The Contract With America: Terms and Conditions May Apply

[Newton Leroy Gingrich by Thomas Nash, 2000.]

Political pundits usually put the blame on Newt Gingrich for the fall of modern day Congress, yet few care to mention why he took such actions for a political party stuck in the minority rule since the early 1950’s, revised it, and transformed the legislative body to focus on a quest for majority control. To figure out the strategy Gingrich used to change such an institution, for better or for worse, history helps as a guide into finding where certain political strategies began, who the key people were, and developing a better mindset understanding of what it meant to be as a congressperson in the minority party. It’s also worth mentioning the explanation of a particular underrated party leadership position, why Gingrich sought such a position that suited him hand-and-glove, setting up a foundation that laid the groundwork necessary to create a transcendence of feverish success within Republican circles, and set his sights on the House Speakership. 

Although the post-1994 Congress is portrayed as the era of increased partisanship, it ideally began 14 years prior with the election of 1980. During this time, both political party minorities in the House and Senate had reason to believe in their own push towards majority status. Professor Frances E Lee in her book Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, explains that 1980 was a key moment for parties to figure out how to create a confrontational approach in congressional politics, especially amongst Senate Democrats who had just become members of the minority party. They met together in caucus meetings to strategize how they would be able to offer a forceful contrast to their Republican colleagues, and attempted to publicly stage roll-call votes (also known as message votes), designed to show off partisan differences.¹

“Although Gingrich and the 1994 elections are undoubtedly very important for understanding future developments, the more confrontational partisan style typical of the contemporary Congress began to take root earlier. Developments in the Senate are especially instructive. Once in the minority after 1980, Senate Democrats adopt distinctly more confrontational strategies in their efforts to retake the majority. Unlike Gingrich, however, congressional observers have never described Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) as especially visionary or innovative as a party leader… Nevertheless, Byrd led his party toward a tougher, more combative style of partisanship long before Gingrich rose to Republican leadership in the House. The political logic behind a confrontational strategy was sufficiently obvious that even an institutionalist like Byrd apprehended the need for an out party to unify itself in opposition in order to make a cause for its return to power. Both parties began to adjust their strategies under pressures of intensified competition for majority control. The story of changing strategic behavior is no less important in the Senate than in the House.”²

Lee reveals party strategies sprung into action after the election of 1980, with Democrats in the Senate becoming the new minority party. Since their strategy was to use roll-call vote tactics to show the ideological differences between the two parties, they also held media events to express talking points throwing jabs against the opposing party. This in turn brought in new gains for congressional party fundraising. 

Across the hall to the House, Republicans gained a sense of enthusiasm after the election of 1980, despite being in the minority, creating an agenda that increased confrontational stances, and fought over what was the best strategy going forward. It wouldn’t take long until the late 1980’s when votes for leadership positions took place, and by the thinnest of margins, a youthful-but-bold historian from Georgia came in to transform the party.³

A quote from Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) best described the climate of being a Republican in the later half of the 20th century, “I remember hearing [Republican Leader Bob] Michel comment in his speeches that not one Republican who had served during his time had ever been part of a majority. He said this as though it belonged in the Guinness Book of World Records.”⁴

The minority party, Lee says, could either play the short game on policy making, or play the long game of winning the next majority. Particularly the short game is thus more attractive to many considering the fact lawmakers are destined to work out public policy agendas, and massive constituencies to hear out. To a degree, ranking committee members may be entitled to focus on the short game as well. In the long game however, the party battle for majority chamber control becomes more aggressive, “Members of such a minority party are more likely to throw bombs, sharpen the differences, and let substantive policy making wait for the day when they’re no longer just making contributions at the majority margins.” Lee continues, “They looked towards the future when their party win the majority and can drive the legislative agenda instead.”⁵

An example of intra-party leadership amongst Republican House officials was an exchange over political strategy between Gingrich and House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-IL) in the magazine titled the National Journal. Gingrich wrote, “The best Republican strategy is to recognize that the Democrats run the House and will do all they can to butcher the budget. Bob Michel should relax, concentrate on the impotence of Tip O’Neill and refuse to take up the burden of being Speaker himself.” Michel responded back to Gingrich by stating, “I don’t perceive my role as taking the budget issue to the voters. I have to look at what’s achievable for the good of the country.” Michel, in his response, was focused on playing the short game, which meant finding the policies of the present day to be able to get attained, even if they had to work it out with a Democratic majority again. But Gingrich was more staunch, desperate to change the leadership's way of pursuing legislative success by replacing it with majority success, even if that meant taking out Republican members from bipartisan negotiations with Democratic colleagues to further emphasize the differentiation between the political parties. As a result, Gingrich had focused on the long game, therefore the goal was to defeat Democrats in the next election.⁶

The following is an understanding of legislative versus messaging priorities under different umbrellas of power:

[Image 1: Differences of Legislative vs Messaging]

Looking under the right column where it says Minority Party, and  to the section of Divided government with a divided Congress, Lee attributes this chart to where the President’s party holds a majority in one legislative chamber and a minority in the other, and both parties have different principles in how to conduct proper governance. An example of this would be House Republicans being the minority, and a majority in the Senate with President Reagan in the White House. The president’s party in power is more equipped to drive legislative prioritization, in hopes to carry credit and a good reputation for the commander in chief. Whereas, the party that doesn’t control the presidency can’t focus on legislative means, they are more eager to focus on messaging tactics instead.⁷ 

By the 100th Congress, it's further down at the left part of the chart, once again, to where it says Divided government. To not get confused with the previous condition, this meant one party controlled the executive branch, while the other party controlled the legislative branch. In this instance, it was Reagan who was the president, and Democrats who controlled both chambers of Congress. Lee uses this part to take the contrast of a party in majority rule more focused on messaging tactics that show they separate themselves from the president, while the minority party would tend to grasp onto making legislative achievements that may have the president’s support for the most part.   

Under a unified government, this is more straight to the point where both the White House and Congress are controlled by one party, but such a unified government lasts for a very short period of time, as the Democrats in 2009-2011 or Republicans in 2016-2018. The majority will focus on legislative matters over messaging, while the minority will work on the exact opposite. 

Lee clarifies that lawmakers believe in showing off the differences amongst party lines to dramatize those differences to an extent, all to energize supporters at home, as well as the chance to sway undecided voters. Depending on the situation that a political party likely faces in the separation-of-powers system, it’s crucial for a party to choose what step they should take, whether by messaging or legislating. From conducting her congressional interviews, Lee explains, “the quest for partisan majorities inhibits legislative cooperation across party lines, particularly for parties dissatisfied with their share of institutional power.”⁸ 

Within the House Republican minority in the early 1980’s, Gingrich came up with the Conservative Opportunity Society in 1983, after the twenty-six seat loss from the 1982 midterm election, and selected a few young members to talk strategy. This was made because some members thought a Republican House majority was on the horizon. As one former staffer put it, “After 1980 every two years we convinced ourselves that it was our year. We didn’t get too discouraged in 1982, despite the terrible beating we took… In 1984, with the Republican landslide on the horizon, we thought, ‘This just has to be our year!’ But then it didn’t happen. ‘If not then, when?’ 1986 was a bad year. 1988, no coattails. By 1990, we had nothing to show for all those efforts.”⁹

With presidential and midterm election years passing by, House Republicans continued to hold dearly to the belief in the long game, somehow sooner or later they would reach majority status. Given the lengthy history of being in the minority party for many decades, there was growing concern amongst Republican members who were dissatisfied with the current party leadership, and wanted to form a new sense of direction. 

Gingrich made the COS to focus on making clear political distinctions between Democrats and Republicans, as well as nudging the elbow of party leadership to step up their game. Creating the COS was a smart idea at the time because when a minority party is focused on the long run to attain majority control, they will use messaging tactics to advance their cause. One of the issues however, was building a new team from the ground up. 

Those involved in being a part of the COS would meet to discuss ways to go on the messaging offensive, according to a former staffer, they recalled how there was a lot of enthusiasm and energy into having weekly meetings for an hour, developing strategies focused on issues that would help them claim the control of the House majority.¹⁰ One example of a strategy they used was by walking up to the podium to have one-minute speeches, and special orders on the floor of the House. To sell their strategy short and sweet to the point, the speeches were to mark Democrats on the other side by calling them corrupt, arrogant, and mismanaged. At the same time, they used the accented style of harsh rhetoric. Such efforts, Lee noted, were “the first sustained, self-conscious partisan message operation on the House floor.”¹¹

The COS was not the only congressional organization that was up and coming. For there was the New Right, and the Senate Steering Committee. But here’s where reading in between the lines becomes more clear. The Steering Committee was not only open to lawmakers who identified solely as Republicans, but were also joined by those who called themselves conservative Democrats. This was useful to help Republicans advance policies in the conservative limelight, even if centrists were able to be a part of the club. However, the COS had an entirely new approach: to only help Republicans take back the House majority, and Democrats were not allowed to join. As one former staffer mentioned, the Steering Committee was more focused on developing legislative strategy than those who were involved in the COS. When a party is in the minority in the House, it was winning the majority that took center stage, and the COS was prepared to roll along with more stances on highlighting party differences for majority gain.¹² 

As mentioned earlier about the short versus long game, the COS was well focused on playing the long game to gain majority control, and not on small legislative victories in the short game, something that Republican leadership was accustomed to before Gingrich rose through the ranks. Rep. Tom Delay once put it, “We’re having a struggle right now within the Republican party. Basically, it’s those who think they’re here to govern and those who think they’re here to take over a majority. I am not among those here to govern. I am here to take over a majority from the Democrats.”¹³

When conducting one minute speeches on the House floor calling on Democrats corrupt and arrogant, they went a step further attacking Democratic leadership by pursuing ethics scandals, calling them for their handling of House management to be abusive, and heavy-handed. Gingrich made a conflicting approach, determining “conflict equals exposure to power.” But not every conservative was on board to hype their own ego and political opportunity growth. Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK) who was asked why he didn’t partake in being with the COS, said it wasn’t because of minor disagreements based on the party’s ideological goals, rather, “I was an ‘opportunity guy’ myself. I was a Jack Kemp Republican. But my problem with the COS was that it was just too negative, too focused on attacking the other guys.”¹⁴

