ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220018
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: CAL THOMAS
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
IT IS possible to explain - without justifying every decision, statement and act by House Speaker Newt Gingrich - why he felt the need for a course to be funded by tax-deductible dollars through a charitable foundation.
That explanation lies in the 40-year rule of the House of Representatives by a Democratic Party whose leadership grew increasingly imperial, unethical and arrogant in direct proportion to the amount of time it held on to majority power.
When the speaker is said to have brought disrepute to the House by violating House rules with a ``coordinated effort'' for ``achieving a partisan, political goal,'' in the words of the House ethics committee, it is important to recall the ethical record of the previous House majority, especially since the post-Watergate ``reformers'' came to Congress in the mid-1970s, and why it took a ``revolution'' to bring down that House.
The old Democratic majority had so fixed the rules and the lawmaking process that Republicans were virtually shut out of the system. Democrats changed rules at will, with the effect of making it more difficult for Republicans even to be heard, much less to have their bills fairly considered. Add to this arrogance a considerable amount of corruption that dwarfed the charges brought by the ethics committee against Gingrich, and we had what some called an imperial Congress.
When Democrats were in power, the leadership used the rules to abuse the system of representative government. Here's just one of hundreds of examples that could be cited. In 1974, the House passed a reorganization resolution eliminating proxy voting in committees. Only a few months later, the Democratic Caucus changed the House rules to allow proxy voting in committees. The reorganization resolution said that one-third of the investigatory staff should be controlled by the minority. Again, in early 1975, the Democratic Caucus abolished this minority protection.
Then, every two years thereafter, the Democratic Caucus changed the rules to restrict opportunities for the minority to participate in the formulation of new laws. In 1977, the Democrats changed the number of members required for a quorum in committee, where most legislation gets written, to one-third of the members of the committee. In 1979, the caucus increased by 25 percent the number of members needed to call for a vote on the House floor.
As a Heritage Foundation report found, after the Reagan landslide in 1980, House Democrats ``cheat[ed] the Republicans out of the proportional number of seats they deserved on the committees. On full committees Republicans were denied 31 seats they deserved and on subcommittees 81 seats were denied the minority.''
The corruption that accompanied the arrogance and abuse of power included the House bank, where some members had their overdrafts covered, and the House post office. It was there that frequent patron Dan Rostenkowski found his way to jail for misusing his office stamp allowance, part of a 17-count indictment involving embezzlement, fraud and witness tampering. But there were smaller, less noticeable and daily abuses, some of which veteran Democratic staffer John Jackley exposed in his 1992 book ``Hill Rat.''
From the painting of offices at any time to free cable-hookups for the free color-TV sets provided to each office, to new staff bookshelves or upholstery, and even, until the Republicans ended the practice, free ice for all 585 offices, the perks of power flowed like a never-ending river.
Jackley notes that the then-Democratic House leadership gave itself even more benefits: ``In July 1987 a House Administration subcommittee approved $7,595 for 12 pieces of furniture for the Democratic leadership, including four custom-made wooden chairs and tables for then-Majority Leader Thomas Foley, at a cost of $4,432. Then-Majority Whip Tony Coehlo spent $1,765 for two other chairs and tables.'' Republicans were going to protest until the Minority Leader Bob Michel got $2,425 in new carpeting and withdrew the threat.
Writes Jackley, ``The old way of honor and belief had passed. A newer, hungrier, shiftier crowd with darker methods was taking over. This new group was slicker, as if the Mob had gone corporate.''
It was against this ``Mob'' that Newt Gingrich planned his revolution. What he did through information and inspired political organization in the ``college course,'' and how he did it, even with some obvious shortcomings, must be measured against the level of corruption and arrogance he managed to overthrow.
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate|
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB