Mud path - criticism of Newt Gingrich

National Review, April 3, 1995 by George Tobin

INSOFAR as the 104th Congress is in the business of tort reform, a good place to start would be to impose a ``loser pays'' rule for false ethics charges made against members of Congress. The February 23 filing against House Speaker Newt Gingrich by Pat Schroeder (D., Colo.), Harry Johnston (D., Fla.), and Cynthia McKinney (D., Ga.) and the March 8 filing by David Bonior (D., Mich.) are unfounded, frivolous, and conspicuously malicious.Representatives Schroeder, Johnston, and McKinney charge that Mr. Gingrich accepted ``free'' air time from Mind Extension University to broadcast ``certain of his lectures.'' They further charge that because MEU is a subsidiary of Jones Intercable, a firm with ``substantial interests before the U.S. Congress,'' Gingrich has violated House Rule 43, which bars solicitation or acceptance of anything of value from an interested party, and the Ethics in Government Act of 1989.

Representative Bonior alleges that Mr. Gingrich misused congressional resources by publicizing his college course in four speeches and by reciting the course's toll-free number on the House floor in April 1993.As a matter of legal analysis, the charges are unsustainable. There are no grey areas or issues of subtle statutory interpretation. It is not possible that these sitting members of Congress lack access to qualified legal counsel who could explain the issues. Nor is it possible that these charges represent a good-faith misunderstanding of issues that have been rehashed in major newspapers for more than a year.These attacks are the latest (but almost certainly not the last) in a long series of assaults on Gingrich and his ``Renewing American Civilization'' college course. To appreciate fully the emptiness and mean- spiritedness of these attacks, it will be useful to review the history of the course.In January 1993 Newt Gingrich developed a concept for a course in American history. In a March 1993 speech he said he would like to resume teaching while in Congress because he believed that an intellectual renewal of core American values was the key to solving our domestic problems. A member of the audience, Tim Mescon, dean of the business school at Kennesaw State College, approached Gingrich after the speech and invited him to do the course at Kennesaw State. The target date was the spring term of 1994.

Gingrich's idea for the course was characteristically weighty and high tech. He envisioned televised lecture and video presentations, team-teaching assignments, a daunting reading list, and a format suitable for expanding the number of participating sites and classrooms. By May 1993, production of this ambitious package was behind schedule. Gingrich asked Jeff Eisenach, then executive director of GOPAC, the fund for Republican congressional candidates, to be program director for the new course. Mr. Eisenach agreed and gave GOPAC a letter of resignation, effective June 1, 1993. Eisenach's firm, the Washington Policy Group, continued to serve GOPAC under contract. His salary as project director was paid by the Kennesaw State College Foundation, the sponsoring organization for the project. His firm's fee from GOPAC was cut in half, since he would be dividing his time between two clients.Asking the Ethics Committee ON MAY 12, 1993, Mr. Gingrich sent a three-page letter to the co-chairmen of the House Ethics Committee outlining his plans to teach the course at Kennesaw State.

In the letter he mentioned that he had discussed it with then Speaker Tom Foley (D., Wash.) and then Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D., Mo.). He concluded, ``If the Committee has any concerns about this project, I would be glad to meet with your staff and develop a set of guidelines that will protect the integrity of the House and the integrity of the intellectual project.''

On July 21, Gingrich again wrote the Ethics Committee, providing further details. He informed the committee that members of his staff would be asked to comment on the course content but would not be asked to perform any specific tasks. Gingrich said he intended to seek comments from Democratic members of Congress such as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.) and Representative John Lewis (D., Ga.). He also said he would include course materials in House Special Orders (the after-hours ``open-mike'' period during which members discuss any topics they choose).

On August 3, Representative Fred Grandy (R., Iowa), then ranking minority member of the Ethics Committee, responded to Gingrich on behalf of the committee. Because Gingrich would receive no compensation for teaching the course, Mr. Grandy said, he did not need special permission from the committee. Grandy also confirmed that Gingrich's intended use of Special Orders was well within his prerogative as a member of Congress. The letter advised Gingrich that he could actively raise funds for any IRS-qualified nonprofit organization so long as no congressional funds were used.The attacks on the course began almost immediately. In the summer of 1993, Stephen Bruning, a former Democratic Party county chairman in Georgia, attacked the course's academic status. He demanded thousands of documents from the Kennesaw State College Foundation under Georgia's Freedom of Information Act. Parallel to this attack was a protest by a small minority of Kennesaw State faculty against the alleged political bias of the course. This controversy prompted a review by the Board of Regents for the Georgia state university system.