Gingrich Wins Reelection as House Speaker

WASHINGTON —  Rep. Newt Gingrich, squelching dissension in Republican ranks over his admitted ethics lapses, narrowly won reelection to a second term as House speaker Tuesday and immediately offered an olive branch to his political adversaries.

Gingrich, the Georgia firebrand who led the Republican takeover of Congress two years ago only to become entangled in a messy ethics investigation, used his acceptance speech to offer an apology to House colleagues.

“To the degree I was too brash, too self-confident or too pushy, I apologize,” Gingrich said after he was deserted by nine Republicans in an extraordinary display of Republican anxiety about voting for him before the House Ethics Committee delivers its verdict in his case. “This has been a very difficult time. Some of the difficulty I brought on myself.”

The House elected Gingrich over Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) by a 216-205 margin. But under House rules requiring a majority of those voting to elect a speaker, the outcome actually was much closer.

The vote ended a weeks-long GOP leadership drive to keep the party united behind Gingrich, who lobbied wavering members until minutes before the vote.

But it was hardly the end of his troubles or of debate about his future as a leader of the Republican Party. The Ethics Committee is scheduled to begin deliberations today on the degree of punishment to impose on Gingrich, who has admitted violating House rules in connection with a college course he taught that improperly used financing from a tax-exempt foundation.

And even if the ethics investigation ends with a relatively mild reprimand, as widely expected, some political observers--and even some Republicans--believe that Gingrich’s political power and institutional authority have been irreversibly undermined.

“He was on thin ice before. Now there is no ice,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “He’s walking on water based on his 1994 performance.”

The degree to which the ethics flap will continue to shadow Gingrich and the House became clear Tuesday when, immediately after his election, the chamber erupted into a bitter debate about whether to extend the Jan. 21 deadline for completing the investigation of the speaker.

GOP Leaders Pressure Panel on Deadline

The ethics subcommittee conducting the investigation has said that it cannot complete it by then but House GOP leaders Tuesday pushed through a measure that forces the committee to bring the case to a House vote by Jan. 21.

Republican leaders are eager to put the issue behind them because Gingrich will be weakened so long as he is dogged by a cloud of uncertainty. For the same reason, Democrats wanted the deadline extended indefinitely.

Gingrich’s reelection as speaker--in a vote that in past years has been routine--was in question until the final hours because several Republicans had been unwilling to commit themselves to him without viewing the Ethics Committee’s full report and its recommendation on punishment.

Even after Gingrich spent more than three hours Monday night giving his explanation of the issues during a closed-door meeting with GOP colleagues, a small band of dissidents said that he should step down and promised to vote for other Republicans for speaker.

That posed a new threat to Gingrich because Republicans control the House by only a 20-vote margin, 227 to 207, with one independent member. And under House rules, Gingrich’s election would have been blocked if all 435 members voted for a named candidate and only 10 Republicans had voted for someone other than Gingrich.

He squeaked by thanks to two developments. First, only 421 members voted for a named candidate, reducing to 211 the number needed to win.

Second, of the Republican defectors, four voted for other candidates but five voted “present,” which under House rules means that they voted for no one.

Voting “present” effectively helped Gingrich by reducing the number of votes he needed for a majority, but it permitted those dissidents to say that they had not voted for his reelection. If those five instead had voted for another candidate, Gingrich would have needed 214 votes to win. He received 216.

Fence-Sitters Get Special Attention

Aware of the eccentricities of the balloting, Gingrich and his allies launched an intensive campaign to persuade dissidents not to name another candidate, but to vote “present.”

Gingrich was still working on fence-sitters in the minutes before the vote, when he brought two of them--Reps. Constance A. Morella (R-Md.) and Scott L. Klug (R-Wis.)--into the Republican cloakroom off the House floor for one-on-one discussions. His lieutenants also scoured the floor for wavering Republicans.

In the end, Morella and Klug--along with three other dissidents--voted “present” and four voted for other Republicans.

Although GOP leaders had claimed that they were sure of victory before the vote, relief was apparent on their faces when the roll call ended. Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.), a top Gingrich lieutenant, grinned broadly, wiped his brow and shook his head as if in disbelief. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), clearly elated, flashed two thumbs up.

With that narrow victory behind him, Gingrich mounted the House podium and accepted the gavel to begin another two-year term.

In a speech intended to set a conciliatory tone, Gingrich outlined an agenda that touched on bipartisan themes, such as fighting drug abuse and improving race relations and education. He pledged to “seek to be worthy of being speaker of the House.” And in another gesture to the opposition, Gingrich later met briefly with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was in the House gallery to watch the swearing in of his son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.).

Some Democrats were suspicious. “His speech clearly was driven solely by his need to ingratiate himself to people,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “It had no connection with reality.”

2 Democrats Decline to Escort Speaker

Indeed, partisan rancor over the ethics dispute reached so deep that it cut through House tradition as two Democrats--fellow Georgia Rep. John Lewis and House Minority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), Gingrich’s chief accuser--refused to accept the invitation to be among the group of members who escorted the newly elected speaker to the podium.

In the debate about extending the deadline for concluding the Gingrich ethics case, the House split largely on party lines, voting, 223 to 205, to deny the extra time. The extension had been requested by James M. Cole, the committee’s special counsel, and its investigative subcommittee, which said that it could not possibly finish its work in time to bring the matter to the floor by Jan. 21.

Democrats condemned the GOP leadership for second-guessing the subcommittee, which has two Republican and two Democratic members.

“We think that we deserve the respect of this House to give us the time that we say that we need,” said subcommittee member Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.).

But House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said that the panel should stick to the deadline, which he noted was originally set by the committee itself.

“If the time that my colleagues requested and announced . . . is now not acceptable to them, I find a very difficult problem understanding then why I should . . . continue to hold my clinging belief that they are professional, competent, able people that can assess what their needs are,” Armey said.

GOP Divided on Gingrich’s Future

Republican leaders insisted that the ethics flap would not impair Gingrich as he leads his party. Once Gingrich’s side of the ethics case is presented publicly, they predicted, his standing with the public will be restored. “I guarantee you it’s starting to turn around,” said DeLay.

But other Republicans said privately that the ethics controversy could force him eventually to leave the speakership.

“He has never understood how he has alienated not just members of the media but Americans more generally,” said one Republican lawmaker, who asked not to be named. “I think at the end of the day he’s going to step down.”

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), a close Gingrich ally, said that the speaker will thrive if he understands one lesson of the controversy: that he should stay focused on his House leadership job, not ambitions outside Congress that strain his capacities.

“Newt needs to not be a franchise. He just needs to be the best speaker,” said Shays. “Instead of being a god, he’ll be a normal, good leader.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Win and an Apology

Newt Gingrich overcame dissension in the GOP ranks to win a second term as speaker of the House. He then offered an apology to fellow members:

“To the degree I was too brash, too self-confident or too pushy, I apologize.”

--Newt Gingrich

****

THE VOTE

Newt Gingrich: 216

Richard A. Gephardt: 205

Note: four members voted for current or former House members, six voted “present” and four did not vote

****

THE NEXT STEP

The House Ethics Committee meets today to begin determining what, if any, punishment to recommend for Gingrich for providing misleading information during an ethics probe. A censure, if endorsed by the full House, would require Gingrich to step down as speaker.