Gingrich Acts to Shore Up Support for Speakership

Newt Gingrich, the Republican field commander whose election as House speaker two years ago was akin to a coronation, is scrambling to retain his leadership post like an old-fashioned street pol.

In an effort to secure a second term in the speaker’s chair, Gingrich is buttonholing colleagues, making promises and squelching a mini-rebellion in his ranks with Prussian efficiency.

House Republicans are expected to nominate Gingrich as speaker on Wednesday without opposition. But the run-up to the nomination has been marked by extraordinary public grousing about Gingrich’s leadership and growing anxiety about another major hurdle he faces before he can be elected speaker in January.

Between now and then, the House Ethics Committee is expected to signal whether formal charges will emerge from its two-year investigation of allegations against Gingrich. Among other things, it will address questions raised by a special counsel about whether Gingrich misled the committee about a college course he taught.

“Newt is going to be elected unanimously because the vast majority of members recognize that Newt, in terms of passing legislation, has been a very strong leader,” said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.). “But if this special counsel comes up with anything, then the whole tenor of the debate changes dramatically. There will be some real serious concerns about whether Newt can lead.”

Whatever lies down the road for Gingrich, it is clear any second term as speaker will begin on a very different note than the first.

“Two years ago, he came in on top of the world,” said a top House leadership aide. “His ascension this time is a bit more humbled.”

When he was elected speaker after the 1994 election, he was greeted like a conquering hero, the unquestioned king of the Hill, the architect of the brash strategy that gave Republicans control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. He was greeted with thunderous chants of “Newt! Newt! Newt!” by a GOP caucus that included 73 freshmen, all of whom owed their election to him, and dozens of senior members, who would become committee and subcommittee chairmen for the first time in their House careers.

When Gingrich addresses the Republican conference this week, he will be doing what no Republican has done since the 1920s: leading the party in a House majority for more than one consecutive term.

But he will face a crowd that is far less indebted to him politically. The 32 Republican newcomers elected Nov. 5 have little of their predecessors’ blood-brother loyalty to Gingrich. House incumbents won reelection almost in spite of a nationwide anti-Gingrich campaign. In fact, some survived precisely because they kept their distance from him.

The contrast will be a measure of what a long, rough ride it’s been for Gingrich these last two years. He has become one of the most notorious figures in American politics, thanks to his personal missteps (like his complaint about President Clinton’s treatment of him during an Air Force One trip abroad) and political miscalculations (like last winter’s government shutdowns).

Adding to his woes, the Ethics Committee for two years has been investigating whether Gingrich violated House rules or the law when he taught a college course from 1993 to 1995 with support from the nonprofit Progress and Freedom Foundation. Critics contend that the course’s content was so partisan that it could not properly be financed with tax-exempt contributions. The ethics panel, in September, expanded its probe to include questions about whether Gingrich provided accurate and complete information about the course to the committee. Gingrich denies wrongdoing and says he expects to be exonerated.

With all that ammunition, Democrats and labor unions built their national 1996 campaign strategy on demonizing Gingrich and linking other Republicans to him. By his staff’s count, about 75,000 ads portraying Gingrich in a negative light were run in the 1996 campaign.

Against that backdrop, election day was both a triumph and a warning for Gingrich. The GOP held on, defying dire predictions and the history of single terms in power. Many of the targeted Republicans easily survived the effort to paint them as Gingrich clones.

But 17 GOP incumbents were defeated. And in one of the most unexpected developments of the election, House Ethics Committee Chairwoman Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.) nearly lost her seat to a Democrat who complained that the incumbent was going too easy on Gingrich in the ethics inquiry.

Within a week after the election, ominous clouds began emerging as several Republicans went public with their reservations about Gingrich’s future as speaker.

Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla.) said it would be a good idea for Gingrich to step aside as speaker until the ethics allegations against him are settled.

A leading conservative writer, Kate O’Beirne of the National Review, suggested that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) could step in as speaker if Gingrich steps aside.

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a moderate and one of the speaker’s closest allies, said he would support Gingrich’s nomination as speaker but would not vote for him in January if the results of the ethics investigation are not known then.

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), a moderate who has often been at odds with Gingrich, called on him to step down as speaker for the good of the party. “Members of Congress realize and see Newt is very unpopular. Some of it has been unfair, but life is unfair. Newt is a big boy. He should accept reality and step aside.”

But no challenger has emerged since Hyde said he was not interested in the job. That was a tribute, in part, to the work Gingrich and his lieutenants had already done to fortify his political base.

“We’re not taking it lightly,” said Rich Galen, a Gingrich aide. “I don’t think anyone on our team thinks this isn’t something that has to be won vote by vote.”

Among the members Gingrich has wooed are committee chairmen. The day after the election, Gingrich had a conference call with the chairmen, many of whom groused last year that Gingrich had cut into their turf. Now Gingrich and his lieutenants are letting it be known that he intends to give committee heads more power in the new Congress, a striking reversal of his efforts last year to centralize power in the speaker’s office.

In addition, Gingrich has been working the crowd by calling the rank-and-file to ask their support, even touching base with some of his closest allies.

“I don’t blame him,” said one House Republican who noted that Gingrich is the only member of the leadership to go to such lengths to win his vote. “If you’re a good politician, you can’t assume you’re going to skate into this job.”

Gingrich and his lieutenants redoubled their efforts when dissension started bubbling to the surface. Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.), freshly appointed by Gingrich to head the National Republican Congressional Committee, called Largent and King to upbraid them after their comments about Gingrich were aired. “This is not about ethics, it’s about politics,” Linder said he told them. “We cannot yield the playing field to the Democrats by default.”

A top Gingrich aide called King’s staff twice in two days to ask him to pipe down. Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), the departing NRCC chairman and Gingrich’s trouble-shooter, organized the entire GOP leadership behind issuing a joint statement declaring their support for the speaker’s reelection.

Gingrich’s supporters even ran a formal head count of the GOP caucus to make sure the votes for renomination were there. They were, according to one Republican involved in the count.

“Newt is unopposed, he will win and he will be chosen speaker,” said Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s press secretary.

But many members who are supporting Gingrich say he has more work to do to fortify his position. House Republican moderates, for example, are demanding more representation in the leadership, which is topped by three Southern conservatives: Gingrich, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

“Something that [Gingrich] has to come to grips with is that there is a group of members who feel that our leadership is too conservative,” LaHood said.

That is ironic, because much of the complaining about Gingrich by Republicans outside the House has come from conservatives, such as activist Paul Weyrich, who think Gingrich has strayed too far from the right.

Some of the restiveness about Gingrich is non-ideological.

“There is a recognition that while Newt is our greatest asset, Newt also in many instances proved to be a liability,” said a GOP leadership aide. “People want to make sure that Newt knows that, and that steps are being taken to rein in the rhetoric. That’s what’s driving this bubbling undercurrent against Newt.”

The undercurrent also is driven by anxiety about the ethics probe. The investigative subcommittee handling the matter has said it will report its conclusions by the end of the year, before the full House convenes in January and formally votes on Gingrich’s nomination.

Many lawmakers and analysts say he could be at risk of losing his speakership if the panel finds he has misled the committee. But he may be able to hold on if it concludes he violated more-technical rules.

“Obviously, a recommendation for serious discipline will prove extremely damaging, if not fatal,” said Jack F. Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, “but he ought to be able to survive a milder finding.”

In the meantime, uncertainty is the coin of the realm, even among Republicans supporting his renomination. “Are we just dodging a bullet for six months?” mused an aide to a senior Republican. “I don’t know.”