought to avoid using restrictive rules for floor consideration of
bills, but they eventually faced the reality of their situation. With a
narrow majority, party bills have to be protected on the floor against
divisive amendments. The result is that Speaker Hastert has had strained
relations with the Democratic leadership. Democratic Floor Leader
Richard Gephardt did not get along with Speaker Gingrich and it was
anticipated that his relationship with Speaker Hastert would be better.
This anticipation ignored the underlying political reality. The
Democrats want to win back the House and to do so they have to go on the
offensive. This is a lesson they learned from Newt Gingrich. Speaker
Hastert wants to protect his legislative majority and will use the
powers of the speakership toward that end. This has contributed to a
decline in comity in the House observable over the past two decades. It
seems likely to endure so long as the House is relatively closely
divided. The new Democratic floor leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), is moved
by the same imperatives as her predecessor. Perhaps the best that can be
hoped for during this season of heavy political maneuvering is that
Members and party leaders will find a way to depersonalize the fight and
restore to the House its most important tradition, the respect that
Members should have for each other as representatives of their
constituents, the American people. That Speaker Hastert is personally
well-liked by many Democrats is helpful.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Jonathan Franzen, ``The Listener,'' New Yorker, Oct. 6, 2003, pp.
84-99.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The imperatives of the legislative process, however, make it difficult
for the majority and minority parties to work together. Speaker Hastert
has defined his institutional obligation to the minority by two
criteria: the Speaker should rely on the nonpartisan recommendations of
the House Parliamentarians in making rulings from the chair; and the
minority party by rule is entitled to offer a motion to recommit with
instructions. Beyond this, it is the Speaker's obligation to pass
legislation.\17\ When in passing the 2003 Medicare reform bill Hastert
held the vote on final passage open for almost 3 hours (normally votes
consume 15 minutes) in order to round up enough Republican votes to pass
the bill, he was, in his words, ``getting the job done.'' Democrats
alleged abuse of power and fundamental unfairness. Speaker Hastert here
faced a dilemma that defines the speakership today. Any modifications in
the Medicare bill that might have attracted more Democratic votes would
have cost more Republican votes, and any changes that might have
attracted more Republican votes would have lost sufficient Democratic
votes to defeat the bill. The choice was to pass the bill or not to pass
the bill. Hastert defines his obligation as passing legislation. In
this, his attitude is identical to that of his Republican and Democratic
predecessors.\18\
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\17\ See Speaker Hastert's comments printed in this volume.
\18\ When asked to define the job of Speaker, John W. McCormack (D-MA)
said that it was the Speaker's job to marshal majorities to pass
legislation on the House floor. Interview with author, July 1979.
The Outside Game
Even as House Speakers have come to play a much more central role in
the legislative process, they have also become much more actively
engaged in the electoral process. When Carl Albert was Speaker, the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee held one major fundraising
event each year. Political action committees did not exist.\19\ While
the Speaker and other party leaders would from time to time attend
fundraisers on behalf of Members, these usually took the form of
receptions held in Washington and raised relatively small amounts of
money. Speakers had long gone on the campaign trail on behalf of
Members. In the 19th century this was called ``the canvas'' and Speakers
would go ``canvassing'' on behalf of Members in the 2 months immediately
prior to the election. As Speaker, Albert campaigned in Member districts
during the runup to the election, but the number of such appearances was
limited.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Robin Kolodny, Pursuing Majorities (Norman, OK: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1998).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker O'Neill was more broadly engaged. He selected Tony Coehlo (D-
CA) to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and brought
that position into the inner leadership circle. Coehlo's charge was to
dramatically enhance the congressional party's fundraising base by
bringing in more contributions from corporate and special interest
political action committees. O'Neill permitted Coehlo to schedule him
for party fundraisers and, during the campaign season, for political
appearances on behalf of Democratic candidates in competitive districts.
Still, O'Neill's electoral activities were relatively modest in
comparison to that of subsequent Speakers. In order to understand the
dynamic, it is necessary to shift focus from O'Neill as Speaker to Jim
Wright, his majority leader.
Tip O'Neill had become Speaker before the effects of the Campaign
Finance Reform Act of 1974 were fully experienced. He never had a
leadership PAC and he did not need one. Leadership PACs were developed
by Members who aspired to become Speaker. Through them, the majority
leader, party whip, or key committee chairs could build constituencies
among Members by providing campaign contributions. While Tip O'Neill
preoccupied himself with the legislative battles in Washington, Jim
Wright was seeking to build support within the Democratic Caucus. He
campaigned on behalf of hundreds of Democratic candidates during his 10
years as majority leader. His activities established a norm for
subordinate party leaders that carried into the speakership itself.
Fundraising became a year-round activity. Under Coehlo's influence, the
party leadership took a more active hand in recruiting candidates.
Wright was as, or more, active in this respect as was O'Neill. Wright
knew that when O'Neill retired he might well face opposition in his bid
to become Speaker by rivals such as John Dingell (D-MI) and Dan
Rostenkowski (D-IL), two powerful committee chairmen. Press reports
openly discussed the rivalry between these aspirants. Wright had won the
majority leadership by a single vote in 1976, and he appears to have
concluded that the best means of ensuring his election as Speaker was by
holding more chits among Members. Thus, his fundraising and campaign
activities served his own interest as well as that of the party.
Since the eighties it has become customary for party leaders to
develop their own fundraising PACs alongside their fundraising efforts
on behalf of the Congressional Campaign Committees and individual
Members. These efforts create centrifugal force. Each aspirant to higher
leadership position seeks to build a constituency of Members who will
support a later candidacy. The results can be telling. When the
Democrats first made the choice of their whip an elected position in
organizing the 100th Congress in 1987, Congressman Coehlo was chosen due
primarily to his fundraising activities. He had become an independent
operator within the Democratic leadership group. After the Republican
victory in the 1994 elections, Speaker Gingrich appeared to be in a
position to dictate the terms of party organization. His preferred
choice for GOP whip was a long-time ally, Congressman Robert Walker (R-
PA). Walker was challenged by Congressman DeLay, and DeLay won a closely
contested election. Among the main reasons for DeLay's election as whip
was the investment he had made through his PAC in the campaigns of
numerous Republican challengers. These new Members recognized an
obligation and a relationship to DeLay.\20\ As whip, DeLay was
instrumental in supporting Dennis Hastert's election as Speaker. DeLay
built an unprecedented power base that later led to his election as
Republican floor leader.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ DeLay claimed that 54 of 73 freshmen Republicans voted to make him
whip. Hedrick Smith, The Unelected: The Lobbies, PBS Video, 1996.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By all accounts, however, it was Newt Gingrich who transformed
expectations for party leaders, especially the Speaker, in party
fundraising. The tale of Newt Gingrich's rise to the speakership has
been well told.\21\ In leading the Republicans to the promised land
Gingrich recruited and trained candidates, articulated a GOP message,
organized the party apparatus, and campaigned actively. He also raised
money, and lots of it. When Tony Coehlo was raising money for the
Democrats in the mideighties, total spending on House races came to
around $204 million. When the Republicans took the House in 1994, the
figure was $371 million. By 2000, it had risen to over $550 million.\22\
Since 1994, the Speaker has been the most important fundraiser for the
Republicans. Furthermore, the Republican leadership now expects
committee chairs to contribute to the campaigns of Members and
candidates in closely contested districts.\23\ The Speaker, then, is
soliciting even more money than he may raise directly. Gingrich had the
reputation as fundraiser par excellence. But the Speaker's role as
leading party fundraiser is endemic to the office and not a product of
the person. Speaker Hastert was not generally known to be deeply
involved in fundraising during his years as chief deputy whip; but as
Speaker, he has raised more money than did Speaker Gingrich.