Playing on offense by using conflict, negativity, and attacks, the COS wanted to go even further, demanding more confrontation, so much so that it became part of the GOP conference leadership races in 1987, such as the Policy Committee chairperson position. The members competing for the post were Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) who was part of Gingrich’s COS group, and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) who had a traditional style approach when it came to legislating. Lewis who would comment against the COS by saying, “I am distinctly not a bomb thrower,” which was in reference towards the negative attacks by the COS, won the vote by a thin margin of 6 votes, 88 to 82. One thing to note about this, especially with a very close vote, is the impact young conservative members had within the conference. Rep. Vin Weber (R-MN) who was asked about the leadership vote said, “The idea that we could become a majority is a more real prospect for young members than it is for older members accustomed to being in the minority.”¹⁵

Lee portrays a new shift within the party in 1988, whereas two COS members were elected into leadership positions in the lower level rankings: Hunter becoming chair of the Research Committee, and Weber becoming conference secretary. Despite Lewis on his way to serve as Policy Committee chair, Republicans were interested in having to promote a leader that took a cooperative stance-like approach.¹⁶

In 1989, when Rep. Dick Cheney (R-WY) was nominated by President George HW Bush to become secretary of defense, House Republicans had to scramble on such short notice to pick Cheney’s replacement of a new whip leader in a 12 day time period. This period as described by a former House leadership aide, “This was a holy war in the conference. Nothing afterwards really compared to this battle.” With such high stakes on the line, at its core, the big question was how would the party improve their strategy. On one hand was Rep Edward Madigan of Illinois, who ran on the principles of an old school legislator, someone who knew how to talk-to-talk, and walk-the-walk: influence colleagues, count votes, and work with Democrats. On the other side was Gingrich, who since his arrival into Congress a decade ago, had been pushing a strategy to show off ideological differences from the Democrats. This was a new-school legislator, so much so that older members who were used to being in the minority, as the same former aide recalled, “The old bulls threw everything at Newt to try to defeat him. But his abilities really showed themselves: his decisiveness, his vote counting, his organization. He blitzed the conference. He had that position sewed up within three or four days.” Gingrich would defeat Madigan by a two vote difference, 87 to 85.¹⁷

As Lee illustrates, the vote to make Gingrich the whip of his conference meant that members understood they wanted a new leader with a different direction, which would be focusing on messaging against the Democrats, creating a Republican majority, and not negotiating deals with Democrats even if it may look like Republicans got a good chunk out of it. Representatives such as Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Bill Frenzel (R-MN) supported Gingrich’s nomination for the whip position. As one Republican lawmaker put it, “We had a choice of being attack dogs or lap dogs. We decided that attack dogs are more useful.” While Rep. Chuck Douglas (R-NH) said, “We want to build for 1992. We’re not interested in being a better minority. Newt personifies that message.”¹⁸

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To understand why Gingrich wanted to become party whip, one must look into the duties of that position, what it entails, and how that role may have benefited Gingrich amongst his colleagues. 

In the books Legislating in the Dark by James M. Curry, and The Congress: The First Branch by authors Sean M. Theriault, and Mickey Edwards, both detail the duties of the whip position in different accounts. 

Beginning with Theriault and Edwards, the fundamental role of a whip is to check on party members, and figuring out how a member will vote on a key bill or issue at hand. Most of this involves communicating with party leadership, keeping score on head-counts, interacting with members who may be concerned, and developing a strategy to get undecided voters to the party’s position on just about every issue. When it comes to critical votes that are important, especially on a greater scale of visibility, the whip will try to get members to stay in line and vote alongside the party’s position as best as possible.¹⁹

What most tend to forget is that the whip does not just tally the voter count or persuade the party members, for there’s more than what meets the eye. Being in such a high rank position means they are, “the party’s primary legislative strategist and often serves as a leading spokesman for the party… Because of their influence and visibility, the whip often becomes one of the party’s chief fundraisers as well, regularly ranking among the members with the most campaign contributions to their colleagues.”²⁰

Because the whip plays a crucial role in the legislative process, fundraising, and party leadership altogether, one person alone can’t do all the work, so the whip relies on other whip organizations within their party. This includes having “deputy whips, regional whips, and assistant whips, with responsibilities for a grouping of states (eg, the Plains states) or a particular class (freshman).” Theriault and Edwards note that whip organizations within the House are often the place with the highest congressional activity in terms of dynamics, such as Rep. Steve Scalise’s office was flowing with assistants, and the president's liaison team, despite it being a small office just outside the House chamber.²¹

Curry discusses information gathering in the role of whip in greater detail. Because the whip is a delicate position, part of it is due to the roll becoming the eye and ears of the party, heavily relying on gathering intelligence for party leadership. Hence why there are many whip organizations as previously acknowledged. At first glance, there is a routine called a “whip check,” which is sent to every member of a party caucus via email from the whip’s office that usually include the party’s overall recommendation on how members must vote, and summaries of upcoming bills or amendments. If someone is on the fence about voting against the leaderships’ recommendation, a request from the whip would tell them that they should notify the leadership team as quickly as possible.²²

Gathering information early on in the legislative process is helpful to the whip’s organization, but it doesn’t stop there, because it continues to whipping the votes on the floor too. As one leadership staffer said in an interview with Curry, “Information gathering becomes key in the majority because you are trying to govern. You’re trying to get 218 votes to govern on a daily basis on the floor. And from that perspective you need to constantly be getting intelligence from your members: on where they are; on where other members are; on where the minority is.” This is needed because the earlier whip organizations try to collect information about what is going on early in the process, the better, since party leadership will develop an understanding of where things are at, what roadblocks there might be, and if gathering more membership intel is necessary.²³

There are two types of ways information is gathered: formal and informal. Formal sessions include but are not limited to: whip checks, meetings with the party caucus as a whole, meetings within sub-caucuses such as the Blue Dogs, Freedom Caucus, Progressive Caucus, or the Congressional Black Caucus. Informal sessions include having one-on-one conversations, or emails from members on what they are planning to do, or an educated guess on where the minority (or other party) may move along. Eventually with time, these meetings are educational for leadership, since they’ll narrow it down to which members may cause a ruckus, and what needs to be done strategically to get them to vote on a bill.

If there’s a major piece of legislation about to be brought up, those in whip organizations will spend more time and energy to gather intel by directly going towards members to find out what’s going on with them. As a leadership staffer said in a Curry interview, “I spend a good amount of time coming in and saying, “Congressman so and so,” if it’s to the congressman or congresswoman directly, or if it’s to the staff who are responsible for educating that member directly on the same issue, “I understand your problem with it,” or “tell me what the problem is.”” On occasion, if the legislative process gets time crunched, and the general speed of the situation is likely to change (such as an upcoming recess or political pressure), there will be a one-day whip, where the whip will act accordingly to get a rough idea reading the room to see where members agree or disagree.²⁴

As previously mentioned, the purpose of the whip is to lookout for possible distractions or bumps in the road that take part in the legislative process, and being the eyes and ears for leadership, the whip helps inform them on ways to develop better strategies or legislative context to gain more support later on. If the leadership team is unsure about where things are on a major legislative or policy issue in general, they will hold a formal meeting with the entire caucus to figure out who may be affecting their goals during the legislative process. The whole idea, as Curry notes, is not party leadership seeking the go-ahead green light for their plans, rather, “it is about making sure what they are putting forth sounds good in principle and that the bill they will eventually bring to the House floor is not likely to stir up controversy but is salable, at the very least, within their own caucus.”²⁵

If leadership does not have a formulated plan, there is a process, once recalled by a leadership staffer in a Curry interview, “We normally call that process “whipping to write.” Meaning that you whip your members on certain issues, find out where the collective masses are, and then write that policy. That’s not always the best policy, but it’s the policy that passes.” In essence, this act is to help whip members for ideas to figure out how a bill should be written in order for it to pass.²⁶

For those who serve in congressional party leadership positions, their purpose is to provide information to members on an active basis, fulfilling them with key messages that set the premise of a debate over a bill, as well as trying to gain leverage through getting rank-and-file support to go along with the party, and undermining their colleagues across the aisle.

When a leadership staffer was asked by Curry on what information was provided to members, the staffer responded, “Sure. Absolutely. You have a 1,500 page bill - members aren’t going to read through it. You can certainly cherry pick what you give them. Maybe that’s intellectually dishonest or something, but you really don’t have the benefit of time if this thing is moving quickly. So you need to get out the information you want them to know… We often cherry pick the information.” Because there is such little time for members to read through every piece of major legislation, most turn to their leadership to give them a short bullet-point rundown version, which is what most members tend to expect.²⁷  

During that same interview, the staffer provided more context, “They want to know what’s in it and why it’s good or bad. And they are not going to do the homework on their end. They have a lot less resources than the leadership does. They are relying on us to give them that information, and it usually falls to the whip office to give them the most timely and accurate information and certainly the other leadership offices do a good job of disseminating information as well.” Leadership also has a role in giving congressional staff of each member in their caucus updates with developments the leadership team is working on by hosting “whip meetings” where they discuss what legislation to look out for, and other miscellaneous information that could be of important attention they should know about.²⁸

As expressed before, gathering information has been crucial throughout the policymaking process, since whips organizations are heavily interested to understand what’s going on. After most information has been gathered, whips seek out an individual member or members, within a subcaucus who may need more of a nudge to be convinced to go along with the party status-quo. Sometimes this goes all the way up towards whipping at voting time. In describing whipping towards the floor, a leadership staffer said to Curry in an interview, “In the majority you whip them right up to and possibly during the votes. The best example of that would have been Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage for seniors. That vote was whipped all the way up to the vote, during the vote, and for three hours during that vote on the floor.”²⁹ 

Despite how hard leadership and whip organizations may try their best to get members to vote on the grounds of party lines, some members may be skeptical as to the information being provided to them. Rank-and-file members that spoke in interviews with Curry noted that moderate members, or those who were elected from swing districts, voiced concern that the information provided was not helpful, unless it was for a partisan lawmaker who may have come from a safe district. One member said that one of their largest complaints was misleading materials being handed out by the whip, which sometimes may be inadequate. While another said that although leadership doesn’t purposefully intend their messages to be misleading, “but they may omit items that do not fit their messaging.”³⁰

Even if there are members who may not find everything the information party leaders give them to be useful, in most cases it’s often the best thing they have in such a short amount of time when bills are being considered. Fortunately, members will have to look towards what leadership is telling them, and must consider their premise when casting their votes on the floor. 

