In My Time (23 page)

Every new class of House members arrives in Washington with the conviction that they are going to “clean out the stables” or “drain the swamp”; that at long last they are going to be the “reformers” the Congress so badly needs. Most of the time this phase passes, and the new members become established senior members with all the privileges and opportunities that entails. But every once in a while, a class does have an extraordinary impact. It may be because the class is especially large or they affect a particular issue or they stick around longer than most, thus gaining seniority, or because they have an unusual degree of cohesion and vote as a block larger than most. The 1974 Democratic class of “Watergate Babies” is often cited as an example.

The 1978 class of which I was a part produced leaders who would shape Washington for decades: Jerry Lewis, who would become chairman of the Appropriations Committee; Bill Thomas, future chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; and Jim Sensenbrenner, who
would one day chair the Judiciary Committee. On the Democratic side were Geraldine Ferraro, who would be the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984, and Phil Gramm, who would become a Republican and a United States senator from Texas. Another Texan in the class of 1978, Democrat Kent Hance, had won his seat by defeating a future president, thirty-two-year-old George W. Bush.

But no one in our class stands out in memory as much as Newt Gingrich of Georgia. An academic with a Ph.D. in history from Tulane, Newt decided in 1974 to run for Congress in Georgia against the incumbent Jack Flynt, a longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee. Nineteen seventy-four, of course, was the Watergate election, not a good time to begin a career in elective office as a Republican, and Newt was defeated.

Two years later Newt again ran against Flynt and lost again. Nineteen seventy-six, it turned out, was a tough year to win in Georgia as a Republican, because the state’s own Jimmy Carter was running as the Democratic candidate for president. When Newt announced that in 1978 he would be running a third time against Jack Flynt, Flynt quit. It was said he just couldn’t take any more. Newt was nothing if not tenacious.

I first met Newt at the orientation session for freshman Republicans in 1978, and he was fascinating to watch. He had tremendous energy, a head full of ideas, and an absolute, unwavering conviction that we Republicans could once again become the majority in the House. But to do it, he argued, we had to quit being polite to the Democrats and go after them—a tactic that drove some of our more senior members right up the wall. Many House Republicans were comfortable in the minority and not eager to go to war against our Democratic colleagues.

One of the innovations Newt came up with was for him and many of the other new Republicans to use the “one-minutes,” which were short speeches at the beginning of each day’s session, to really go after Jimmy Carter and his administration. Using one-minutes to go on the attack was typical of Newt: clever, creative, and very successful. It fired up the troops and fed the media. It was not, however, my personal cup of tea.

My style was more restrained, and I was reluctant to speak unless I
had something I really wanted to say—and then I’d save it for debate. I didn’t garner a lot of publicity this way, but I found that at least some of my colleagues appreciated what I wasn’t doing. I was at the rail at the back of the chamber, leaning over, watching one of my freshman colleagues give a barnburner of a speech—pounding on the podium and really letting the Democrats have it—when one of the senior Republicans came over, put his arm around my shoulder, and said, “You know what I like about you, Cheney? You are the only member of your whole class who doesn’t drool when he speaks!” I took that as high praise.

I wasn’t part of Newt’s Conservative Opportunity Society, the group with which he plotted the takeover of the House, but he encouraged my chief of staff, Dave Gribbin, to sit in on the regular meetings. And on occasion, when Newt would push too hard or take some action that angered the senior members of the caucus or the leadership, he would come to my office and seek my counsel on what he’d done to ruffle so many feathers and how best to patch things up. Our relationship was useful in maintaining some degree of peace among the Republicans in the House. For the leadership I served as a bridge to the younger, more aggressive members. For Newt I provided knowledge of which lines he shouldn’t step over if he didn’t want to get in a pile of trouble. And for me, my role allowed me to be identified on the one hand as part of the Republican establishment and on the other as someone who had close ties to that younger generation, eager to overthrow the establishment.