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\21\ Balz and Brownstein, Storming the Gates; David Maraniss, Tell Newt
to Shut Up (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
\22\ Campaign Finance Institute, Web site, http://
www.cfinst.orgstudiesvitaltables3-8.htm.
\23\ On the relationship between campaign fundraising and committee
chair appointments, see Paul R. Brewer and Christopher J. Deering,
``Interest Groups, Campaign Fundraising, and Committee Chair Selection:
House Republicans Play Musical Chairs,'' in Paul S. Herrnson, Ronald G.
Shaiko, and Clyde Wilcox, eds., The Interest Group Connection:
Electioneering, Lobbying, and Policymaking in Washington (New York:
Chatham House Publishers, 2004).
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The Speaker's fundraising role has one very specific consequence: he
is asked to travel a great deal. Over a 2-year election cycle, the
Speaker will appear in most, if not all, Republican districts. Today,
the Speaker's obligation to elect and maintain his party's majority
makes it imperative that he travel to districts for fundraising events
and that he campaign on behalf of candidates in closely contested
districts. These obligations, of course, take him away from the Capitol
on a regular basis. While a Speaker will always give precedence to
critical legislative matters, he now may be less able to provide a full-
time leadership presence on Capitol Hill. Speaker Gingrich had hoped to
impose a system of delegated responsibility that would free him to be a
national leader and issue articulator while often leaving legislative
mechanics to subalterns. He was surprised in June 1997 when subordinate
leaders included a politically inspired provision to prevent any future
shutdown of the Federal Government on an emergency flood relief bill
that he supported.\24\ The following month, a group of ``renegade''
Members supported by some members of the leadership group sought to oust
him while he was out of town. It appears that Gingrich had allowed
himself to become too removed from the sentiments of his Members
including his most trusted allies. While Speaker Hastert also relies on
the extended leadership group to facilitate the legislative process, he
is consistently involved in negotiating intra-party agreements. He keeps
his finger on the pulse of the House. Sam Rayburn used to say that if a
Speaker could not feel the mood of the House he was lost. While Hastert
seeks to foster his relationships with Members, he still finds it
necessary to balance his internal and external role, a task made more
difficult by electoral demands.
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\24\ Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1997, vol. 53 (Washington:
Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1998), pp. 1-14--1-15.
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One aspect of the Speaker's external role is media relations.\25\ As
mentioned, Speaker Albert was the first Speaker to appoint a formal
press secretary. He named a relatively junior member of the staff whose
function was to respond to press inquiries. Speaker O'Neill elevated the
prominence of the press secretary's role in proportion to his own rising
public profile. O'Neill wanted a press secretary who would be in regular
touch with key members of the press corps, a competent spinner who was
adept in presenting the Democratic position and in articulating
O'Neill's own perspective. He settled upon Chris Matthews, later of
``Hardball'' fame. Since then, all Speakers have had press secretaries
who have served in this capacity. Within the extended leadership group,
the focus was on projecting the party ``message'' in contrast to that of
Republican administrations. Under O'Neill, message development was
assigned to the leadership and staff of the Democratic Caucus, but all
members of the extended leadership group participated in defining and
projecting the party's themes. Under Speakers Wright and Foley, the
message function was further elaborated and institutionalized. Each
Speaker had a press secretary responsible for handling the media.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Douglas B. Harris, ``The Rise of the Public Speakership,''
Political Science Quarterly, vol. 113, Summer 1998, pp. 193-211.
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In this, as in other respects, the external function of the
speakership took a quantum leap when the Republicans came to power.\26\
Whereas the Democrats had delegated message development to a caucus
working group and the Speaker's press secretary functioned primarily in
support of his media relations, the Republicans sought to systematically
integrate message development and media relations. The Speaker's press
secretary led a staff with responsibility to coordinate message and
media. Each Republican Member designated a communications director. The
Republican conference, like the Democratic Caucus, was given the
outreach function. It included the development of a sophisticated
polling capacity, a state-of-the-art Web site, and an extensive talk
radio initiative. Speaker Gingrich's press secretary, Tony Blankley, was
a sophisticated Washington insider, well connected to the national press
corps. Under his leadership, the Speaker's press relations reached its
zenith and found its limits. For in spite of the greater degree of
organization and more expansive efforts, the House Republicans continued
to lose ground in the public relations battle with the Clinton
administration. In part, this was simply due to unequal resources and
organizational capability. Even though more robust than at any previous
time, the House communications and media operation still paled in
comparison to the scope and sophistication of the White House
Communications Office. The former consisted of a press secretary with a
small staff working in cooperation with over 220 Members who were all
independent operators. The White House had an around-the-clock
communications operation staffed in shifts that was prepared to offer a
Presidential response on any issue within a half-hour. And too, in spite
of Speaker Gingrich's high public visibility, it is the President who
has the bully pulpit and not the Speaker.
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\26\ Some observers stress the continuity between the Democratic and
Republican Speakers of the post-reform era. See Barbara Sinclair,
Legislators, Leading, and Lawmaking (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1995); Sinclair, ``Transformational Leader or Faithful
Agent? Principal-Agent Theory and House Majority Party Leadership.''
Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. XXIV, no. 3, Aug. 1999, pp. 421-449.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Republican effort under Speaker Gingrich might have been more
productive had Speaker Gingrich better appreciated the risks inherent in
the high public profile that he sought. History demonstrates that
Speakers often become famous at their own risk. In the late 19th
century, Speakers such as James G. Blaine (R-ME) and Thomas Brackett
Reed (R-ME) were dominating figures embroiled in regular controversy.
Blaine came under an investigation for his financial dealings. Reed was
not tainted by scandal but his assertion of the powers of the chair (and
his acerbic wit) made him a ripe target for the Democrats. Uncle Joe
Cannon, of course, represented the apotheosis of the partisan
speakership at the turn of the century and became a campaign issue in
the 1910 elections. From Cannon to O'Neill, no Speaker attained any
great degree of public recognition, much less notoriety. It was said
that Sam Rayburn could walk down most streets in Washington without
being recognized. All of this changed when Tip O'Neill became the
Nation's leading elected Democrat and therefore the primary opponent of
President Ronald Reagan. O'Neill became a symbol of Democratic
liberalism, an icon on the left, but viewed as a relic by the right.
Republicans ran campaign advertisements against him in 1982 and baited
him on the floor in 1985, but it was all to no avail. Speaker O'Neill's
public approval ratings exceeded those of Ronald Reagan when he left
office and he had succeeded in preserving the heart of the welfare state
against the Reagan onslaught.
His Democratic successors had less luck. During the 100th Congress,
Speaker Jim Wright drove the legislative process and moved to
consolidate his power. Recognizing the threat, the Republicans, led by
Newt Gingrich, charged Wright with violating House ethics rules. In June
1989 Wright resigned the speakership and his House seat rather than put
the House through the agony of a floor vote on the ethics charges. His
successor, Tom Foley, was not vulnerable to ethics complaints, but had
opposed a term limits proposition in his home State of Washington. The
Republicans accused Speaker Foley of opposing his own constituents and
funneled money to his opponent in the 1994 elections. Foley lost his
House seat and the Democrats lost their majority in the House and in the
Senate.