In the conclusion of his chapter, Curry indicates that due to the small amount of time and resources that are limited, lawmakers have to rely on sources and cues from party leadership. With this, those who serve within leadership understand the pressure to gather as much information as possible, as early as possible. Even if that means using resources in order to be close with key lawmakers and their offices, reading the room to find support and opposition, or developing a strategy to get them motivated to vote the way leadership wants them to. Curry further details about leadership and whips:

“They work to obtain a clear picture of the political dynamics around a bill or issue, then leverage this knowledge to supply the messages, cues, data, and other information they believe will reinforce support among their rank-and-file and undercut the effectiveness of opposition to the bill. Legislative leaders thus try to dominate the flow of information within the House of Representatives. They want to know as much as they can about what other actors, inside and outside the chamber, are thinking, planning, or wanting. They also strive to be the most prominent and effective voice circulating information and messaging as the legislative process unfolds, influencing what their lawmakers consider when considering legislation, and strongly influencing the preferences they develop and the decisions they make. These efforts are constant. On every important bill, leaders are working to shape the information passing through the chamber.”³¹

From the heavy context provided about the role of the whip, this is a position never to be taken lightly. With such a multitude of tasks to be given, it’s best understood the position of whip is not someone just to count votes, but a more powerful stakeholder in party leadership, and relies on various staff and strategies to keep members in check, along with making sure that leadership are in the loop to everything that’s happening. Given the shoes that must be filled in the position, it’s crucial the party must pick someone who is alert, attentive, fundraises for the party, and is convincing. Newt would fit this role perfectly from the start, because as an attack dog, he wasn’t someone who would sit around being told what to do, and most colleagues in his party understood that he would bring some form of a fresh change. 

Despite the party’s preference to have more members serving in leadership roles with a more confrontational edge to them, it’s important to note that Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL) would serve as House Minority Leader & GOP Conference Leader from 1981-1995.  The reason why he served that long as leader, according to Lee, was his ability to, “bridge the party’s fractions.” In his acceptance speech in 1984 after being elected leader, he tried to bring a confrontational view while playing a balancing act at the same time. “The most important thing we have done is rid ourselves of that subservient, timid mentality of the permanent minority… The Republican party in the House is no longer content to go along,” he said. “We want to go for broke.” Afterwards, Michel would counter this approach by going soft, saying, “Sometimes we will confront. Other times we will seek to find out how far the other side is willing to bend.” Lee pointed out that Michel would be isolated in his leadership position, and announced retirement in October of 1993.³²

With Gingrich later succeeding Michel as conference chair in 1995, it’s apparent to understand House Republicans lacked to claim majority victory throughout the 1980’s, such as Reagan’s victory in 1984, and George HW Bush’s victory in 1988. Despite Michel trying to talk about his party not wanting to get along and going for broke, it was just all talk but no action. According to one former aide, Gingrich himself thought about retiring after the 1984 elections. With the question about what to do with strategy on the line, it became a growing concern amongst members of the conference that the short-term cooperative approach played by party leadership was unsatisfactory, and bipartisan deal making would not be enough to win the majority.³³

When a party’s power declines, as Lee points out, party messaging becomes more attractive. Just as House Republicans in the 1980’s kept electing leaders who had a cooperative and willing to negotiate approach, “a majority of House Republicans had come to believe the strategies that the conference had pursued through the 1980’s were unlikely to help win a Republican majority in 1992 or subsequent elections. If the old approach had not worked by now, why would it work in the future?” Playing the short game, which Republicans used for nearly a decade, was not good enough anymore, and they needed to quickly change course. The idea going forward was to focus away from legislating success, and instead use messaging to their advantage, which would benefit them in the long game. With the help from the COS, despite their confrontationist style, this would help the GOP in the years ahead.³⁴

Another factor to take into consideration is rule by the majority party. Since the majority party set the agenda, debates, voting schedule, and other floor situations, Republicans felt that their treatment under House Democratic party rule over the course of the 1980’s was unfair. This goes without saying that Democrats started to take cohesive action by using rules to restrict floor debates, especially those that limited any chance for Republicans to offer amendments, and despite some open rules, there were fewer measures brought to the floor. The year that increased the use of restrictive procedures was in 1987, when Jim Wright became House Speaker, continued to use these tactics that “partially reflected a Democratic leadership empowerment by a more unified caucus to vigorously pursue the enactment of a partisan program.”³⁵ 

Furthermore, it was counterproductive for Democrat’s use of the restrictive rules, since Republicans were eager to push for more amendments that sought to have roll-call votes on the floor. In an effort to “design embarrassing amendments,” as a former Republican staffer noted, “The votes on them would then be fed to the campaign committees, so you could say, ‘Jack voted against the balanced budget,’ or something like that.” This was due to the fact congressional transparency reforms of the 1970’s may have likely ended up benefiting Republicans in the future. Playing this credible tool allowed Republicans who were stuck in a minority mentality trying to make their way to get issues into the public view.³⁶ 

Once Republicans had hit the ground running, Democrats tried to pounce on the game by developing more procedures, which in turn caused Republicans to go on the confrontational offense, and call the House an autocratic rule. Lee characterizes that Gingrich, “quickly recognized the effectiveness of these grievances in reeling Republicans. Even Republicans who might disagree with Gingrich and the COS on policy could resent how Democrats ran the House.”³⁷ 

The political party Gingrich had been a part of during his time in Congress came from a history of being in the minority for such a long time, that in its quest to reach majority control, the party knew it needed to develop a confrontational approach, and stay clear of the elder members that were trapped in the old way of negotiating with Democrats. Party strategy (which was a key factor in the making of new leadership during this era), was highly consistent within the House Republican Conference. With the election of Gingrich serving as whip, this allowed the confrontationalist within the party to have a chance to have their say in how to develop new strategies. After Gingrich claimed his position, the question of the GOP’s minority party approach was set in stone, and that they would not suffer from the mentality of being stuck in the minority party any longer.³⁸

[Image 2: House Majority control by political party]

Theriault and Edwards describe Gingrich persuaded his colleagues to operate on the theme of not to “go along to get along,” and use direct confrontation to ridicule the House majority, which was run by Democrats at the time. Continuing, they point out Gingrich’s strategy of persuasion towards confrontation did help the GOP in their victory in the 1994 elections, yet they didn’t define the behaviorism of being in a minority party, members wanting a new strategy for the party, nor the creation of the COS. Only to express Republican takeover of the Senate in the 80’s after Reagan’s election helped fuel energy to the party after taking Senate committee gavels, which resulted in a very limited argument in scope.³⁹ 

Figuring out why House Republicans took the approach of playing a different ballgame when Gingrich became the new whip leader, it’s crucial to understand his party was mostly looking for a way out of being trapped in the minority for so long, and at best all they could do was not show off as their predecessors were. Yet despite being the party not in power, there was still room for growth in this new party strategy. As Lee portrays, “The political incentives are quite different for parties not in power. Members of parties not in power have greater incentive to stand on principle and refuse to support painful compromises that will disappoint party constituencies and stakeholders.” Therefore, it became beneficial for the party to stand on principle rather than to accept a sacrificial compromise, because a member standing on principle meant that they would not have a reputation of being soft.⁴⁰

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On a beautiful sunny September day of 1994 in Washington, DC Newt Gingrich led his Republicans colleagues to publicly introduce the infamous Contract with America, a campaign-style publicity stunt, that truly was minority party messaging tactics at it’s finest. Gingrich, who had gone up to the podium, was full of energy, and ready to sell this Contract to the American people. 

He started by thanking the people in attendance, as well as the chairmen David Dreier and Jennifer Dunn that put together the event. “And I want to say to every American that we believe in this contact and these reforms so deeply that we have not only put them in writing today - but that they will be in a full page ad in TV Guide that we encourage every American,” that come by October 27th, “to tear that page out, to stick it on your refrigerator till January 3rd, and then to join us.” He went on to say that the full page ad would be at the Speaker’s desk every day, and that it would be re-read at the beginning of every session, daily, until the obligations of the contract have been met. Yet Gingrich oddly followed up with, “and we will keep our commitment to keep half our half of the contract, with the help of the American people.”⁴¹

Continuing, he gave way to the eight major reforms on the Republican contract:

“On the first day of the 104th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately pass the following major reforms aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government. First, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country to also apply equally to the Congress. Second, select a major independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud and abuse. Third, cut the number of House committees and cut committee staff by one-third. Fourth, limit the term of all committee chairs. Fifth, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee. Sixth, require committee meetings to be open to the public. Seventh, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase. And eighth, guarantee an honest accounting of our federal budget by implementing zero-base, line-item budgeting -- baseline budgets. I'm sorry, that's baseline budget.”⁴²

As grand of a campaign-style event this was, Gingrich remarked it as, “in a larger scale, this is truly, in a way that very few political events ever are, an historic event,” before regarding the congressional candidate speakers that spoke prior, committing themselves towards the 10 bills as part of the contract to be brought to the floor if Republicans gained the House majority.⁴³

With such a historic event, as per Gingrich’s terms, he hoped every person realized that this was an enormous undertaking,” to which he thanked the following people: Bob Michel, who was the Leader of the House Republican Conference “who has been an extraordinary leader in reaching out to everyone in the conference, and encouraging us to be daring, and to be bold, and to launch this effort. And Bob, we literally would not be here today without your support and your help.”; Dick Armey, who was Chairman of the House Republican Conference; and current Republican incumbents “who worked so hard to make sure that we actually had substance, and that today we’re not just offering promises but we are actually releasing the text of the bills. Now, that’s an enormous step in the right direction toward specificity.”⁴⁴

Gingrich would also give thanks to the following: Haley Barbour, Chairman of the Republican National Committee that put together the ad for TV Guide, “without him we couldn’t reach the country.”; Delaware Governor Pete DuPont which Gingrich portrayed, “DuPont came to us about two months ago and said, “Washington’s not enough, you can’t solve the problems just in Washington,” later intertwining them both proclaiming, “the concept of reaching out and having the contract with the American people extends beyond Washington DC.”⁴⁵

In his last thanking remarks before further proceeding about the Contract, he gave thanks to Barry Jackson, Carrie Nod, and the staff that helped out, “This is, as you look around here, an enormous undertaking, and without tremendous support from literally hundreds of staff people, we couldn’t be here. And yet we were asked as recently as this morning, why are we here, why not just run against the Clinton administration, and its collapsing public support?... The fact is that America is in trouble, and our trouble extends beyond the White House.”⁴⁶

Gingrich, signifying himself as a history teacher, urged that American civilization would not be able to maintain itself of teenagers bearing children out of wedlock, killing each other, dying of sexual diseases, or receiving such a poor education that they have been unable to read their own diploma. A civilization crisis, he said, that not only has been apparent in every major city, but across the country as well, “We are failing in our obligation to the children of America.”⁴⁷  

Gingrich’s plan for saving America in the wake of such a civilization crisis involved an analogy  of a family driving a car that had tire blowouts:

The first tire was blown out because America was not able to make the transition into the information age, despite the promises of better jobs, services, and opportunities. The second tire blew out because of the increasing competitiveness in the market abroad instead of focusing on opportunities here at home, especially education. 

