Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy has enlisted the advice of one of his best-known GOP predecessors in mapping plans for the campaign he hopes will make him the next speaker of the House: Newt Gingrich.
That’s unfortunate. No American politician besides Donald Trump is more responsible for the partisan acrimony pervading today’s politics than the former Georgia congressman, whose dictatorial style and flouting of House rules brought him down in less than four years.
When he sought a political comeback in the 2012 presidential race, fellow Republicans rejected him.
More recently, Gingrich showed again why he is the last person whose advice McCarthy should seek. In an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, he suggested leaders of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection “face a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws they’re breaking” if the GOP wins control of the House, as now seems likely.
While Republican leaders said they would shutter the probe if they gained power, following the former speaker’s advice would be an unprecedented move that could only widen the existing partisan chasm in Washington.
Gingrich’s comments came shortly after The Washington Post disclosed he is working with McCarthy and other House GOP leaders on a campaign platform modeled after his 1994 “Contract with America.” That helped the Republicans win the House for the first time in 40 years and made Gingrich its speaker.
The contract was far more effective as a campaign document than as a governing blueprint. Featuring such popular poll-tested proposals like a balanced budget amendment and term limits with little chance of enactment, few of its 10 items ever became law.
Though Gingrich started as a moderate reformer, he became a symbol of heightened partisanship when he forced Texas Democrat Jim Wright to resign as speaker over a questionable financial arrangement from a book bought mainly by friends.
As speaker, Gingrich abandoned long-established procedures to divide his Republican majority from the Democratic minority and turned the House into more of a political battleground than previously.
He refused to let Republican freshmen participate in Harvard University’s traditional bipartisan orientation sessions, establishing GOP-only briefings. He encouraged new members to solidify their political bases by not moving their families to Washington. That limited their time there, reducing opportunities to get to know Democratic colleagues as fellow lawmakers, rather than political rivals.
Past House Democratic leaders maintained good working relations with leaders of the Republican minority, but Gingrich stopped that. Six months after he became speaker, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt told me he had only spoken twice with Gingrich.
He precipitated two budget showdowns with the White House, shutting the federal government for five and 21 days, respectively. He became something of a laughingstock by complaining President Bill Clinton snubbed him on a flight to Israel for Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral. The budget tussle helped Clinton rebuild his political standing for the 1996 presidential election.
At times, Gingrich abandoned his confrontational tactics, cooperating with Clinton on a 1996 welfare reform law and a 1997 budget agreement that cut taxes and produced the government’s first balanced budgets in three decades. But when the Monica Lewinsky scandal involving Clinton’s affair with a White House intern broke in early 1998, Gingrich abandoned the more cooperative course.
He soon wore out his welcome with fellow GOP leaders. Though their 1997 coup against his leadership failed, they forced him out after his focus on impeaching Clinton led to a poor Republican midterm election showing.
Personal improprieties also dogged him. The House reprimanded Gingrich and fined him $300,000 for an ethics violation like the one against Wright. He also acknowledged an affair with a House committee aide (whom he later married) while pushing to impeach Clinton over his affair with Lewinsky.
Though Wright was admittedly more partisan than his predecessors, Gingrich took that to new heights, setting a pattern his successors have unfortunately maintained. Bringing him in as an adviser is but the latest signal from McCarthy that the next GOP majority plans more of the same.
McCarthy said last month that top House Republican priorities would be investigating Biden administration decisions and trying to block its policies. He has talked about retaliating against Democratic ouster of several right-wing GOP members from committees. But a platform would enable Republicans to stress popular issues like immigration and parental control of schools where they would hope to reverse current course.
The House GOP’s plans contrast sharply with the decision by Senate Republicans to avoid proposing possible policy options to focus on the Biden administration’s missteps.
In a revealing recent interview with the Washington Examiner, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said he decided against running for the Senate after talking with GOP senators about their plans for the next two years.
“They were all, for the most part, content with the speed at which they weren’t doing anything,” the Republican governor said. “It was very clear that we just have to hold the line for two years. OK, so I’m just going to be a roadblock for two years. That’s not what I do.”
In reality, congressional Republicans will have difficulty achieving anything positive except in cooperation with the Biden White House. Even if they win both houses, they won’t have a veto-proof majority in either.
Consulting Gingrich is another sign they’re mainly interested in continued confrontation.