Newt Gingrich certainly was aware that two consecutive Speakers had
been dethroned; he, after all, had been part of those efforts. He made
Wright's and Foley's leadership of the House campaign issues and painted
the two Speakers as symbols of what was wrong with the House under
Democratic control. He could not have been surprised, then, when the
Democrats, led by Whip David Bonior (D-MI), chose to repay him in kind,
lodging over 80 ethics charges against the Speaker. The ethics battle
was fought out over the course of the 104th Congress, and culminated
when Gingrich agreed to accept a censure and financial penalty for
having provided false information to the Committee on Standards of
Official Conduct [Ethics Committee]. The resolution of the ethics
charges did not alleviate the pressure on the Speaker. President Clinton
had won a square off with congressional Republicans over the government
shutdowns of late 1995 and early 1996, and during his Presidential
campaign he associated Gingrich and Republican Presidential candidate
Robert Dole with putatively reactionary policies. Speaker Hastert has
maintained a much lower profile than had Speaker Gingrich. He was
largely unknown to the general public when he became Speaker and remains
relatively unknown even now. Hastert's lower visibility represents a
strategic choice. He has had ample opportunity to observe the fates of
his three immediate predecessors, and has yet managed to lead his party
to victory in both the 2000 and 2002 elections. Given the effects of
redistricting, some believe the Republican majority may be secure for
years to come. The Democrats will, of course, strive to win enough seats
to dislodge the Republicans from power. But they are likely to make
little progress by attacking Hastert. The Speaker is popular among those
who know him, and little known otherwise. Amiability and a sense of
personal decency will perhaps enable him to avoid becoming a symbol of
the larger political conflict. Under Speaker Hastert, the communication
operation has centered in the Republican conference and its extended
staff. The Speaker's press secretary, John Feehery, functions more in
the role of Chris Matthews, providing interface between the Speaker and
the press corps. Since Hastert has deliberately chosen a more low
profile role than had Gingrich (or, for that matter O'Neill), Feehery's
role is to make sure that the press knows what Hastert wants it to know
about the Speaker's legislative and political activities. Since the
election of George W. Bush, message coordination with the White House
has become a key component of congressional Republican strategy. The
goal has been to echo, and not drown, the Presidential message.
The Speaker and the President
The relationship between the Speaker and the President has been
historically significant. The U.S. Constitution refers to five officers
of the Federal Government: the President, Vice President, Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court, President of the Senate (a position filled by the
Vice President), and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. By
statute, the Speaker stands second in line to the Presidency, and
Speaker Albert twice was first in line, a ``heartbeat away'' from the
Oval Office. Sam Rayburn used to say that he had served under no
President but had served with seven. Actually, Rayburn always
demonstrated deference to the Presidents with whom he served. His ties
to Roosevelt and Truman were particularly close, but Rayburn and Senate
Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) chose to work cooperatively with
President Eisenhower rather than to seek confrontation with him. In
part, this reflected the fact that Rayburn and Johnson straddled the
divide between southern conservative and northern liberal Democrats; but
it also revealed Rayburn's sense of the constitutional obligation of the
Speaker to make the government work. With the election of Richard Nixon,
cooperation between House Speakers and Presidents of the opposite party
ended, and relations between Speakers and Presidents of their own party
has been sometimes strained.
Much of this is explained by the political context. When the Speaker
and the President are of the same party, there will be an incentive to
cooperate, amply demonstrated today by the relationship between Speaker
Hastert and President Bush. Bush relies on the House Republican majority
to set the table for dealings with the more recalcitrant Senate. But
these relations can be strained nonetheless, as witness the experience
of Tip O'Neill and Jimmy Carter. The Speaker at times has a greater
incentive to protect his Members than to support the President, and if
Presidential initiatives put Members at risk, the Speaker might oppose
them. Otherwise, electoral catastrophe may ensue, as apparently happened
when Speaker Foley placed support of the Clinton economic and health
plans above the need to address political and institutional reform.
When the Speaker and the President are political opponents, then most
incentives lead to conflict. The two leaders will differ
philosophically, have different and opposing political constituencies
and party interests, and clashing institutional obligations. The
impeachment proceedings against Presidents Nixon and Clinton suggest the
extremes to which this conflict may be carried, but these are simply the
most obvious manifestations of the underlying tendency. Historically,
only a few Speakers have actually sought to place themselves on a par
with the Presidency. Henry Clay was a national leader during his entire
career as House Speaker and Senator, and as Speaker did not take a back
seat to Presidents Madison and Monroe. Uncle Joe Cannon was perfectly
willing to oppose progressive legislation proposed by President Theodore
Roosevelt, although the number of progressive laws enacted during
Roosevelt's administration testifies that Cannon did not always
obstruct. Most recently, Speaker Gingrich brought to office a very high
expectation of the Speaker's role.\27\ During the 104th Congress, he was
characterized as the most important policymaker in the government. After
Congress completed work on the elements of the Contract with America,
(enacted in fewer than 100 days in symbolic emulation of the New Deal
and Great Society), Gingrich went on national television to speak to the
American people. At a meeting in New Hampshire he conducted a joint
press conference with President Clinton and the two men shook hands over
a pledge to press for lobby and campaign finance reform. Gingrich's
aspirations came a cropper when the Republican Congress mishandled the
budget negotiations with the White House.\28\ Clinton proved that the
Presidency had a louder megaphone than the Speaker of the House. Public
opinion sided with Clinton and Gingrich's approval ratings plummeted,
never to recover. Clinton rebounded from the low point of the 1994
election to win easy reelection in 1996. He survived the Republican
attempt to impeach him, and left office with high public approval
ratings. This record suggests that Speakers need to be very careful when
they take on Presidents. The Speaker can articulate issues and give a
face to the loyal opposition; but the resources available to the
speakership appear to be insufficient to win in a sustained battle with
the White House.\29\
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\27\ Elizabeth Drew, Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich
Congress and the Clinton White House (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1996).
\28\ In his remarks at the Congressional Research Service/Carl Albert
Center Conference on the Speakership, former White House Chief of Staff
Leon Panetta offered the budget negotiations of 1995 and 1996 as an
example of mistaken political judgment by the House leadership. In
response, Speaker Gingrich argued that by closing down parts of the
government House Republicans had shown resolve that was reassuring to
the financial markets. There is little doubt that public opinion favored
the administration in this conflict. The remarks of Mr. Panetta and Mr.
Gingrich appear in this volume. For an analysis similar to Mr.
Panetta's, see Ronald M. Peters, Jr. and Craig A. Williams, ``The Demise
of Newt Gingrich as a Transformational Leader,'' Organizational
Dynamics, vol. 30, no. 3, 2002, pp. 257-268.
\29\ That Tip O'Neill was successful in fighting a rear-guard action
against Reagan is a conspicuous exception to the generalization that
Speakers will usually lose battles with Presidents, and was certainly
related to O'Neill's favorable public image. For a perspective on the
relationship between Presidents and Speakers, see Jim Wright, Balance of
Power: Presidents and Congress from the Era of McCarthy to the Age of
Gingrich (Atlanta: Turner Publishing Company, 1996).
The Permanent Campaign
The inside game and the outside game are related. Recently, political
scientists have used the term ``permanent campaign'' to describe this
now extended period of close division in the Congress and intense
competition for control of the House and the Senate.\30\ In
understanding the evolving role of the speakership, it is important not
only to understand the role that the Speaker plays in the campaign
process (a ``permanent'' one to be sure), but, as or more important, how
the pressure of electoral politics has reshaped the legislative
environment and altered the Speaker's internal role. Previously, we
described that role and stressed the greater involvement of the Speaker
in the legislative process. The Speaker has become more systematically
involved in all aspects of legislation at every lawmaking stage. In the
context of the permanent campaign, however, we stress the strategic
implications of the Speaker's role and how that has affected the House
and the speakership.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas F. Mann, eds., The Permanent Campaign
and its Future (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The permanent campaign is fought over political terrain as narrowly
divided as any in American history. This has evident effects on the
Speaker's role. Sam Rayburn used to say that it was never good to have
more than 269 Democrats in the House.\31\ He felt that an extraordinary
majority made it more difficult to pass bills because Members would feel
more free to defect. Rayburn was certainly aware of the challenges posed
by a very narrow majority as well, but the very narrowness of the
majority may create an incentive for Members to support the leadership.