“Think of America as a giant family of 260 million people of extraordinarily diverse backgrounds riding in a huge car down the highway trying to pursue happiness and seek the American dream. And of course, in America, every one of those 260 million can define for themselves the dream they want to pursue. We suddenly started having blowouts. And then a tire blew out because we haven’t finished making the transition from a national economy, to truly being competitive in the world market, to recognizing that we create local jobs through world sales. And that means our children aren’t just getting educated so that Georgians can compete with Texans; our children are getting educated to compete with Germans, and Chinese, and Japanese, and across the planet.”⁴⁸ 

The third tire blew out due to the failed actions by the state and politicians alike, that it was difficult for America to maintain a steady drive on the road it was on, later resulting in the last tire bursting, causing many to be upset.

“And then a tire blew out because the welfare state failed so totally, and it’s so clear we have to replace it with an opportunity society. And with three blowouts, the American family care began to have a terrible ride, and people were anxiety-ridden. They’re worried about their job. They’re worried about their children’s education. They’re worried about their government. They’re worried about their safety. But no politician, and no reporter would get out of the car, and our campaigns consisted of promises that, “if only you’d elected me to be the person who steers, I’ll steer smoothly.” And so we’d elect each promise, and they’d get behind the wheel, and fact is we had three flat tires, and the ride got bumpier. And so we got madder. And then the fourth tire blew out, and trust broke down between the government, and the governed.”⁴⁹

It was in that last sentence Gingrich emphasized during this time in our history, government was the problem to the issues faced by many unhappy Americans, and it would be followed by the actions of those Americans to make it through difficult times in hopes to give their children a better future. 

“Let me just say to all of you, while we believe in our contract, and while we’re all gathered here, we are not going to fix the American family car. We’re not going to replace all four of those tires here in Washington DC. The fact is every American is going to have to be willing to get out of the car. Every American’s got to be willing to roll up their sleeves. Every American is going to have to be willing to sweat and to work if we’re going to give our children and our grandchildren a free, a safe, and a preposterous future.”⁵⁰

To some degree of oddity, Gingrich, giving a hypothetical situation of taking majority control of Congress, expressed that by taking the first steps of proclaiming this contract to Americans, and whereby backed by incumbents and other House Republican candidates,  “if the American people accept this contract, that they can expect to work five days a week in January, six days a week in February and March, and 24 hours a day around-the-clock towards the end if necessary, but we’re going to get to the final record votes in the first 100 days on every item.”⁵¹

With the hype he has made on this self proclaimed historic event, Gingrich shorty attacked the media by saying such a positive contract would’ve received praise that helped change Congress itself from the current era of short 30-second television attack ads, and both the lack of teamwork and specificity. “But instead, we've had the usual carping, the usual complaining, the usual negativism from an all-too-cynical Washington press corps, which attacks us for term limits, for a balanced budget amendment.” He would give way calling out a columnist who said that the Contract with America was, “an airball,” before following up that the Washington press media outlets were out of touch with many Americans, and how the press “were too often the Praetorian guard of the left.”⁵²  

To back up his claims of how widespread the support was, Gingrich said how every item in the contract had the support of 60% or more of Americans, with some items as much as high as 80%. Because of the large support, “this is a contract with Americans for America, and there's a huge difference,” following up with how Americans would like to see real change happening within their government, to which he offered, “I think the Balanced Budget Amendment is the best example of a clear, decisive change.”⁵³

Here is where Gingrich swings it home, laying ground that big government was the problem to this popped-tire mess, and that tan increased private sector championed by Republicans, was the solution, “Let me tell you what the difference is: We recognize that we Republicans want a larger private sector, with more private sector jobs, with less government. We recognize that the Clinton administration and Clinton Democrats want a smaller private sector with fewer private sector jobs, and a bigger government.”⁵⁴

It would be those words that later foreshadowed the increase of a privatized lawmaking process, changing the presence of K Street in the years to come. But to keep on message, Gingrich pushed that Republicans acknowledged families wanted more take-home pay, more money in their home budgets, and less in the federal budgets. He would let the people know how tone-deaf the Clinton administration would be, since they were, “willing to take away from the family budget, and take away from your take-home pay, to have more in the government budget,” and so the Clinton administration will find ways to, “tax and borrow from you, and your children, but they will not take away from government.”⁵⁵

Gingrich was not done with the media just yet, for he emphasized that Republicans are not just offering a theory, and called on those of the press to contact Republican governors offices, such as Governor Bill Weld in Massachusetts, Governor John Engler in Michigan, or Governor Christine Whitman in New Jersey, just to name a few. “In every one of those states the Republican ran for governor offering less government and lower taxes. In every one of those states the liberal editorial pages said "what an irresponsible offer". In every one of those states the Republican won because the people were tired of big government, wasteful spending, dumb bureaucracies, and ineffective red tape. And in every one of those states the Republican governor kept their word, cut the budget, cut taxes, and created more private-sector jobs than they'd ever had before.”⁵⁶

In an effort to show how Republicans would change the deficit, Gingrich quoted from, “the greatest president of the 20th century,” Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, “who stood in this city on March 4th, 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression, standing in braces at a time when it was inconceivable that a man in a wheelchair could lead a great nation,” taking into account his famous inaugural phrase, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And I would say to all of you, if we truly reach out not just for the first 100 days, but if we Republicans are prepared to reach out to the American people again and again and again.” Rallying the cry to be willing to be prepared to invite every citizen to attend town hall meetings with their ideas on how to cut spending, finding ways to downsized approaches in an era of the informational age, with the task at hand to “approach the challenge of getting to a balanced budget with the standpoint that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, we'll get there.”⁵⁷

Reminding members of the audience that the doors are open to those who want to create a better future for all Americans, not settling to the failures of government, “this is a great party of growing strength because our doors are open to everyone who wants to create a better future and is not tied to a failed government. President Reagan stood, at the end of the malaise administration, and he said, ‘We have every right to dream heroic dreams. After all, we are Americans.’"⁵⁸

Gingrich would use that phrase of dreaming a heroic dream, stating it may be heroic to balance the budget, getting kids to learn how to read and write, or bring kids out of horrible areas who were in fear of their lives and head into safety. That America is the land to pursue this right to dream heroic dreams, “We are in the business of reestablishing the right to pursue happiness and the reality of the American dream for every child born in this country, every child who comes to this country, because that is what it means to be an American. This will require tremendous creativity and new effort.”⁵⁹

In a small example to open up a transparent approach on informational accessibility reform, from an August conference tackling cyberspace and the American dream, he stated the development of a proposal. By bringing it up to Congress in the new session next January, it would establish conference or committee reports, as well as the president’s ability to send up a message, that in Gingrich’s terms, “they have to be put electronically available at that instant so that every American everywhere in the country has the same access as the lobbyists, has the same opportunity as the insiders, and that information is available automatically for free to the entire country when it's made available to the members of Congress.”⁶⁰ 

“Today is just a start. Much has to be done,” he continued, “America is the most revolutionary experiment in human history. We truly believe that we are endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God and not from the government or the state.” Despite America having won the Cold War, and containing the Soviet Union, there was still danger, and one didn’t have to look so far to see it. “We have become in danger of losing our own civilization. Today on these steps we offer this contract as a first step towards renewing American civilization.”⁶¹

“I am going to sign the contract now,” taking out a pen from his suit jacket, “as the last member to do so, on behalf of the Republican conference.” He would go on to sign the small contract on the podium with roaring applause in attendance.⁶²

In his closing remarks, Gingrich said, “As you watch the evening news tonight, as you see the barbarism of Bosnia, where snipers shoot children in the street, as you see the devastation of Somalia, as you see the human tragedy of Rwanda, where a half-million human beings were killed. As you watch the chaos and poverty of Haiti, recognize that if America fails, our children will live on a dark and bloody planet.” Whereas if Americans were to accept the contract, America would be on course to have a renewed civilization. That by coming together, “we can help every American fulfill their unalienable right to pursue happiness and to seek the American dream. Together we can help every human across the planet seek freedom, prosperity, safety and the rule of law. That is what is at stake. God bless you, and God bless America.”⁶³

This defying moment was crucial not only for Gingrich, but the Republican party at large because if one hasn’t known already, it’s a major issue for incumbent lawmakers to be concerned about re-election. As Lee puts it, “elections take on greater significance in an era where majority control of Congress is in doubt. With congressional majorities at stake, members take much greater interest in how what happens in Congress might affect the prospects for their party to win or retain majority status.”⁶⁴

Ron Elving for NPR described the 1994 event in his September 2010 piece as, “a marvelous photo opportunity for all the Republican incumbents and candidates taking part.”⁶⁵ Yet not every Republican in attendance on that gorgeous day went along with this plan. A former House Republican leadership staffer once said, “I remember walking back with the House Republicans after the public event on the Capitol steps in support of the Contract with America on September 27, 1994. There was so much bitching and moaning, ‘We’re never going to win!’” Even another former leadership staffer said, “I don’t think I thought myself that the Republicans were really going to win the majority until about two weeks out from the election.”⁶⁶

Based on a series of interviews Lee conducted with former congressional staffers about the Contract, unlike their House colleagues, it was Senate Republicans who were not willing to sign the Contract because they believed their party could win their chamber without it. Senate Republicans did not want to endorse the Contract because, “they did not want to make prior commitments about their agenda priorities once in control.”⁶⁷ The chance of Republicans winning the House seemed remote, therefore it was easier for House members to endorse the Contract, as a House Republican staffer said to Lee, “One of the reasons why so many House members signed onto it was because they didn’t actually think they’d have to do it.”⁶⁸

In the lead-up to the Contract with America was a response from Republicans' understanding that Democrats had used too much power as a majority party, and that this Contract, in theory, was a way to fix that broken system within the party structure on how to efficiently run congressional lawmaking. In essence, this was all a campaign-style event set up to show the differences between the majority and minorities parties of Congress. As Lee points out, “the campaign imperative in the lead-up to the 1994 elections was to present partisan contrasts with maximum clarity. But to succeed legislatively after 1995 required more flexibility.”⁶⁹

Part of the flexibility required the realization of being brought back to reality, such as the hyped balanced budget amendment. A former House Republican staffer told Lee in an interview, explaining the transition from campaigning to governing, “I was part of the group that put the Contract together. One of the planks of the Contract was the Balanced Budget Amendment.” By making the “purest version in there, the one that would require a three-firths majority to raise taxes,” that’s where one would put campaign-like documents, finding a way to make way, “for the clearest contrast ideologically and you put that version in.” Soon emphasizing that once Republicans took majority power in the House, “the ideologically pure version of the Contract was recognized to be politically unrealistic and impossible to move in the House.”⁷⁰

Furthermore in continuation by the same staffer, once the majority was taken:

“I had to go tell members the bad news: you know that version we put in the Contract, that everyone signed, that everyone campaigned on? That’s not going to pass! So we had to drop the three-fifths majority, had to go to a simple majority. This was actually Charlie Stenholm’s (D-TX) Balanced Budget Amendment, which was somewhat embarrassing. But the Democrats' version is the one that could pass the House. All the items in the Contract needed to go through a similar process. But what choice did we have? We could remain pure, or we could do what would pass. We can’t look incompetent in front of the American people, so we had to make the compromises necessary to show we could govern.”⁷¹

Realizing House Republicans taking over the majority for the first time in over forty years, sent shockwaves through everyone in the political world. It was a turning point in political history on the electoral front as well because from that point on, the dial would only intensify over whoever achieved majority control for Congress. The midterm election of 1994 far surpassed the forecasts among possible losses by Democrats.⁷² As a former House Democratic leadership staffer recalled to Lee, “At first there was a lot of complaining about all the problems with leadership, a lot of airing of views about why we’d lost. Then we turned to focus on what we needed to do to get the majority back. This was the focus from day one.”⁷³

To sum up congressional party control, and how it affects Congress, was best said by two staffers in an interview with Lee: a senior House staffer said, “It is one of the most important factors. It affects everything about how Congress works.” While a Senate leadership staffer noted that, “Everything is seen through the prism of elections. It’s never been more apparent than now.”⁷⁴

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In a segment by journalist Ryan Grim of The Hill in an August 2021 short video, he dedicated his talk to discuss Newt Gingrich, and the Contract with America:

“So back in 1994 Republicans pulled off a midterm sweep that became known as the Gingrich Revolution. You might remember they ran on something called the Contact with America, a series of policies they promised they’d [sic] act if elected.” He continued, “One of those promises they delivered on is still living with us and killing us today… It’s kind of fun to run through the rest of the Contract to see both what it was they ran on, and whether or not they implemented it…”⁷⁵ 

In his segment, Grim goes into the promises from the Contract: 1) Requiring all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress, 2) Select a major independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste fraud/abuse, 3) Limit the terms of all committee chairs, 4) Ban proxy voting in committees, 5) Require committee meetings to be open to the public, 6) Require a 3/5ths majority to pass a tax increase, 7) Guarantee an honest accounting of the federal budget by implementing zero baseline budgeting, 8) Cut the number of House committees and cut committee staff by 1/3rd. 

Grim went on to say that the Contract allowed Gingrich to cut congressional staff “to the bone,” and banned the Democratic Study Group that was founded in 1959 funded by congressional membership dues. The group itself was “designed to analyze and advise for Democrats serious brain power,” continuing, “when Gingrich kicked it out and slashed the budget for staff, those laws had to be written by somebody, and that somebody was working on K Street.”⁷⁶ 

Grim expressed that Gingrich’s change to make the lawmaking process privatized was his most lasting legacy. Even though Democrats took back power in 2006, they weren’t willing to cough up the courage to increase the budget for congressional staffers. “They were worried they’d look like they were using taxpayer money to make their lives easier.”⁷⁷

To get a general sense of a congressional staffer, Grim explained that Congress had relied on young staff that are overworked, making $30-$50k a year, “people who know they could make triple that or more on K Street. Which makes lobbyists jobs all that much easier. But it’s the public that suffers.” Thus the privatization of lawmaking had created a system where “corporate-backed legislation is well written by well-paid experts on K Street, while legislation corporations are hostile to is written by a handful of underpaid 28-year-olds crushing diet cokes to pull all-nighters.” Those staffers are doing tremendous work, and were described by Grim as doing the Lord’s work, work that needs to be done, pressing the need for reinforcement.⁷⁸ 

Grim went on to say that 1994 was a different era, “where the public was ready to believe that government wasn’t the solution, it was the problem. The era of big government is back now.” He concluded his segment before handing it off to his co-host, “Congress has to actually write laws and govern, not outsource it to K Street and White House agency rule making. For that they need bodies, and they need brains. It’s time to reverse the only thing Newt Gingrich ever succeeded in actually getting done.”⁷⁹

In relation to Grim’s monolog, what was once regarded as prioritizing congressional reform, leaders had to face difficult terms trying to find a balance between making comments to the public versus the reality of the political situation. Unfortunately some actions of the past may not have been thought out in how those changes would affect the workings of Congress for years to come, both politically, and institutionally.

As noted in the book Congress Overwhelmed by Lee Drutman, Kevin Kosar, and Timothy LaPira, there’s a small piece Chapter 2 titled “Capacity for What?” written by Drutman and LaPira, they state how Congress has grown as a body that is leadership-driven, and more partisan. Even though scholars may point towards the Gingrich era circa 1995 as a new foundation in American politics, there was also a decades-long history of prioritizing the use of message bills over solving complex problems in general.⁸⁰

However, when Gingrich took the House Speaker’s gavel to rein in the new majority, the authors described, “He understood not only that long-standing expert committee staffers had their own long-standing agendas but also that they gave individual members of Congress independent power bases. Accordingly, he slashed committee staffing levels and weakened nonpartisan legislative support agencies. Congress has not yet recovered from the institutional brain drain.”⁸¹

Much of this brain drain can be explained in Chapter 3 by Molly Reynolds, titled “The Decline in Congressional Capacity.” She notes that following Republicans taking majority party control of the House, Gingrich eliminated fundings for all congressional legislative service organizations, such as the Democratic Study Group, left said group without the financial capacity it needed to attain resources to continue. Furthermore, although the study group may have been partisan, it was able to provide members of high-quality research, “and its demise is consistent with the broader undermining of information in the chamber.”⁸²

Even the Republican Study Committee, founded in 1973 modeled after the Democratic Study Group, had eleven researchers, and other experts on various subject matters who were equipped to inform conservative House members to coordinate strategies on both House procedure and political policy, that was to be eliminated too. As one House Republican staffer described it in an interview with Drutman, “I would live it if there were more staffers [with] say [the] RSC, or [a] similar organization [,] to share our ideological, philosophical view of things and can really dive deep on,” even with policy issues. Such a quote, Reynolds explains, describes the congressional institution facing a key challenge to develop important areas needed to provide such expertise in the legislative body, “as the demand for information is often filtered through an ideological lens.”⁸³

Due to the growth of think-tanks since the 1970’s, this created a growing field “with many of the new players taking on ideological orientations.” Therefore these tanks, described by a senior House staffer who’d put it, “given outside experts, probably a larger voice than they’ve had in the past, because we just don’t have the bandwidth to handle it.” Needless to say, congressional staff also rely on think tanks to help advance a set of policy goals, and to help counter different sources of expertise. Reynolds writes, “The growth of the think tank sector, then, has likely ameliorated some of the challenges created by the decline in internal expertise, but not without creating new issues of its own.”⁸⁴

The graphs below provide the following:

[Images 3 and 4: Staff and funding levels of the CRS and GAO. 1995 is highlighted to pinpoint the start of the104th Congress]

From the graphs above, we can recognize that staff levels have dropped after 1995 and have not gained back to their steady levels since. 

With the drastic cut to congressional staff resources, what advanced through the remaining years were bound to be additional workload. Generally, if Congress had more legislative work to tackle, they would rely on congressional support agencies. But due to increased partisan gridlock over the years, one issue may be put on hold during one year, while being put into the docket the next. Reynolds suggests the changes in staffing have not been able to keep up with the demand in congressional offices. According to the Office of the Senate Legislative Counsel, it noted that in the 97th Congress (1981-1982) there were 9,221 requests for legislative drafts, while in the 113th Congress (2013-2024) there were 50,698 requests. For office staff on the other hand, it grew by a very small amount, 21 employees in 1981 to 43 by 2012. This staff quite frankly had to deal with an increased caseload of 450% of work volume in that same time span. Even with constituent communications studied between 2002-2011, there was a 158% increase of mail volumes according to House offices, while in the Senate there was an increase of 548%.⁸⁵

With the rise of workload, so too comes the complexity of policy making. To have taken a particular consideration about any policy subject matter, trying to find ways to have an informed opinion about it in 1980 compared to today, as Drutman and Teles describe, “To legislative intelligently on any subject - it even to intelligently consume policy analysis - required considerably more information and conceptual sophistication than it did at the dawn of the Reagan administration.”⁸⁶ Because of the complexity it takes to be informed on a policy approach, this impacts Congress as a whole too. Considerably, Congress has taken additional time to write more complex and complicated laws, due to the polarized era of wanting to attain enough support with a sufficient political majority to pass those laws.⁸⁷

Republicans in the era of Gingrich’s Contract did take on the goal to cut down on the size of government and partially achieved it with some misgivings. But in turn it resulted in taking away the resources needed for which the government needed to function, and put it more in the hands of the private industry, all for the sake of politics. As Reynolds concludes in her chapter, “As many legislative scholars have argued in reference to legislative procedures, choices about what happens with Congress’s rules are rarely questions of principle but rather of politics.”⁸⁸

As stated in the same video brought earlier by Grim, he said, “Limit the terms of all committee chairs. Yes, they did that for Republicans, and not for Democrats. So half credit for that one.” If there was one item from the Contract that nearly became reality was this one the term limits set to committee chairs. The trick to understanding this one is due to the fact that this was achieved by congressional Republicans in their party only, and did not take effect within the Democratic party since they select their chairs by seniority.⁸⁹

From a small portion of Chapter 9 titled “Still Muddling Along? Assessing the Hybrid Congressional Appropriations Process,” written by Peter Hanson, he strikes at the significance congressional committees hearings had during the time of the Textbook Congress, noting that this was an era in the mid-20th century (1970’s-1980’s) where “Power in the House and Senate was decentralized during this era, and the responsibility for drafting legislation rested with committees.”⁹⁰ 

Not only were these committee hearings central to creating legislation, but it also allowed for members and their staff to grill federal employees, “about programmatic needs, make independent and effective decisions when drafting bills, and defend their choices by other members. They were a robust and effective way of gathering information.” But as the decades that soon followed, scholars have questioned whether or not committee hearings have continued to make somewhat of a difference when it came to appropriation outcomes.”⁹¹ Although Hanson focuses his chapter on appropriations, the same can be said about any other committee. 

