Partisan Feud Erupts in House Over Gingrich Book Deal : Congress: Democrats say they’re being muzzled after speech is excised from record. Republicans accuse the new minority party of obstructionism.

In a sharp partisan exchange, Republican and Democratic lawmakers Wednesday traded barbs on the House floor over Speaker Newt Gingrich’s book-publishing deal and the right of minority-party lawmakers to use the House floor to criticize the Georgia Republican for entering into the agreement.

As C-SPAN cameras broadcast the tempest to the nation, Democrats accused Republicans of changing the rules of House debate without warning and of imposing a “gag rule” on the new Democratic minority.

And GOP lawmakers, their frustration mounting over delays caused by internal dissension and Democratic parliamentary maneuvers, accused the minority of obstructing Congress’ work and seeking to hide their lack of ideas behind personal attacks on the GOP leader.

The testy repartee indicated that Democrats, dazed and disorganized after their November trouncing at the polls, are finding a voice and a new role now that they are in the minority for the first time in 40 years. The outburst came just a day after Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) slowed action on a number of Republican legislative priorities by invoking an arcane parliamentary objection on the Senate floor.

“They are starting to act more and more like a minority every day,” said Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), a Republican firebrand who had similarly taunted Democrats while they were the majority party. “These are clearly disruptive tactics that are aimed at preventing the ‘contract (with America)’ from getting voted.”

As Republicans and Democrats locked horns on the House floor, Gingrich’s tendency to think out loud had sparked a new controversy on Capitol Hill. Democrats circulated newly surfaced transcripts of the latest lecture Gingrich delivered as part of a televised history course, “Renewing American Civilization,” that he teaches for Mind Extension University.

In it, Gingrich warned that in wartime, women “have biological problems being in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.” Men, by contrast, “are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it. It doesn’t matter.”

In his treatise on gender differences, Gingrich also remarked that women enjoy advantages in the age of the laptop computer because they are better able than men to sit for long periods. “A male gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes,” Gingrich told his students.

“If upper-body strength matters, men win. They are both biologically stronger and they don’t get pregnant,” he said. “Pregnancy is a period of male domination in traditional society. On the other hand, if what matters is the speed by which you can move the laptop, women are at least as fast and in some ways better.”

The course is televised live by Jones Intercable Inc., the nation’s seventh-largest cable company.

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Wednesday’s dispute on the House floor unexpectedly enlivened a day that was to be given over to the sort of short speeches that are largely ignored by lawmakers and the public.

But in the 12th such speech of the day, Rep. Carrie Meek (D-Fla.) told a nearly deserted House floor that she is “still not satisfied” with details of Gingrich’s announced book-publishing deal with HarperCollins. Gingrich, under pressure from members of his own party, had decided to forgo a $4.5-million advance and take only royalties on the sale of his two books. But Meek warned that “the perception of impropriety, not to mention the potential conflict of interest,” cannot be ignored.

“If anything,” said Meek, the new arrangement would make Gingrich more beholden than ever to Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born communications magnate who controls HarperCollins and is ensnared in a dispute over foreign control of his U.S. television stations that eventually may have to be resolved by legislation.

Because Gingrich will rely on royalties as his sole source of income from the book, Meek observed that “how much the Speaker earns has grown much more dependent upon how hard his publishing house hawks his book.”

Meek’s remark drew an angry objection from Walker, who demanded that her comments be stricken from the Congressional Record because “innuendo and personal reference to the Speaker is out of order.”

As Democrats balked, the order striking Meeks’ language was put to a vote of the House. Members poured out of committee hearings to participate, effectively ending most committee work for the day.

In the end, Republicans won on a straight party-line vote, prompting Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento) to charge that the Republican majority, which he said is wounded and defensive about Gingrich’s book deal, is trying to silence the minority despite their pledge to fairness and openness.

“To gag a member of the House of Representatives is the first step in the dictatorship of the majority,” said Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.).

Republicans struck back angrily. “The Democrats have decided they cannot speak to the ideas agenda, so they have gone on the attack,” Walker said. “And they will go so far as to disrupt the workings of the House.”

The speech that ignited the furor took a form that Republicans, during their long years in the minority, had used to devastating effect on Democratic leaders. For years, Gingrich, Walker and other conservative Republicans used the “pro forma” sessions to rail before the C-SPAN cameras about arrogance and corruption in the Democratic Congress and among its leaders.

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Those speeches are credited with helping undermine public support for House Democrats and to topple Democratic leaders like former Speaker Jim Wright of Texas.

“It was standard Republican fare to destroy individuals and this institution with charges that knew no bounds,” said a frustrated Fazio.

Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) found some benefit for Democrats in the day’s events.

“I really do believe it galvanized Democrats,” Schroeder said in an interview. “It handed us a rallying point we might not have had. Today, you even saw conservative Democrats, who tend to vote with Republicans more than with their own party, among those screaming on the floor.”