Between 1931 and 1994, when the Democrats were in the majority for all
but 4 years, their leaders often forged bipartisan coalitions, picking
up some votes from moderate Republicans while tolerating defections from
some conservative Democrats. With the House very narrowly divided, a
small number of defectors can defeat a bill unless there are offsetting
defections from the other side. The permanent campaign, however, offers
an incentive for the minority to rally in opposition in order to create
campaign issues. Furthermore, the homogenization of the parties has made
it less likely that many Members of either party will have a natural
inclination to vote with the other side. Since most Members are safe in
their districts, many could, in principle, defect and survive. But the
minority party leadership will go to extraordinary lengths to persuade
Members to stand by the party position because it will enhance the
prospect of winning control in the next election. That, at least, has
been a discernible pattern for the Democrats since 1995.
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\31\ I have this from Rayburn's long-time assistant, D.B. Hardeman. Of
course, the Democrats already had all of the southern seats and so
Members in excess of 269 would come from northern districts and increase
liberal pressure on Rayburn.
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The result is that the Republicans have had to build majorities from
within their own ranks. To do so, they have had to utilize all the tools
available to a majority. These include agenda control (deciding what
bills will come to the floor), legislative control (determining what
those bills will contain), procedural control (determining the timing
and rules under which bills will be considered), and membership control
(efforts to ensure that bills can pass with Republican votes alone). As
this pattern suggests, the first and most important strategic decisions
address the nature and substance of legislation. It appears that these
decisions are now made in substantial part based on political
calculation. When, for example, the Democrats pushed for enactment of a
prescription drug bill or a patients' bill of rights, the Republicans
found it in their interest to offer counterproposals. In doing so, they
searched for bills around which their Members could cohere. When the
Republican majority pushed tax cuts, the Democrats sought alternatives
that their Members could support. In this connection, the narrow
majority can be a blessing, since it offers its own incentive for
Members to vote with the party. The quid pro quo is often this: the
leadership structures legislation and the legislative process to give
Members bills they can support; the Members vote for the leadership
proposals provided that their political needs are somewhere addressed.
This is an old formula. With a narrow majority, however, it can lead to
poor legislation.\32\
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\32\ When the majority party has a substantial majority, it can pass
legislation even when a number of party members defect due to district
pressure. With a narrow majority the party leadership has to structure
either the legislation, the legislative process, or both so as to bring
aboard almost every member. It may, therefore, include provisions that
it does not really want in the bill and thus legislation can become less
coherent.
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And that is the real disadvantage of a government as narrowly divided
as this one is. In a parliamentary regime, with an expectation of party
discipline, the governing party can shape legislation according to its
principles even with a narrow majority. In a presidential system marked
by the separation of powers, the majority party must often place
political consideration above policy substance. The results can be
diluted policy, policy incrementalism, symbolic framing of issues, and
in many cases a failure to act altogether. In addition, the permanent
campaign has affected the legislative milieu. Public discourse has been
coarsened. Ad hominem attacks undermine reasoned debate. Comity, that
ancient norm, has eroded. Fixing these problems is not easy to do,
because both congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats are
so closely tied to their party's base voters and major interest-group
supporters that neither can easily break free. Believing themselves to
be in the right, most Members may not even contemplate the need. But it
is an obligation of the Speaker to remind Members on both sides of the
aisle to do their duty.\33\
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\33\ It is difficult for a Speaker to establish comity when he actively
campaigns against incumbent Members of the opposite party. Democratic
Speakers from Rayburn to Foley were very reluctant to do so, and in fact
almost never did. This was due in part to the fact that they usually
enjoyed safe margins in the House, and in part to the fact that the most
vulnerable Republicans were precisely those who were most likely to vote
with the Democrats on key votes. However, there was also a norm at play.
The Speaker, as presiding officer, may choose not to campaign against a
Member on whose motions he would have to rule. Republican Speakers
Gingrich and Hastert both have campaigned against incumbent Democrats.
Personality and Party Culture
This analysis of the contemporary speakership has sought to be
generic, addressing trends and forces affecting all modern Speakers and
both political parties. We must recognize, however, the great impact
that personality and party culture have in shaping individual
speakerships. These effects may seem idiosyncratic and thus beyond the
reach of theory; but any attempt to build theory must at least take them
into account. They are easy to demonstrate.
Consider Democratic Speakers Carl Albert, Tip O'Neill, Jim Wright, and
Tom Foley.\34\ All of these Speakers presided over the reformed House,
and there are many similarities in the way that they did it. All sought
to build legislative coalitions, foster more open and participatory
intra-party processes, establish better media relations, promote more
effective control over the floor, set a policy agenda, and so forth. We
observe a steady evolution from Albert to Foley in which various
leadership techniques are initiated and perfected. Yet any attempt to
evaluate the performance of these Speakers would lead directly to an
assessment of their respective personal characteristics and political
personas. Albert was a dedicated institutionalist who preferred a more
private and lower profile role as Speaker. Some felt that he would have
been better served by a more aggressive posture, but he did not think
that is what a Speaker should do. It is far from clear that a more
assertive Speaker would have presided as effectively over the tumult of
legislative reform, Watergate/impeachment, Vietnam, and civil rights as
Albert did. O'Neill took to the public aspects of the speakership like a
duck to water. He reveled in the limelight, filled the camera, and made
himself into a political icon. Yet although he appeared more forceful,
he was rarely more assertive than Albert had been. He was a strong
supporter of the committee system and defended several senior committee
chairs who were deposed by the caucus. One of O'Neill's greatest talents
lay in the appearance of power. He was the master of what Jimmy Breslin
called ``blue smoke and mirrors.'' \35\
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\34\ In addition to their remarks published in this volume, these
Speakers speak for themselves in Ronald M. Peters, Jr., ed., The Speaker
(Washington: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1995).
\35\ Jimmy Breslin, How the Good Guys Finally Won (New York: Viking
Press, 1975).
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Jim Wright enjoyed power and he wanted to drive the House toward his
preferred policies. He rolled over Democratic committees, House
Republicans and the Reagan White House in the 100th Congress, became
involved on foreign policy matters respecting Nicaragua, and
demonstrated the assertiveness that Tip O'Neill appeared to have but
rarely used. Yet just for this reason, Wright made himself anathema to
the Republicans, angered many Democrats, and caused some to regard him
as a political liability. There is nothing in contemporary legislative
theory that can explain Wright's assertiveness; it was simply the
product of his character. Tom Foley proceeded differently, but not
because the nature of the speakership required it of him. To be sure,
Foley had been an operator in the Democratic regime for two decades, and
had been a key negotiator for Speakers O'Neill and Wright. But when he
became Speaker, this experience is not what defined his orientation
toward the job. Foley had come to the House in 1964 and was the first
Speaker never to have served with Sam Rayburn. But like Rayburn, he had
a keen appreciation of the traditions and institutions of the House and
he saw it as his role to defend them.
The contrast between Speakers Gingrich and Hastert is evident.
Gingrich saw himself as a great party leader, a modern Disraeli. He had
been a college professor, and he loved to profess his views. He loved
conflict and controversy, and where he could not find these at hand he
often created them. Hastert is a former high school teacher and
wrestling coach. He is experienced and talented in working with people
face to face. He had been an ideal chief deputy whip, and in that
capacity had developed strong personal relationships with Members. He
was often the one to work out the deal to win a wavering Member's vote.