Besides the general full committees chairs, subcommittee chairs were crucial too, due to the significance of their position to be in such a state of high power, and the amount of information they receive more than any rank-and-file member, it’s no wonder they have been historically regarded as being named “cardinal.” In the realms of the legislative process, the chair of a subcommittee will release a bill draft what’s called the “chair’s mark,” which is followed up by revisions and later approved by the subcommittee during their markup session. Once the general committee meets as a whole, they review the bill, adding little to no changes, and report the bill to the floor with a committee report.⁹²

As clean as this process may be, Hanson brings up an approach from the other side of the same coin. Academic research into Congress in the recent decades of the 21st century, “have reported a general decline in the independence and power of committees as Congress has grown more polarized and power has become more centralized in party leaders…” Such accounts of politicization could be traced by the GOP takeover in 1995. Furthermore, Hanson writes, “Term limits for committee chairs made formerly independent chairs more dependent on leadership and reduced their collective expertise. Party leaders appear to be more involved in the drafting of appropriations bills than in the past.”⁹³

Creating term limits may have been seen as a different way to replace previous senior members of the committee with a young up-and-coming member who could be more enthusiastic or energized to take control of the committee gavel. But in retrospect, to advance the use of committee chair term limits hurt the committee’s image of making effective decisions when drafting bills, all in a power move for party leadership to gain more influence over information, persuade rank-and-file members, and become more influential in the legislative process. 

Gingrich himself would become a historical icon of his own accord, helping Republicans to fight whatever it took to attain majority victory in the House. It may have been a long shot with other members of Congress and staff doubting that such a bold tactic would ever work: From the invention of the COS in the 1980’s, becoming conference party whip, and rallying a heavily campaign-styled event on Capitol grounds on September 1994 to support the Contract in a drastic attempt to get Americans to vote Republican. Perhaps why such a scholarly man viewed to be seen with such wisdom and energy may have gone hand-in-hand, after all he gave lectures in college classes in his past. A great orator, and a well-established leader, willing to plow his way through the ladder of elder slums who held the high ground of the House Republican conference for years, anxious to create a new offensive strategy for the political party. Gingrich was at heart the leader the party desperately needed to change the course of his party, and the functions of Congress forever.

Gingrich and the Contract were two of the most significant eras of modern congressional history, but what has been lackluster in the educational approach to explaining such a time, was his January 1995 Speakership [installation] address. Such an event during a historical moment for Republicans in particular, had some points similar to the one given in his Contract Address in September a few months before. The speech is as follows, and will be provided with added analysis.

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At the introduction of his speech, Gingrich was grateful for House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, as well as former Rep. Bob Michel who held a long history serving in the Republican conference for 20 years (and his district for nearly double that) who said that being on the losing side in the past 20 elections was difficult and painful to lose. “And yet there is something so wonderful about the process by which a free people decides things -- that, in my own case, I lost two elections,” referring to his first two losses against incumbent John Flynt in the late 1970’s,  “and with the good help of my friend Vic Fazio, came close to losing two others. And I'm sorry, guys, it just didn't quite work out. And yet I can tell you that every time when the polls closed and I waited for the votes to come in, I felt good, because win or lose, we've been part of this process.”⁹⁴

He would mention the former president Franklin Delanor Roosevelt a couple times, just as he did in his previous Contract address, the first of such stating how the dean of the House, John Dingell’s father was an FDR Democrat and supporter of the New Deal, and through that program created modern America. “And I think that John and his father represent a tradition that we all have to recognize and respect, and recognize that the America we are now going to try to lead grew from that tradition and is part of that great heritage.”⁹⁵ It would be this recognition that great parent-to-child heritage is unique to America, and by making America safer for children will help them continue to prosper. Despite political affiliations, Gingrich took the time to thank each Democratic House officer, and Speaker Foley not only for his extraordinary generosity, but in his help of the transition process, and that he “worked very hard to reestablish the dignity of the House. And I think that we can all be proud of the reputation that he takes and of the spirit with which he led the speakership.”⁹⁶

Upon being questioned about how it felt to win back the House for the first time in half a century, Gingrich defined the instance of this historic moment as overwhelming, uttering, “I feel overwhelmed in every way.” With such a historic victory, Gingrich would take the reigns by using a gavel made from his home state Georgia, done by a man named Dorsey Newman, “who decided that the gavels he saw on TV weren’t big enough or strong enough,” before describing how he would cut down the walnut tree to transfigure it into, “a genuine Georgia gavel.” Gingrich would compare that gavel to the historic gavel belonging to Speaker Martin, jokingly saying, “Now I’m not sure what it says about the inflation of government, if you put them side by side, but this was the gavel used by the last Republican Speaker.”⁹⁷ 

Gingrich followed up about his arrival to Congress for the first time being elected, recalling that the Republican party was “deeply dispirited by Watergate and by the loss of the Presidency, banded together and worked with a leader who helped pave the way for our great Party victory of 1980, and a man who just did a marvelous job. And I can't speak too highly of what I learned about integrity and leadership and courage from serving with him in my freshman term.” That mentor was Congressman John Rhodes of Arizona. So marvelous was this man from Arizona, in Gingrich’s belief, he was someone who genuinely cared about and loved the House of Representatives. It was Rhodes who represented the best spirit of the House, and was a man Gingrich hoped to rely on for advice. As well as thanking Bob Michel, once again, “I hope frankly I can emulate in his commitment to this institution and in his willingness to try to reach beyond his personal interest and his personal partisanship.”⁹⁸

Briefly speaking about his own family, Gingrich had a difficult time finding words to appreciate how much he learned from his father who served in the US Army; his mother who was very enthusiastic about cheering him on; and his wife Marianne, “the person who clearly is my closest friend and my best adviser and who, if I listened to about 20 percent more, I'd get in less trouble…” Upon talking about the children of his extended family, he drowned upon how he wanted to start his Speakership starting with America’s children, “that in a sense these young people you see around you are really what, at its best, this is all about.” It wasn’t all doom-and-gloom per se from all the negative advertising, interest group influence, or the other stuff that would make politics, in his words, “all too often cynical and nasty and sometimes frankly just plain miserable.” Politics was better off being explained as worthwhile, in the words of Dick Gephardt, “between what we see so tragically on the evening news and the way we try to do it is to work very hard to make this system of free, representative self-government work.” Gingrich further stated, “And the ultimate reason for doing that is these children, and the country they will inherit, and the world they will live in.”⁹⁹ 

Tackling the 200 plus year history of the legislative chamber, “I don't know if you've ever thought about the concept, but for 208 years, we gather together, the most diverse country in the history of the world. We send all sorts of people. Each of us could find at least one Member we thought was weird. And I'll tell you, if you went around the room the person chosen to be weird would be different for virtually every one of us. Because we do allow and insist upon the right of a free people to send an extraordinary diversity of people here.” Later associating the famous aristocratic political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, his life which involved living around kings and princes, people came to America because, “the folks who come here, come here by the one single act that their citizens freely chose them.” Whereby all 435 members who serve the legislative body have equal standing, because their constituents freely send them, their voices should be heard, and they have the right to participate. As a group of people who came together under the consent of the governed, to put it mildly, “Here we are as commoners together, to some extent Democrats and Republicans, to some extent liberals and conservatives, but Americans all.” When given a copy of Portable Abraham Lincoln earlier that day, he was told there was much to learn about the Republican party, yet Gingrich emphasized that it would not hurt to also have a portable copy about F.D.R.¹⁰⁰

In a short story about how nine members of the Communist Party, eight Russian and one Lithuanian, he was asked what does the position of Whip do? One of them even described that Russia never had a free parliament since 1917. Gingrich tried his best to make it understandable to the outsider, “It is a little strange if you are from a dictatorship to explain you are called the whip but you do not really have a whip, you are elected by the people you are supposed to pressure other members. If you pressure them too much they will not reelect you. On the other hand If you do not pressure them enough they will not reelect you. Democracy is hard. It is frustrating.”  Speaking more about the group, he recalled allowing the sole Lithuanian man in his late sixties, to come up to the Speaker’s chair, sit down, and be Speaker for that brief moment. “Remember, this is the very beginning of perestroika and glasnost. When he came out of the chair, he was physically trembling. He was almost in tears. He said, “Ever since World War II, I have remembered what the Americans did, and I have never believed the propaganda. But I have to tell you, I did not think in my life that I would be able to sit at the center of freedom." It was one of the most overwhelming, compelling moments of my life.”¹⁰¹

Even being elected to serve in the chair in one of the most powerful positions of the federal government, two heartbeats away from the presidency, part of belonging to a great nation where democracy is hard, and at times frustrating, comes with the responsibility to find solutions to the problems the country faces. In his speech, Gingrich spoke about a bipartisan prayer service earlier in that morning, remembering important points from Rep. Frank Wolf, "We have to recognize that many of our most painful problems as a country are moral problems, problems of dealing with ourselves and with life." Gingrich continued, “He said character is the key to leadership and we have to deal with that... It was about a spirit of reconciliation. He talked about caring about our spouses and our children and our families. If we are not prepared to model our own family life beyond just having them here for one day, if we are not prepared to care about our children and we are not prepared to care about our families, then by what arrogance do we think we will transcend our behavior to care about others?”¹⁰²