I REMEMBER WELL THE afternoon when I sought recognition by the Speaker and then rose to address the House of Representatives for the first time as a member. I was less than thrilled with the subject matter, which dealt with one of the many sad cases the Ethics Committee had to pass judgment on. Charles Diggs was a longtime congressman from Michigan’s 13th District. He had been one of the bright young men of the civil rights movement, and he had been elected the first chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Now he had been convicted of taking kickbacks from his congressional staff, but while he was appealing his case, his Michigan constituents had reelected him.

An incensed group of members, mostly Republican and led by Newt Gingrich, were demanding his expulsion, but the Ethics Committee recommended censure instead, a decision I was happy to defend. As I pointed out in my speech, the Constitution clearly gives the House the right to expel a member, but it also bestows upon the people the right to choose their representatives, and the people of Michigan’s 13th had chosen Diggs even after he was convicted. “Much as I deplore Mr. Diggs’ unethical behavior,” I said, “much as I believe that he should no longer serve in the House of Representatives, I cannot support the contention that this body should now take the unprecedented step in these circumstances, of setting aside the right of the voters of Michigan’s 13th District to select the congressman of their choice.” The vote to censure rather than expel Diggs passed by an overwhelming majority.

The most important cases considered during my term on the Ethics Committee stemmed from the so-called Abscam scandal. The “Ab” in
Abscam
was short for Abdul Enterprises—the name of the phony company the FBI set up supposedly representing the interests of an Arab sheikh who was prepared to pay bribes to obtain U.S. government help. What began as an FBI sting operation targeting corrupt local officials in the Philadelphia area ended up ensnaring six congressmen and a U.S. senator.

Most of those convicted in Abscam lost their bids for reelection or resigned after their trials, but Ozzie Myers of Pennsylvania insisted on taking his case before the entire House and forcing a vote on the question of whether he should be expelled. In his case, there was no intervening election, as there had been for Diggs, and there was an absolutely damning videotape that showed him telling undercover agents, “Money talks in this business and bullshit walks.” I joined in the overwhelming vote in both the Ethics Committee and the House to expel him, but it was painful business for everyone, not because Congress should protect its own or its members should expect special treatment, but because the Constitution provides for the direct election of representatives by the people. The only qualifications are age, citizenship, and residence. At the time of Abscam, Myers was only the fourth member in history to be
expelled. The previous three expulsions had been during the Civil War, and the grounds were treason.

One of the members caught up in Abscam was John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a former marine and the first Vietnam veteran to be elected to Congress. He made an appearance on one of the FBI’s undercover surveillance tapes that was embarrassing, but not, in my opinion, illegal. Still he was being tarred with the same brush as the others, which I didn’t think was fair, so one afternoon I talked to him on the House floor and told him I thought he was getting a bum rap. I said that if he needed any help on our side, he should let me know. He thanked me, and we never mentioned it again. In July 1981, the Ethics Committee cleared him.

DURING MY FIRST YEAR in the House, Republican leader John Rhodes of Arizona announced that he would not run for that position again after the next election. This immediately set off a major succession battle within the Republican caucus. One of the major contenders for the post was Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan, a charismatic individual and an impressive orator, who had worked closely with most of the new members in his capacity as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Many of them felt they owed their election to Guy, and he had a considerable following. The other contender was Bob Michel of Illinois, Leader Rhodes’s second in command as minority whip. He was widely liked and universally respected, though some of the younger members in the Vander Jagt camp criticized him for being too comfortable in the minority, too unwilling to take on the Democrats.

Only two members of the ’78 class, Tom Loeffler of Texas and I, supported Bob Michel. I liked both him and Guy Vander Jagt, but I had run my campaign without any help from the NRCC. I knew Bob Michel from my earlier work in the Nixon and Ford administrations—and I thought he would win the Leader’s job. I signed on early.

Shortly before the 1980 election I was approached by one of Bob’s key floor assistants, Walt Kennedy. There were certain people, Walt
said, who thought I should run for a leadership position—in particular the chairmanship of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking position behind the Leader, the whip, and the chairman of the House Republican Conference (or caucus). I responded cautiously, telling Kennedy I’d think it over. There were already two announced candidates for the post, Marjorie Holt of Maryland and Eldon Rudd of Arizona, both senior to me and holding commitments from a number of members.