When Speaker Gingrich sought to impose what was in effect a new
institutional order on the House he was acting consistently with his
values, beliefs, and personal ambitions. When Speaker Hastert sought to
return the House to regular order, he was doing likewise. These two
Speakers, both Republican, were as different from each other as their
Democratic predecessors had differed from each other, and the
differences defined their speakerships as much as any underlying
similarities deriving from the institutional context in which they
served, certainly as any biographer or historian would write about it.
But the Democratic and Republican Speakers differed across party lines
as well. Party culture is not easy to define.\36\ Institutional culture
generally refers to a persistent pattern of attitudes and relationships
giving definition to organizational behavior. It is undeniably the case
that Republican speakerships have demonstrated a centralizing tendency
while Democratic speakerships have characteristically been more
decentralized. Institutional and party effects are interrelated. Thus,
during the late 19th century when parties were strong, both Democratic
and Republican Speakers were more powerful than those who served during
the mid-20th century when the committees were ascendent. Still,
Republican Speakers of the partisan era, such as James G. Blaine, Thomas
Brackett Reed, and Joe Cannon were more powerful than their Democratic
counterparts, such as Samuel Randall (PA), John Carlisle (KY), and
Charles Crisp (GA); and during the era of committee dominance Joe Martin
was on occasion more assertive than Sam Rayburn. As we compare the
Democrats under Albert, O'Neill, Wright and Foley, with the Republicans
under Gingrich and Hastert, it is plain that the GOP leadership is
usually more forceful than the Democratic leadership. While all aspects
of the speakership that Gingrich first created have not been sustained
by the Republicans, others have. The Republican Speakers do not simply
behave like their Democratic predecessors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Jo Freeman, ``The Political Cultures of the Democratic and
Republican Parties,'' Political Science Quarterly, vol. 101, no. 3,
1986, pp. 327-356.
Conclusion
Four forces shape the speakership today. The first is political
context, now defined by the narrow division of power between the two
major parties as sometimes affected by a division in partisan control of
our nationally elective institutions. The second is institutional
context: the post-reform House as substantially modified by the
Republicans. The third is party culture, differentiating Democratic and
Republican regimes. The fourth is the character and political persona of
individual Speakers. We cannot now anticipate who might rise to the
speakership in the future, or in what specific circumstances future
Speakers will serve. The path to the speakership has usually been
through the ranks of subordinate party leadership positions. The
advantage of this farm system is that it brings to the speakership
Members who are richly experienced in party leadership; its disadvantage
can be that Speakers are so molded by their prior experience that they
may find it hard to adapt to the changing circumstances in which they
are called upon to lead.
We may ask how might the speakership evolve if Republicans maintain
control in the near future? Most observers have by now concluded that
Newt Gingrich's parliamentary model is ill-suited to the American
constitutional regime. Under Speaker Hastert, the Republicans have
developed a more nuanced party apparatus in which the Speaker plays the
pivotal, if not always the most visible role. The party machinery
usually runs smoothly in the hands of the floor leader, whip, and other
members of the leadership team. In challenging circumstances, the
leadership is usually able to carry its bills on the floor. The
committees now perform their traditional functions, although they do not
function as autonomously from the leadership as had been the case with
the Democrats. Underlying the Republicans' cohesiveness is the basic
homogeneity of the Republican conference. This arises from similar
constituencies and shared ideology.\37\ Their world view sometimes
appears unleavened by conflicting voices from within their
constituencies or from across the aisle. It is an essential principle of
American democracy that representative institutions ``refine and enlarge
the public view by passing it through the medium of their chosen
representatives,'' as Madison put it in Federalist No. 10. This cannot
occur if only some views are brought into consideration.
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\37\ To be sure, there are fissures within the Republican conference
arising from matters of policy, constituency, or even ideology. But
these fissures, even though they may generate intense feelings, take
place within a relatively narrow range compared to the historical
diversity that has marked the Democratic Party.
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And what if the Democrats resume control? On the one hand, the party
has learned lessons from its sojourn in the wilderness. They have had
time to contemplate the causes of their defeat in 1994, the challenges
they have faced in trying to regain it, and the methods by which the
Republicans have solidified their narrow majority. The Democrats have
been far more cohesive in the minority than they ever were in the
majority. A future Democratic majority might be narrow, and arguably
would require the same approach to intra-party coalition building that
the Republicans have taken. A strong party leadership would be required.
On the other hand, Democrats are not as cohesive as Republicans,
reflecting the more diverse nature of their constituencies. A sufficient
number of seasoned Democrats remains to give rebirth to a more
autonomous committee structure. Democrats remember that the committee
system is a source of power and influence that served them well for 60
years in maintaining control of the House. It is a rare Democrat who
will say that the party would retain term limits on committee chairs.
Democrats might have more difficulty in maintaining cohesion than the
Republicans have, and may be less willing to cede power to the central
party leadership. That, at least, would be consistent with their
historical practices and party culture.
Whichever party is in power, the key to a successful speakership can
be read in the historical record. Speakers must find a way to balance
their institutional and partisan responsibilities. To create this
balance, it is important that they exercise sufficient power to command
the attention and respect of Members. At the same time, they must be
perceived to be fair. It has proven most useful for Speakers to buffer
their partisan role. Historically, there are two models though which
this can be achieved, one centered in the committees and one centered in
the party leadership apparatus. During the era of committee dominance,
the power of the Speaker was mediated by that of the committee chairs.
During the past 30 years, the power of the Speaker has meshed with an
elaborated party leadership structure. Speakers who have sought to
dominate the committees and the party leadership structure have not
fared well. Speakers who have given the committees and the leadership
structure some lead have been better able to fulfill their dual roles.
The speakership will, in the years ahead, be more central to the House
of Representatives than at any time since the turn of the 20th century.
Speakers will be called upon to offer partisan leadership both within
the Chamber and externally. They will broker deals, raise money,
campaign for Members, define policy positions, and seek to enforce party
discipline. And they must do this without losing sight of their
constitutional role and responsibility. The speakership was created long
ago in England, when the Commons selected one from among them to ``speak
for the Commons'' in Parliament. The Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives has the obligation to ``speak for the House'' as well.
All of it.
?
Part III
Appendices
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The offices of Speakers Hastert, Gingrich, Foley
and Wright, submitted their personal biographies
for publication in this document.
J. Dennis Hastert
Dennis Hastert rose to his position as Speaker of the House from the
cornfields of Illinois. Born in Aurora, he grew up in Oswego and earned
degrees from Wheaton College and Northern Illinois University. After 16
years of teaching and coaching at Yorkville High School, he served in
the Illinois House of Representatives for 6 years before being elected
to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. In 1999, Hastert's
colleagues honored him by electing him Speaker of the House, the third
highest elected official in the U.S. Government.
Speaker Hastert, who turned 62 on January 2, 2004, is now serving his
third term as Speaker and his ninth term as the Republican Congressman
for Illinois' 14th Congressional District. Hastert's home district
comprises a suburban landscape of high tech firms, small and large
industrial complexes and expansive farm land west of Chicago, which
includes the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan. The 14th
Congressional District reelected Hastert in 2002 with 74 percent of the
overall vote.
As Speaker, Hastert is responsible for the day-to-day functions of the
U.S. House. When he succeeded Newt Gingrich on January 6, 1999, he broke
with tradition by delivering his acceptance speech from the House floor
and by allowing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to briefly preside over
the day's proceedings. These two actions served as fitting symbols for
the content of the new Speaker's remarks, when he emphasized the need
for both parties to come together in the House to get their work done:
Solutions to problems cannot be found in a pool of bitterness. They
can be found in an environment in which we trust one another's word;
where we generate heat and passion, but where we recognize that each
member is equally important to our overall mission of improving the life
of the American people.