Gingrich provided that Congress should be transparent on a bipartisan basis to revolve it’s schedule around families, that with the help of Congressman Gephardt, there was to be a bipartisan task force on the family. “We have established the principle that we are going to set schedules we stick to so families can count on time to be together, built around school schedules so that families can get to know each other, and not just by seeing us on C-SPAN.”¹⁰³ 

Being the fact that the day did hold historical importance for Republicans claiming majority control over the House in a long time, Gingrich brought up the item that did help him and his party achieve the desired outcome that followed, “I want to read just a part of the Contract With America. I don't mean this as a partisan act, but rather to remind all of us what we are about to go through and why. Those of us who ended up in the majority stood on these steps and signed a contract, and here is part of what it says: On the first day of the 104th Congress the new Republican majority will immediately pass the following reforms aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government.” He would go on to list the eight points outlined in the Contract as previously stated earlier, as well as the TV Guide version.¹⁰⁴ 

Adding an emphasis that this will prolong the coming months ahead, “Our commitment on our side, and this is an absolute obligation, is first of all to work today until we are done. I know that is going to inconvenience people who have families and supporters. But we were hired to do a job, and we have to start today to prove we will do it.” Following up by laying out a hand for bipartisanship letting his colleagues on the other side of the aisle know, “we are going to work with you, and we are really laying out a schedule working with the minority leader to make sure that we can set dates certain to go home... We will try to work this out on a bipartisan basis to, in a workmanlike way, get it done. It is going to mean the busiest early months since 1933.” This manner was expected since the Contract laid the groundwork many House Republicans wanted to achieve once they were in majority control in order to change the legislative body.¹⁰⁵ 

“Beyond the Contract, I think there are two giant challenges. I know I am a partisan figure. But I really hope today that I can speak for a minute to my friends in the Democratic Party as well as my own colleagues, and speak to the country about these two challenges so that I hope we can have a real dialog.” The first challenge was to have a balanced budget achieved by 2002, while the second challenge was to replace the current state of American welfare with an opportunity society. “The choice becomes not just do you want more or do you want less, but are there ways to do it better?” Whereby looking into the challenges faced by companies in the private sector such as Ford, IBM, or Microsoft, to name a few, what we can learn from them. “I think on a bipartisan basis we owe it to our children and grandchildren to get this Government in order and to be able to actually pay our way.” In other words, it was to show how Americans could look up towards the private sector for solutions instead of the federal government.¹⁰⁶

“But let me say about everything else, whether it is Medicare, or it is agricultural subsidies, or it is defense or anything, that I think the greatest Democratic President of the 20th century, and in my judgment the greatest president of the 20th century, said it right.” Gingrich referring to FDR’s first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, “he stood in braces as a man who had polio at a time when nobody who had that kind of disability could be anything in public life. He was President of the United States, and he stood in front of this Capitol on a rainy March day and he said, `We have nothing to fear but fear itself.` I want every one of us to reach out in that spirit and pledge to live up to that spirit, and I think frankly on a bipartisan basis.” It would be the premise of getting to know one another, that by having an open dialogue it helps everyone get to know where they came from, the districts they represent, and the issues each district may face. “You could have a Republican who frankly may not know a thing about your district agree to come for a long weekend with you, and you will agree to go for a long weekend with them. We begin a dialog and an openness that is totally different than people are used to seeing in politics in America.”¹⁰⁷

Gingrich, remembering the words from Dick Gephardt, said, “No Republican here should kid themselves about it. The greatest leaders in fighting for an integrated America in the 20th century were in the Democratic Party. The fact is, it was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that ended segregation.” In an instance soon referring to FDR, that it was he who gave an America in distress, a sense of hope. “Every Republican has much to learn from studying what the Democrats did right. But I would say to my friends in the Democratic Party that there is much to what Ronald Reagan was trying to get done. There's much to what is being done today by Republicans,” referencing Republican governors in blue states such as Bill Weld, and Christy Whitman. “There is much we can share with each other.”¹⁰⁸

Taking note of Marvin Olasky’s sense of how Americans were able to go towards great lengths to save one another, through his book The Tragedy of American Compassion, “Olasky goes back for 300 years and looked at what has worked in America, how we have helped people rise beyond poverty, and how we have reached out to save people…” This was his leeway into recognizing one of the crisis American children face, and how to transform the unsafe welfare state into an opportunity society. “I think of my nephew in the back, Kevin, and how all of us feel about our children. How can any American read about an 11-year-old buried with his Teddy bear because he killed a 14-year-old, and then another 14-year-old killed him, and not have some sense of "My God, where has this country gone?" He asked the audience again, this time in a more demanding tone, “How can we not insist that every day we take steps to do something? I have seldom been more shaken than I was after the election when I had breakfast with two members of the Black Caucus. One of them said to me, "Can you imagine what it is like to visit a first-grade class and realize that every fourth or fifth young boy in that class may be dead or in jail within 15 years? And they are your constituents and you are helpless to change it?"¹⁰⁹

Gingrich went on to say how not only was his own father adopted, but himself as well, including other members of his family. “We have lived the alternatives. I believe when we are told that children are so lost in the city bureaucracies that there are children who end up in dumpsters, when we are told of public housing projects that are so dangerous that if any private sector ran them they would be put in jail, and the only solution we are given is, “Well, we will study it, we will get around to it,” my only point is that this is unacceptable.” He emphasized how in America, there is the ability to find ways to do things for the better, that by breaking out of the bureaucratic mess, it gives every young American child a better chance. Shortly thereafter, he brought up Morris Schectman's book, Working Without a Net. Although Gingrich may not agree with it on every point, he found the book to be fascinating. “It is an effort to argue that in the 21st century we have to create our own safety nets. He draws a distinction between caring and caretaking…He said caring is actually stopping and dealing with the human being, trying to understand enough about them to genuinely make sure you improve their life...”¹¹⁰ 

Gingrich acknowledged to both sides of the aisle that not every system, whether it be privatization of the markets or the expansion of governmental programs, was not bound to be the one-size-fits-all solution to improve the lives of others:

“I want to commend every Member on both sides to look carefully. I say to those Republicans who believe in total privatization, you cannot believe in the Good Samaritan and explain that as long as business is making money we can walk by a fellow American who is hurt and not do something. I would say to my friends on the left who believe there has never been a government program that was not worth keeping, you cannot look at some of the results we now have and not want to reach out to the humans and forget the bureaucracies. If we could build that attitude on both sides of this aisle, we would be an amazingly different place, and the country would begin to be a different place. We have to create a partnership. We have to reach out to the American people. We are going to do a lot of important things.”¹¹¹

Whereby focusing on the task at hand, the American people are not satisfied with the current state of the government, the political landscape, and the increased privatization of big businesses. With the election of Republicans taking over the House, Gingrich wanted the forgotten people of America to believe that they would not be forgotten any longer. In this case, that long road ahead would involve the use of open dialogue, creating political bipartisan partnerships that tackle the issues faced by everyday Americans, and more. This would show to the millions of Americans that a sense of progress was being made, helping restore the safety and faith of America, as many generations have come to know it. 

To fulfill the Contract promise of a more transparent legislative body, Gingrich took the opportunity to state that in the new congressional term, thanks to the House Information System, it was to be going online so that the whole country would be able to view amendments, conference reports, and so on. This updated transparency involved more television access to Congress, primarily with C-SPAN, and the state of the art political talk radio programs. All in an effort to make televisions accessible to their constituents.¹¹² 

Interestingly enough, even with the The House Historian's office to teach what the legislative struggle is about on a bipartisan basis, and the rethinking of creating new reforms that tackle campaign, lobbying, and ethics, including the gift rule, Gingrich stated that wasn’t enough. “Our challenge shouldn't be just to balance the budget or to pass the Contract. Our challenge should not be anything that is just legislative. We are supposed to, each one of us, be leaders…” He went on to suggest becoming leaders draws us to create goals, such as going home to tell people we believe in, a day where a child is not killed America; that children ought to be part of a in country where their parents and school prepared them to be citizens and compete in the world market; where it would be easy for Americans to find a job or create one, and government did not punish you if you tried. Whereas, it was crucial to be aware that American success was not in the form of putting politicians on a pedestal, to accept things at face value, but instead to hold each other accountable to become a better society,  “We should not be happy just with the language of politicians and the language of legislation. We should insist that our success for America is felt in the neighborhoods, in the communities, is felt by real people living real lives who can say, "Yes, we are safer, we are healthier, we are better educated, America succeeds."¹¹³ 

In his concluding remarks, Gingrich spoke about the morning’s closing hymn given at prayer service, which chose to use the Battle Hymn of the Republic. He recalled how difficult it was to be a part of this historic building, without recognizing the statue of Ulysses S Grant before looking onward towards the Lincoln Memorial, to not realize how painful and difficult that battle hymn was. Pointing out the key phrase from Julia Ward Howe’s piece, ‘As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.’ In his statement, he explained that a person was not free if they cannot afford to leave the public housing project, not knowing how to find a job or how to create a job, not being able to find a place for educations, or the fear of walking to the store because you could get killed, you are not free. “So as all of us over the coming months sing that song: As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.”¹¹⁴

Speaking about his earlier bipartisan approach to governance, “I want us to dedicate ourselves to reach out in a genuinely nonpartisan way to be honest with each other. I promise each of you that without regard to party my door is going to be open. I will listen to each of you. I will try to work with each of you. I will put in long hours, and I will guarantee that I will listen to you first. I will let you get it all out before I give you my version, because you have been patient with me today, and you have given me a chance to set the stage.” Besides talking to everyday Americans, and working together, in order to become successful, when a moment like this is larger than us, it starts with our limits.¹¹⁵

“I was very struck this morning with something Bill Emerson used,” he continued, “a very famous quote of Benjamin Franklin, at the point where the Constitutional Convention was deadlocked. People were tired, and there was a real possibility that the Convention was going to break up.” Describing Franklin, who, despite his old age and wisdom, was very much quiet throughout the Convention, suddenly at one point stood up with anger, to which the elder Philadelphian said, "I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men, and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without His aid?" It was at that point the Convention came to a halt, and took a day for fasting and prayer. Once they all came back together, “they went back, and they solved the great question of large and small States. They wrote the Constitution, and the United States was created.”¹¹⁶