I figured Bob Michel was behind Kennedy’s suggestion, but I couldn’t really talk with Bob about it. His contest with Guy Vander Jagt was close and hard-fought, and if word got out that he was actively recruiting me to run against more senior members for policy chairman, it might well cost him support from their backers and lose him the contest for Leader. On my own I took some quiet soundings, and when I determined I could marshal enough support to win, I announced for the race.

Some years later Bob Michel confirmed that he had asked Walt Kennedy to suggest that I run for policy chairman. One of his rationales was that my candidacy would attract support and energy among my fellow freshmen and thereby lessen their fervor for Vander Jagt. He was also thinking about putting together a leadership team that he could count on and work with in the years ahead.

When the voting was over in that 1980 caucus, Michel was the GOP Leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi was the newly elected whip, Jack Kemp of New York was Conference chairman, and I was policy chairman. It was an effective team, and we worked well together throughout the 1980s, the Reagan years.

Because of the way the House is organized and its rules are written, individual members of the minority typically have little impact on the overall work of the House, but being in the leadership took me into the meetings where legislative and political strategy were decided and the relationship with the administration was managed. From my personal standpoint, being in the leadership made a world of difference.

__________

MY FIRST TERM IN the House coincided with the last half of President Carter’s administration. The 1976 campaign had not left me a fan of President Carter, nor had his first two years in office. I found his administration singularly unimpressive.

Despite the fact that the Democrats had an overwhelming margin of more than one hundred House seats during 1979 and 1980, the Carter White House found it difficult to achieve legislative successes. In 1979, faced with serious shortages in fuel, partly as a result of the Iranian Revolution and other unrest in the Middle East, President Carter pushed hard to enact energy legislation in the Congress. At the end of a House debate on one of the administration’s energy-related initiatives, Tip O’Neill made the dramatic gesture of coming down from the Speaker’s chair—where custom prohibited him from taking a position for or against any piece of legislation—in order to speak from the well of the House on behalf of the administration’s bill. On this day Tip was particularly eloquent in his remarks. He talked about how, as a young man visiting Washington, he had been sitting in the gallery of the House on the day in the fall of 1941, not long before Pearl Harbor, when the House was asked to extend the Selective Service System. He argued that now, in 1979, we were faced with a crisis of similar magnitude, and the stakes of the vote were no less high.

It was an extraordinary performance, and when he finished, all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, rose and gave the Speaker a standing ovation. Then we voted—and beat him decisively. Tip O’Neill was much loved and highly respected, but he couldn’t transfer either of those sentiments to the president, and he couldn’t translate them into votes when we were considering the president’s proposals.

President Carter encountered difficulties as well in trying to project American power. When the Shah was toppled in Iran and the Saudis asked for a demonstration of U.S. commitment to the Kingdom, President Carter responded dramatically by sending a squadron of F-15 fighter aircraft to the Persian Gulf. Then, when the planes were in the air, he announced that they were unarmed. The Iranian hostage crisis plagued him for his last year in office. A bungled and failed attempt to
rescue the American hostages—code-named Desert One—seemed to symbolize his administration’s ineptitude.

His difficulties with Congress stemmed in part from a lack of understanding about how to manage relations with Capitol Hill. Speaker O’Neill, after being treated cavalierly by the president’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, took to referring to him as “Hannibal Jerkin,” and the Georgians never achieved any kind of détente with the powers that be at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Carter made a big deal of getting rid of the presidential yacht
Sequoia.
He didn’t realize that far more than being an expendable perk for the man in the Oval Office, the historic vessel was a great tool for lobbying Congress. One of the most sought-after invitations in Washington during the Ford years had been for drinks and dinner with the president on an evening cruise on the Potomac. It was a tradition that when the
Sequoia
sailed past Mount Vernon, all aboard came on deck to join the crew in an official salute to the first president. Many votes were quietly won on those evening cruises.