Hastert outlined a four-part commonsense agenda that day for the 106th
Congress--lowering taxes, improving education, strengthening Social
Security and Medicare, and bolstering national defense. Under his
leadership, the 106th Congress balanced the budget for the fourth year
in a row; paid down a historic amount of public debt ($625 billion);
locked away 100 percent of Social Security and Medicare dollars to be
spent solely on Social Security and Medicare--not other government
programs; sent more education dollars and decisionmaking to local
classrooms; stepped-up and enhanced medical research; and worked to
revitalize low-income neighborhoods in urban and rural areas. The agenda
proved to be such a success that in November 2000, the American voters
elected another Republican majority to the House.
Throughout his legislative career, Speaker Hastert has drawn from his
experience as a former wrestling coach by emphasizing teambuilding and
setting clear-cut, achievable goals. The Speaker has since remained
committed to the goals he laid out during his first term as Speaker and
his accomplishments during the 107th Congress prove this.
The 107th Congress was successful in enacting landmark education
reform, far-reaching election reform, and completing work on the most
significant tax relief in a generation. Furthermore, in response to the
tragic attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, the Congress passed
historic legislation by creating a Department of Homeland Security--the
most significant restructuring of the Federal Government in the last 50
years. With this new department, and with the passage of anti-terrorism
legislation designed to mitigate the threat of terrorist activities, the
President has the tools he needs to help ensure that the safety and
security of our homeland will not be compromised again.
On January 7, 2003, Hastert rose again to the challenge of continuing
his role as Speaker of the House. During his opening speech of the 108th
Congress, he laid out a commonsense plan that would make this Nation a
safer and more secure place for all Americans. He vowed to the men and
women in our armed services that they would receive continued
congressional support in their fight against terrorists and the
terrorist states that harbor them. Hastert also promised to work with
Members on both sides of the aisle to pass an economic growth package
that would create jobs, grow our economy and ensure more financial
security for Americans. Furthermore, Hastert emphasized his commitment
in promoting more foreign trade, passing a prescription drug package to
make drugs more affordable for our Nation's seniors, and furthermore
improving America's schools so that all children have the opportunity to
get a good education.
Prior to his election as Speaker in 1999, Hastert served as chief
deputy majority whip, a leadership position he had held since the
election of the 104th Congress in 1994. In that capacity, Hastert was
responsible for advancing commonsense legislation to the House floor by
working with Members, developing an achievable policy strategy, lining
up support and counting Republican and Democrat votes to ensure passage.
His reputation is one of reaching across the aisle to develop bipartisan
legislation.
He also served as chairman of the House Government Reform and
Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and
Criminal Justice. Chairman Hastert had broad oversight for the
Departments of State, Defense and Justice, as well as the Nation's war
on drugs and the 2000 Census. As a member of the House Commerce
Committee, Hastert had jurisdiction over energy policy, interstate and
foreign commerce, broadcast and telecommunications policy, food, health
and drug issues.
Additionally, Hastert has been the House Republican point person on
health care reform. He has chaired the Speaker's Steering Committee on
Health and the Resource Group on Health, and he helped author the health
care reform bill, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996
to expand coverage to the uninsured. In the 105th Congress, Hastert
again was tapped by the House leadership to chair the House Working
Group on Health Care Quality, which ultimately authored the Patient
Protection Act. That legislation, which passed the House on July 24,
1998, expanded Americans' choices and access to affordable, high-quality
health care.
During his years in Congress, Hastert championed legislation to
balance the Federal budget, cut taxes and government waste and clean up
the environment. For instance, he led the nationwide fight with U.S.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) to repeal the unfair Social Security earnings
limit that kept millions of senior citizens from working--a project
finally accomplished during his speakership in the 106th Congress. He
also has passed legislation to reduce big government regulations in
areas such as trucking and telecommunications in order to increase
competition and consumer choice. In addition, Hastert has fought to
preserve safe groundwater standards by successfully working for the
removal and proper disposal of 21 million cubic feet of low-level
thorium waste in West Chicago, IL, and by blocking a proposed garbage
dump that would threaten the Fox Valley's groundwater supply.
Congressman Hastert has continued to build on his record of
accomplishment for all his constituents. During the most recent
Congress, he successfully supported a full-funding agreement with the
U.S. Department of Transportation that will expand Metra train service
in the 14th District. He secured dozens of Federal grants for district
communities and organizations that will assist with everything from
bolstering police services to protecting district farmland. Hastert also
successfully sponsored legislation in 2002 to designate the Ronald
Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon a National Historic Site. Signed by
President George Bush on Reagan's 91st birthday, the legislation ensures
that the property will be maintained as a living legacy to our 40th
President.
Hastert enjoys strong editorial support from the newspapers in his
district and has received the ``Outstanding Legislator'' award by
numerous groups. He is particularly proud to have been named repeatedly
a ``Friend of Agriculture,'' ``Guardian of Senior Rights,'' and to have
won in each of his years in Congress the ``Golden Bulldog Award'' for
fighting against waste in government.
Prior to Congress, during the eighties, Hastert served three terms in
the Illinois General Assembly, where he spearheaded legislation on child
abuse prevention, property tax reform, educational excellence and
economic development. While there, he also led an effort that resulted
in the adoption of a new public utilities act, reforming the law to
benefit Illinoisans.
Hastert spent the first 16 years of his career as a government and
history teacher at Yorkville High School, and it also was there that he
met his wife, Jean, a fellow teacher. In addition to teaching, he
coached football and wrestling and led the Yorkville High School Foxes
to victory at the 1976 Illinois State Wrestling Championship; later that
year, he was named Illinois Coach of the Year. Hastert, a former high
school and college wrestler himself, was inducted as an Outstanding
American into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, OK, in
2000. In 2001, the United States Olympic Committee named him honorary
vice president of the American Olympic movement.
Born on January 2, 1942, Hastert is a 1964 graduate of Wheaton [IL]
College where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics. He attended
graduate school at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where he
earned a master's degree in the philosophy of education in 1967. Hastert
lives in Yorkville, IL, along the Fox River with his wife Jean. They
have two grown sons, Ethan and Joshua. Whenever he can find free time,
Hastert enjoys attending wrestling meets, going fishing, restoring
vintage automobiles, and carving and painting duck decoys.
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich is well-known as the architect of the Contract with
America that led the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing
the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in
40 years. After he was elected Speaker, he disrupted the status quo by
moving power out of Washington and back to the American people. Under
his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, passed the first
balanced budget in a generation, and restored funding to strengthen our
defense and intelligence capabilities, in addition to passing the first
tax cuts in 16 years.
But there is a lot more to Newt Gingrich than these remarkable
achievements. As an author, Newt has published seven books including the
bestsellers, Gettysburg, Contract with America and To Renew America. His
most recent books are Grant Comes East, the second in a series of active
history studies in the lessons of warfare based on a fictional account
of the Civil War and Saving Lives & Saving Money, which demonstrates how
to transform health and health care into a 21st century system.
In his post-Speaker role, Newt has become one of the most highly
sought-after public speakers, accepting invitations to speak before some
of the most prestigious organizations in the world. Because of his own
unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Newt is able to share unique and
unparalleled insights on a wide range of topics. His audiences find him
to be not only an educational but also an inspirational speaker.
Widely recognized for his commitment to a better system of health for
all Americans, his leadership helped save Medicare from bankruptcy,
prompted FDA reform to help the seriously ill and initiated a new focus
on research, prevention, and wellness. His contributions have been so
great that the American Diabetes Association awarded him their highest
non-medical award and the March of Dimes named him their 1995 Georgia
Citizen of the Year. Today he serves as a board member of the Juvenile
Diabetes Foundation.
