King of the hill

National Review, April 21, 1997 by Rich Lowry

Every Tuesday, the House Republican leadership gathers around a long table in Newt Gingrich's suite of offices for a meandering demonstration of the dysfunction of the 105th Congress. In response to complaints about centralized decision-making in the last Congress, leadership meetings have been opened up to 23 members. At the first expanded meeting, strategy memos were distributed around the table -- and promptly leaked to the press. Now nothing is ever committed to paper. Discussions of abortion must be less than candid, given the presence of the pro-choice Jim Greenwood (Pa.) at the table. Conservative David McIntosh (Ind.), meanwhile, participates in decisions like the one recently to extend the airline-ticket tax that he can't in good conscience support.

These gatherings are less leadership meetings than representative samples of 10 per cent of the Republican conference. Bill Paxon (N.Y.), not an elected member of the leadership but a rising star tapped by Gingrich to lead the meetings, tries to direct the discussions, in which many of the participants perform as if they were giving speeches on the House floor. Besides the seven elected members of the leadership -- Speaker, Majority Leader, etc. -- the meetings are attended by six committee chairmen, two representatives of the sophomore class, and one of the freshman class. Mike Crapo (Idaho), who started attending meetings four years ago as the representative of his freshman class, still attends today. Ernest Istook (Okla.) and Jim Greenwood represent the conservative and moderate factions of the conference respectively, holding temporary three-month leadership chairs that rotate -- just as on the McLaughlin Group.

Something is deadly wrong with the House Republican conference. A big part of the problem starts at the top. The pointless leadership meetings are the sign of a Speaker who is so weakened he apparently can't say no to anyone who wants a seat at the table, and who no longer trusts his own instincts. That in turn has prompted a speakership race that dare not speak its name -- a quiet positioning among contenders who must deny their designs on the top spot if they are ever to win it. The resulting suspicions and jealousies just add to the divisions of an already fractured, dispirited GOP conference.

And the malaise extends beyond House Republicans -- Gingrich is a limping leader for a listless conservative movement. At a recent meeting between Gingrich and representatives of conservative organizations, the Speaker got a standing ovation when he entered the room. He then told the group he hoped their meeting could be as nice as one he had just held with the Congressional Black Caucus. Almost everyone obliged by failing to raise issues Gingrich had recently fumbled, like the timing of tax cuts. Gingrich's interest perked up when someone around the table suggested de-regulating sonograms, in keeping with the Speaker's tendency, as one critic puts it, to get excited about those "ideas closest to colonizing space." He became even more intrigued when someone else mentioned that she raises llamas. Gingrich left the room to another standing ovation.

Gingrich must have been grateful for any audience that would give him an ovation -- let alone two. After the catastrophic failure of the government shutdowns and the punishing ethics controversy earlier this year, Gingrich's prospects are bleak. His situation is similar to that of the hero in a silent film who is tossed from the train into a river with both hands tied behind his back -- escape is technically possible, but it really requires a suspension of disbelief. Gingrich owes $190,000 in legal bills. And the ethics committee wants him to cough up $300,000 sometime this summer, a levy that nearly everyone says he must pay out of his own pocket. So Gingrich, never a wealthy man, must consider dipping deep into his savings to pay for the privilege of holding onto a Speakership that could be stripped from him at any moment anyway.

Which is why rumors fly in Washington about Gingrich's already having decided to step aside. His weakness feeds on itself. Consider his meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, a nice gesture turned fiasco. In the meeting, Gingrich heard complaints about the elimination in 1995 of congressional funding for groups like the CBC. Conservatives, assuming the worst, interpreted press accounts to mean that Gingrich agreed to restore the funding. The Speaker's office denied it; even Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) denied it. Still, says one conservative activist, "I don't know what to believe." No one does any more. The Speaker's credibility among his colleagues is as low as his standing in the polls. One factor behind the embarrassing late-March revolt of 11 conservatives over a vote on committee funding was that when Gingrich explained what the vote was about, many members simply didn't believe him.

For Gingrich, the clock is ticking. Matt Salmon (Ariz.), one of the 11 rebels, gives Gingrich until August to demonstrate leadership. Moderate Jim Greenwood says, "If January 1998 rolls around . . . and the current leadership has demonstrated for the third year in a row that it can't accomplish a significant part of our agenda, then I think some serious re-thinking will occur." So, if any of the many scenarios for a Gingrich meltdown comes to pass -- if he continues to tread water, if he decides to try to pay the $300,000 out of campaign funds, if the IRS finds more tax problems, if he commits another major gaffe -- then what?