Speaker’s Grip on Leadership Now Uncertain

With his admission Saturday that he violated House rules and misled the Ethics Committee, House Speaker Newt Gingrich now faces a future shrouded in uncertainty.

As House Republican leaders quickly rallied around Gingrich, his supporters expressed hope that Saturday’s critical report from the investigatory subcommittee of the House Ethics Committee would mark the end of his ethical travails. But just as quickly, his critics predicted that his admission of wrongdoing, notwithstanding Gingrich’s characterization of his violations as inadvertent, would prove a decisive step onto a slippery slope that will ultimately force him to relinquish his position at the center of the Republican revolution on Capitol Hill.

In fact, neither side can yet confidently predict how events will play out over the next few weeks. In effect, two simultaneous campaigns may take place between now and Jan. 7, when the House must formally vote to select its speaker.

One will take place among the 227 Republicans, who will decide whether to maintain their allegiance to Gingrich, who more than anyone else engineered the GOP’s congressional takeover but who had already become a polarizing figure.

At the same time, House Democrats made clear they would wage a second campaign to stir public reaction against Gingrich--and raise the political cost to Republicans, even if they vote to keep him in the speaker’s chair.

“It’s over for him,” said one House Democratic leadership aide. “We expect him to go, and if he doesn’t go, there will be a firestorm of protest until he does. The end of his speakership is inevitable.”

That may be partisan wishful thinking, but an elevation of partisan hostilities over Gingrich does appear inevitable. And, in a strange rebound, that could both make it more difficult for President Clinton to forge agreements with Republicans on the budget and embolden the GOP toward more aggressive investigation into the ethical questions hanging over the administration.

“In the environment of this particular president,” said Republican consultant David M. Carmen, Gingrich’s admissions “barely seem worth mentioning.” From the start, Gingrich’s struggle with the Ethics Committee has been suffused with irony. In the late 1980s, Gingrich emerged as a hero among conservatives by precipitating the ethics investigation that forced the resignation of Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright in 1989.

In a reverberation of that earlier offensive, Democrats, led by House Minority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), quickly seized on the ethical questions surrounding Gingrich as a means of weakening him when he emerged as the clear leader of congressional Republicans in 1995.

Saturday’s report from the House ethics subcommittee criticized Gingrich on three counts: It found that he had improperly allowed the use of money from tax-exempt organizations he controlled to fund two partisan activities--a college course he taught and a television program he hosted--and it concluded that he provided misleading information to the committee in two letters responding to these accusations.

In his statement, Gingrich acknowledged that he did not “seek legal counsel . . . to ensure clear compliance with all applicable laws” and submitted “inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements” to the committee. But he said he “did not intend to mislead the committee.”

Among House Republicans and conservative leaders, the dominant initial reaction to Saturday’s dramatic events was to rally around Gingrich. As other House Republican leaders pledged their “unequivocal support,” Gingrich supporters derided the ethics subcommittee report as finding only minor and technical violations.

Grover Norquist, president of the grass-roots conservative group Americans for Tax Reform and a close Gingrich ally, predicted that Saturday’s report would ultimately leave Gingrich in a stronger position.

“These are parking ticket violations,” Norquist said. “This strengthens Gingrich’s case because before there was an imaginary sword of Damocles hanging over him. If this is the close of the operation, we know that the sword of Damocles was either imaginary or a toothpick.”

Perhaps most valuable to Gingrich was the signal from moderate Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.). Though a Gingrich confidant, Shays had earlier indicated he would not vote to reelect him as speaker until the Ethics Committee acted. On Saturday, though, Shays issued a statement saying that with the release of the report, he now “look[s] forward to casting my vote on January 7” for Gingrich as speaker.

Still, many observers cautioned that Washington scandals now play out in many acts and that this one could yet have more twists. Notably, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who has publicly questioned the wisdom of reelecting Gingrich, warned that the speaker could face “very serious” consequences if House members conclude he had “intentionally” misled the committee.

Gingrich has been so central to the Republican cause over the past decade that few conservatives are yet ready to seriously contemplate even the possibility of life without him. Most Republicans agree that little thought has gone into the question of who would replace Gingrich.

Though Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas), his No. 2, might begin as a front-runner, most believe that he would face substantial resistance from moderates who fear he is too rough-edged and polarizing. Earlier this fall, some floated House Judiciary Chairman Henry J. Hyde as a potential caretaker replacement for Gingrich, but that idea appears to have generated relatively little enthusiasm as well.

“No one has wanted to think much about it, so they haven’t,” says GOP strategist Bill Kristol, publisher of the Weekly Standard magazine.

For Gingrich, challenges now loom on several fronts. The most immediate is whether he can garner the 218 votes to win reelection as speaker. But even if he clears that hurdle, Gingrich still must face a decision from the full Ethics Committee on what penalty to recommend against him; the possibilities range from a reprimand to expulsion, an extremely unlikely option.

And whatever formal action occurs, Gingrich faces an intensified Democratic campaign against him through the weeks ahead; Bonior immediately called for the Justice Department and FBI to join the investigation now that Gingrich has acknowledged the improper use of tax-exempt funds for partisan purposes.

All of this means that even if Gingrich holds on to his post, he could continue to suffer the erosion of influence that had already seen power shift from him toward Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) in the final months of the last congressional session.

As it did on issues like the minimum wage and welfare reform last summer, that shift in influence might help Clinton reach agreements with the congressional Republican majority. But a more partisan and polarized House feuding over Gingrich could be an impediment to such progress.

“My sense is Clinton sees a window of opportunity to get a balanced budget and maybe entitlement reform,” says one senior GOP strategist close to the House leadership. “If that’s your goal, do you want ethics to become the center of attention for this Congress? I don’t think he does.”