In his book, Saving Lives & Saving Money, Newt describes his vision of
a 21st century system of health and health care that is centered on the
individual, prevention focused, knowledge intense, and innovation rich.
Moreover, he makes the case for a market-mediated system that will
improve choice and quality while driving down costs. To foster
such a modern health system that provides better outcomes at lower cost,
Newt launched the Center for Health Transformation
(www.healthtransformation.net).
Recognized internationally as an expert on world history, military
issues, and international affairs, Newt serves as a member of the
Defense Policy Board. Newt is the longest-serving teacher of the joint
war fighting course for major generals. He also teaches officers from
all five services as a distinguished visiting scholar and professor at
the National Defense University. Newt serves on the Terrorism Task Force
for the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an editorial board member of
the Johns Hopkins University journal, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, and
is an advisory board member of the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies.
In 1999, Gingrich was appointed to the United States Commission on
National Security/21st Century, the Hart/Rudman Commission, to examine
our national security challenges as far out as 2025. The Commission's
report is the most profound rethinking of defense strategy since 1947.
The report concluded that the number one threat to the United States was
the likelihood over the next 25 years of a weapon of mass destruction--
nuclear, chemical, and/or biological--being used against one or more
major cities unless our defense and intelligence structures underwent a
massive transformation. That report was published 6 months before
September 11.
Because of his work on the Commission, Newt Gingrich is credited with
the idea contained in the report of a homeland security agency with a
secretary to serve on the Cabinet level. President George W. Bush has
since created the Department of Homeland Security.
Newt Gingrich is CEO of the Gingrich Group, a communications and
consulting firm that specializes in transformational change, with
offices in Atlanta and Washington, DC. He serves as a senior fellow at
the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC; a distinguished
visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Palo
Alto, CA; the honorary chairman of the NanoBusiness Alliance; and as an
advisory board member for the Museum of the Rockies. Newt is also a news
and political analyst for the Fox News Channel.
Newt Gingrich is a leading advocate of increased Federal funding for
basic science research. In 2001, he was the recipient of the Science
Coalition's first Science Pioneer award, given to him for his
outstanding contributions to educating the public about science and its
benefits to society.
A strong advocate of volunteerism, Gingrich has long championed the
positive impact every individual can have on society. He has raised
millions of dollars for charity, donating both time and money to a wide
array of causes, including Habitat for Humanity, United Cerebral Palsy,
the American Cancer Society, and ZooAtlanta. A former environmental
studies professor, he is widely recognized for his commitment to the
environment and to the advancement of a new, commonsense
environmentalism. In 1998, the Georgia Wildlife Federation named him
Legislative Conservationist of the Year.
Newt was first elected to Congress in 1978 where he served the Sixth
District of Georgia for 20 years. In 1995, he was elected Speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives where he served until 1999. The Washington
Times has called him ``the indispensable leader'' and Time magazine, in
naming him Man of the Year for 1995, said, ``Leaders make things
possible. Exceptional leaders make them inevitable. Newt Gingrich
belongs in the category of the exceptional.''
His experiences as the son of a career soldier convinced him at an
early age to dedicate his life to his country and to the protection of
freedom. Realizing the importance of understanding the past in order to
protect the future, he immersed himself in the study of history,
receiving his bachelor's degree from Emory University and master's and
doctorate in modern European history from Tulane University. Before his
election to Congress, he taught history and environmental studies at
West Georgia College for 8 years.
He resides in Virginia with his wife, Callista. He has two daughters
and two grandchildren.
Thomas S. Foley
Ambassador Thomas S. Foley advises clients on matters of legal and
corporate strategy. He is currently the chairman of the Trilateral
Commission.
In addition to being a partner at Akin Gump, Ambassador Foley is also
a senior advisor at AG Global Solutions, a joint venture of Akin Gump
and First International Resources, Inc., focusing on strategic
communications and problem-solving for corporations and sovereign
governments, particularly in complex cross-border matters.
Prior to rejoining the firm in 2001, Ambassador Foley served as the
25th U.S. Ambassador to Japan.
Before taking up his diplomatic post in November 1997, Ambassador
Foley served as the 49th Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was
elected to represent the State of Washington's Fifth Congressional
District 15 times, serving his constituents for 30 years from January
1965 to December 1994.
Mr. Foley served as majority leader from 1987 until his election as
Speaker on June 6, 1989. From 1981 to 1987 he served as majority whip,
the number three position in the House leadership. He also was a
chairman of both the House Democratic Caucus and the Democratic Study
Group.
During his years in Congress, Mr. Foley was a member of the Committee
on Interior and Insular Affairs. He served as chairman of the Committee
on Agriculture and the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
As majority leader, Mr. Foley served on the Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence, the Committee on the Budget, the Select Committee to
Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, and as chairman of the
House Geneva Arms Talks Observer Team.
In 1995, following his career in Congress, Ambassador Foley joined
Akin Gump as a partner.
Mr. Foley has served on a number of private and public boards of
directors, including the Japan-America Society of Washington. He also
served on the board of advisors for the Center for Strategic and
International Studies and on the board of directors for the Center for
National Policy. He was a member of the board of governors of the East-
West Center and is currently a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations. Before his appointment as Ambassador, he served as chairman
of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Mr. Foley is an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire. He
has been awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic
of Germany and also is a member of the French Legion of Honor. In 1996
the Government of Japan conferred upon him the Grand Cordon of the Order
of the Rising Sun, Paulowina Flowers, in recognition of his service to
the U.S. House of Representatives and the important impact he had in
facilitating harmonious U.S.-Japan relations and promoting understanding
of Japan in the United States.
Mr. Foley is a native of Spokane, WA, and a graduate of the University
of Washington and its School of Law. He is a member of the District of
Columbia Bar.
Mr. Foley is married to the former Heather Strachan. They reside in
Washington, DC, and Spokane, WA.
James C. Wright, Jr.
The insights gained by Speaker Jim Wright in his long and tumultuous
career can shed light on many of the problems we face in the world
today. A Member of Congress for 34 years, Mr. Wright served with eight
American Presidents. He was chosen by his colleagues as Speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives, the highest honor Members can bestow upon
one of their number. He has met and come to know many heads of state
including Mikhail Gorbachev and several of the current leaders of Middle
Eastern nations.
As majority leader, Mr. Wright helped President Carter achieve the
historic peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. He was the principal
advocate in Congress for an energy policy to reduce our Nation's
dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
As House Speaker, Mr. Wright presided over the historic 100th
Congress, considered the most productive in a generation. Under his
leadership, Congress passed landmark legislation on such major issues as
shelter for the homeless, catastrophic medical assistance for the
elderly, safer highways and bridges, quality education, clean water and
affordable housing. That 100th Congress fashioned the beginnings of an
effective war on drugs and passed the first major trade bill in 50
years.
Jim Wright was born in Fort Worth, TX, a city he represented in
Congress from 1955 through 1989. He completed public school in 10 years
and was on his way to finishing college within 3 years when Pearl Harbor
was attacked. Following enlistment in the Army Air Corps, Mr. Wright
received his flyer's wings and a commission at 19. He flew combat
missions in the South Pacific and was awarded the Distinguished Flying
Cross and the Legion of Merit.
After the war, Mr. Wright was elected to the Texas Legislature at 23.
At 26, he became the youngest mayor in Texas when voters chose him to
head their city government in Weatherford, his boyhood home.
Elected to Congress at 31, he served 18 consecutive terms and authored
major legislation in the fields of foreign affairs, economic
development, water conservation, education, and energy. Mr. Wright
received worldwide recognition for his efforts to bring peace to Central
America.
Jim Wright served 10 years as majority leader before being sworn in as
Speaker on January 6, 1987. He was reelected as Speaker in January 1989.
A prolific writer, he has authored numerous books: You and Your
Congressman, The Coming Water Famine, Of Swords and Plowshares,
Reflections of a Public Man and Worth It All: My War for Peace. He has
also written articles for major magazines and newspapers. His most
recent book, Balance of Power: Congress and the Presidents from the Era
of McCarthy to the Age of Gingrich, was published in May 1996 by Turner
Publishing.
Mr. Wright currently serves as senior political consultant to American
Income Life Insurance Company. He writes a frequent newspaper column and
occasionally appears on network television news programs. Speaker Wright
has donated his papers and memorabilia to the Texas Christian University
library in Fort Worth, TX. Archivists there are cataloging these pieces
for reference and display. He is currently a distinguished lecturer at
TCU where he teaches a course entitled, ``Congress and the Presidents.''
Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.
For Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill, Jr., becoming Speaker of the House in
1977 was the pinnacle of a lifetime of service in government and the
Democratic Party. Born in a working class neighborhood in Cambridge, MA,
in 1912, the son of a city councilman, he entered politics at 15,
campaigning for fellow Irish Catholic Al Smith in the Presidential
election of 1928. While still a senior at Boston College, O'Neill lost a
bid for the Cambridge City Council.
Tip O'Neill learned two great lessons from his first campaign. One
lesson was learned on the last day of the campaign from his high school
elocution and drama teacher, a neighbor who lived across the street from
his residence. On that day, Mrs. Elizabeth O'Brien approached the
aspiring politician and said ``Tom, I'm going to vote for you tomorrow
even though you didn't ask me.'' O'Neill was puzzled as he had known
Mrs. O'Brien for years and had done chores for her, cutting grass,
raking leaves and shoveling snow. He told his neighbor that ``I didn't
think I had to ask for your vote.'' She replied, ``Tom, let me tell you
something: People like to be asked.'' The second bit of advice came a
few days after the election from O'Neill's father, when he told Tip:
``Let me tell you something that I learned years ago. All politics is
local.'' During that first campaign, Tip took his neighborhood for
granted and did not work hard enough in his ``own backyard.'' O'Neill
took these lessons to heart. He would not hold his career aspirations
over the interests of his constituents. The advice paid off. Beginning
in 1936, when he was elected to the State House of Representatives, Tip
never lost another election and he never took any vote for granted. Not
forgetting the advice of Mrs. O'Brien, on every election he would ask
his wife Millie for her vote. She would typically reply, ``Tom, I'll
give you every consideration.''
In 1937, O'Neill began his first year of public life as a
Massachusetts State representative and was elected minority leader in
1947.
In 1948, U.S. Congressman John W. McCormack (Democratic Party whip and
leader of the Massachusetts delegation) offered his support and
encouraged O'Neill to campaign hard to make the Democratic Party the
majority party in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the
first time in a century. Their effort paid off as they captured 38 out
of 40 GOP districts targeted by the Democratic strategy. The Democrats
now held a majority of the seats, and O'Neill became the speaker of the
Massachusetts House of Representatives.
In 1952, by a 3,000-vote margin, O'Neill won the seat in Congress
vacated by John F. Kennedy, who had been elected to the U.S. Senate.
In Washington, under the tutelage of John McCormack, O'Neill learned
the system and rose steadily through the party ranks.
In 1955, he became a member of the House Rules Committee. In 1967 his
principled opposition to the Vietnam war startled many in his working
class district, as well as President Lyndon Johnson, but gained him
support among younger House Democrats. In 1970, he was a co-sponsor of a
reform bill that ended the practice of unrecorded voting in the House.
Congressmen would now be accountable to their constituents for their
actions. In 1971 he was named majority whip, then elected majority
leader in 1972, a position he used to lead the fight against President
Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. In 1974, O'Neill played a
key role in managing the Nixon impeachment proceedings.
In 1977, O'Neill became the Speaker of the House of Representatives
and held the position until 1987. This was the longest continuous term
of the speakership in the Nation's history. One of his most important
actions was to open the House to live television coverage [C-SPAN]
beginning in 1979. In the eighties, O'Neill spearheaded the Democrats'
efforts to hold the excesses of the Reagan revolution in check and to
prevent massive scalebacks of social programs for the Nation's aged and
less advantaged citizens. The Speaker felt Reagan did not have a firm
grasp on domestic affairs and once characterized the popular President
as a ``Herbert Hoover with a smile.'' For these efforts, O'Neill was
vilified as a ``tax and spend liberal'' by the Republicans, the
conservative press and even some of his own constituents. By November
1982, America was in the grips of the worst economic downturn since the
Great Depression and Reagan's economic policies brought him the lowest
approval rating of his Presidency. In leading the loyal opposition into
Reagan's second term, O'Neill stayed true to the Democratic tradition he
viewed almost as a religion (alongside his other faiths, Roman
Catholicism and the Boston Red Sox). Also to the displeasure of the
Reagan administration, O'Neill was horrified by the atrocities committed
by Contra rebels in Nicaragua and sought to limit U.S. funding to these
groups.
After 10 years as Speaker, O'Neill retired in 1987, dividing his time
between an apartment in Washington and a house on Cape Cod. ``He was the
Congressman's Congressman,'' said longtime rival Senator Bob Dole when
O'Neill died in 1994 at the age of 81. ``He loved politics and
government because he saw [they] could make a difference in people's
lives,'' remembered President Bill Clinton, ``and he loved people most
of all.''
List of Conference Participants
Jeff Biggs. Director, Congressional Fellowship Program, American
Political Science Association. Former Press Secretary to Speaker Thomas
S. Foley.
James C. Billington. Librarian of Congress.
David E. Bonior. Democratic Member of the House from Michigan (1977-
2003).
Gary Copeland. Director, Carl Albert Congressional Studies and
Research Center, University of Oklahoma.
Mickey Edwards. Republican Member of the House from Oklahoma (1977-
1993).
John A. Farrell. Washington Bureau Chief, Denver Post.
Vic Fazio. Democratic Member of the House from California (1979-1999).
Thomas S. Foley. Speaker of the House of Representatives (1989-1995).
Democratic Member of the House from Washington (1965-1995).
Bill Frenzel. Republican Member of the House from Minnesota (1971-
1991).
Newt Gingrich. Speaker of the House of Representatives (1995-1999).
Republican Member of the House from Georgia (1979-1999).
J. Dennis Hastert. Speaker of the House of Representatives (1999- ).
Republican Member of the House from Illinois (1987- ).
Janet Hook. Chief Congressional Correspondent, Los Angeles Times.
Gary Hymel. Former administrative assistant to Majority Leader Hale
Boggs and Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.
Tom Loeffler. Republican Member of the House from Texas (1979-1987).
Robert H. Michel. Republican Leader of the House (1981-1994).
Republican Member of the House from Illinois (1957-1995).
Daniel P. Mulhollan. Director, Congressional Research Service, Library
of Congress.
Walter J. Oleszek. Senior Specialist, Congressional Research Service.
Leon E. Panetta. Democratic Member of the House from California (1977-
1993). OMB Director (1993-1994). White House Chief of Staff to President
William Clinton (1994-1997).
Robert V. Remini. Professor of History; Kluge Scholar, Library of
Congress.
Dan Rostenkowski. Democratic Member of the House from Illinois (1959-
1995).
Robert S. Walker. Republican Member of the House from Pennsylvania
(1977-1997).
Donald Wolfensberger. Director, The Congress Project, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars. Former staff director of the House
Rules Committee (1995-1997).
James C. Wright, Jr. Speaker of the House of Representatives (1987-
1989). Democratic Member of the House from Texas (1955-1989).