“All I can do is pledge to you that, if each of us will reach out prayerfully and try to genuinely understand each other, if we will recognize that in this building we symbolize America, and that we have an obligation to talk with each other, “ Gingrich continued, “then I think a year from now we can look on the 104th Congress as a truly amazing institution without regard to party, without regard to ideology. We can say, "Here America comes to work, and here we are preparing for those children a better future." Thank you. Good luck, and God bless you.”¹¹⁷

This speech was Gingrich’s crescendo moment of his political career, hitting home major points outlined in the Contract, and not afraid to share his longstanding vision for the country. This was indeed a historic moment, not by Gingrich’s point of view but from those in the media as well. In her piece the day after the 104th Congress got underway, New York Times journalist Katharine Seelye described that Gingrich, “took the Capital by storm,” acquired it with a plan, focused on history.  Characterizing his presence as Newtonian, a way to describe the Georgian’s leadership stance as expansive, optimistic, and heavy on symbolism. Even to say, “his plan included, typically, a symbolic act of defiance,” before further documenting about his routine of the day, which at one point involved heading to talk on a radio show to discuss Democrats and the mainstream media, before heading to make his standing ovation bipartisan acceptance speech.¹¹⁸

The day started out for Gingrich at 6am, as Seelye wrote, and it would finish with him at the Speaker’s chair, gaveling the longest opening day in House history to a close, just after midnight. The significance of the new Republican majority, as Seelye portrayed, “with 230 Republicans at his command, passed a flurry of bills to revamp internal House rules. The point was to signify the end of the imperial era, when Congress held itself above the laws of the land, and the beginning of a new era of openness.”¹¹⁹

With Gingrich reigning as the Speaker of the People’s House, he foot in his new office, and stepped out on the balcony, stating that he felt, “the sense of being part of history and part of the romantic myth of this country.'' His office also included a new installation of conservative radio talk-show host Wes Minter, from Minnesota, who was a personal friend to Gingrich, where they would meet on a once-a-month basis. This was to help Gingrich’s efforts to lend an ear towards real Americans, and pick up efforts to give into alternative media. Aside from that segment, Gingrich also opened up the press briefing room to television cameras for the first time, recalling that his new role required him to be more careful, and learning ways on “how to remain open without being destructive.”¹²⁰

Before giving his address, the House proceeded with a roll call that elected Gingrich to officially become the next Speaker, with a party-line vote of 228 to 202. Four members had voted to be present, while one lone Republican member from Oklahoma had not yet been sworn in yet to cast his vote. After his 43-minute speech, he followed up the day with swearing in the new congressional class of 117 House members, attending an evening Republican reception, and returned back to the House floor to close the lengthy opening session.¹²¹

Following the months after the swearing in of the 110th Congress, Gingrich celebrated the first 100 days in primetime television address, setting up the road ahead for a more bipartisan future. As Katharine Seelye wrote in her early April article, the 30-minute address, “was virtually unprecedented for anyone but a President, and Mr Gingrich used his time to appear Presidential.” Gingrich spoke about wanting to open dialogue, and to create a new partnership with the American people, as he stood perched beside his desk, “to remake the Government and balance the budget that is the American people’s plan - not the House Republicans plan, not the Gingrich plan, but the plan of the American people.”¹²²

The speech which was in the making for more than a week, was determined beforehand to have Gingrich avoid being presidential, which meant not sitting behind his desk. According to his spokesperson Tony Blankley, “We calculatedly decided not to sit behind the desk because that would look like we were trying to be too Presidential. He didn’t want to mimic the Oval Office.” Seelye took note that his speech included the help by two former Ronald Reagan presidential advisors, Michael Deaver, and Kenneth Duberstein, where both men critiqued Gingrich, as they went through a few dress rehearsals. Seelye further described the preparations towards his speech, “He also seemed to be trying for a Presidential tone, one that is less partisan than Mr Gingrich’s daily style.” Further detailing how this style of rehearsing was not one for Gingrich, since he was a man that relied on delivering, speaking with hardly any notes, and speaking off the cuff.¹²³

Gingrich proclaimed in his nightly televised address, “Our potential is as great and prosperous as it’s ever been in our history,” in an optimistic gesture, “From now on, all reads lead forward.” And in a more friendly manner, opening up a smile here or there, he went on to take on a bipartisan approach, "We've wanted to prove to you that democracy still has the vitality and the will to do something about the problems facing our nation. And it seems to me, whether you are conservative or liberal, that is a very positive thing."¹²⁴

Seelye concluded in her article, the nightly address was hours after many members of Congress in both the House and Senate left the Capitol after indulging, “one of the most frenetic three months in recent legislative history.” To which the only lights that were on in the building that night were around Mr Gingrich’s offices. She also noted that few major news networks did broadcast his speech live, such as CNN and CBS. FOX and PBS brought their affiliate news stations live feeds of the speech. However, NBC for example did not broadcast the speech due to the fact that the Speaker appeared on the morning network’s “Today Show,” and would follow up the intention to discuss his speech on “Dateline NBC.” ABC on the other hand did not broadcast the live speech either because, “network airtime has historically been reserved for the President,” according to spokeswoman Eileen Murphy, at the time, following up that “Nightlight” would pick up on the Republican’s first 100 days.¹²⁵ 

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Harvard scholar Lawrence Lessig draws Gingrich’s legacy in the sand proclaiming, in a July 2016 piece, it was the Georgian historian who broke Congress as a functioning legislative branch, pointing to dismal approval and confidence ratings from Americans surveyed. “For more than any other American, it is Newt Gingrich who broke Congress. It was he who gave us the current version of that hopelessly dysfunctional institution…” Such a historic institution with hundreds of members has been geared towards focusing on fundraising, a key towards majority control, rather than figuring out how to fix the pressing issues of the nation. For the most part, his point was valid, for Lessig is correct describing how Congress has focused itself on mostly raising funds, since in recent years, many lawmakers have dedicated hours as part of their days dialing for dollars.¹²⁶

Lessig went on to state between the years 1994 to 1998, many Republican candidates and party committees raised over $1 billion for the first time in its history, whereas no party had ever came close to that level of fundraising. This was because party leaders focused the energy of their members to do just that. “More important to the right, as the business of Congress became the business of fundraising, the ideals that had brought Gingrich to power quickly got compromised. Fundraising demands pushed the Republican leadership to give up on its stated goal of shrinking the size of government, so that it could better use the power of majority status to raise campaign cash.”¹²⁷

Understanding why congressional fundraising boomed after Gingrich became Speaker was because on a foundational level, Gingrich learned by serving in a party leadership position, as the role of whip, fundraising was going to be a huge factor. As previously described by authors by Theriault and Edwards, the whip is a very successful fundraiser for the party, along with being both the party’s legislative strategist and spokesman. So when it came time for the party to nominate someone who would check off those boxes, including being an individual of powerful influence and high visibility for the party, Gingrich suited that position hand-in-glove. Those who point to Gingrich mainly focus on his term as Speaker, yet never about his whip position. Granted, if Gingrich was not elected to serve as the whip to his party, he may have not been the juggernaut that changed Congress, nor having his name known in the congressional history books. 

When he took office, Gingrich saw early on that his party was trapped in the minority mentality, and called for a change. He understood well enough from history, (especially from Senate Democrats after they themselves became a minority party), that a political party had to develop a need to unify itself in order to come back to power, creating pressure for the stakes of majority party control. Gingrich knew what it took to part-take in the long game looking at the horizon ahead where someday his party would become the next majority. To fight from within, he took jabs at those serving at leadership, especially Bob Michel, who wasn’t strong enough to be a man of his word, despite calling on his party to be gone from the mentality of the permanent minority, no longer in content to get along, and eventually fight at all costs to go for broke. It was a new strategy, but Gingrich took this to heart, and did anything he could to change the leadership's way of pursuing legislative success by majority success. The creation of the Conservative Opportunity Society was a stepping stone in the right direction to help Gingrich’s vision of a Republican victory, even if that meant going on the offensive, using messaging tactics such as partisan one-minute speeches on the floor, denying any learning conservative democrats to joining their cause, and doing anything to advance their cause of winning the majority. 

House Republicans had enough of being constrained by Democrats throughout the 1980’s, and Gingrich had a slow but steady support from younger conservative members, who were more hopeful than their senior members that the next election would be a victorious one someday. They saw a bright future with Gingrich because not only was he influential and visible to the members of his party, but he gave them a sense of hope and optimism. Being confrontational attack dogs were going to make more ruckus than being lap dogs, and the party knew it.  The old approach had not worked, and it made no sense to continue the same plan if it wouldn’t work in the future. For it was out with the old, and in with the new.

In a long shot to attain the majority in the 1994 midterm elections, the Contract with America was a Hail Mary campaign-style tactic, used a month and a half before election day. A last ditch effort to take back the majority, Gingrich came to learn this pivotal moment was all that stood between being a speaker and becoming the speaker. Doubts of an electoral victory were undeniably present within some members of the party, including House members signing on to the Contract because they thought it was a messaging gimmick, and they really didn’t have to do it.  Yet somehow, someway, the American voters proved that they wanted a change in their dysfunctional governmental institution.

The proposed Contract was a way to fix that broken system within the party structure on how to efficiently run congressional lawmaking. Once Republicans were able to gain majority control, the messaging tactics slowed down, and more flexibility was required to legislatively successfully. Even if legislative measures may not have been successfully passed as a whole, there was some work that would be done within the party itself. 

In a move to limit the term of committee chairs, Gingrich was clever in making this proposal because he understood the power those individuals had over drafting legislation, and wanted party leadership to gain more influence in the legislative process. By doing so, he used a transparent approach which involved more media access to Congress, all in an effort to make Congress accessible to constituents. Revolutionary as this was at the time, media access to the legislative body had increased the need for communication staff amongst party leadership circles. These positions are prone to following in line with partisan politics, and have been competing neck-and-neck with their policy staff colleagues in the hierarchy bubble of congressional staffing.¹²⁸ 

Even efforts to show lawmakers opening their doors to committee meetings was a messaging gimmick. For instance, the Tea Party takeover in the 112th Congress, House Republicans called for the installation of cameras in the House Rules Committee hearing room, and other added measures to assure an open and transparent legislative process. A lawmaker close to leadership even said, “We’ve got the people’s business to do, and the people have the right to watch that business being done.” But as history progressed, very few ever cared to pay enough attention to watch congressional committee hearings with a new party in power.¹²⁹

Despite showing a bipartisan aurora on the first day of his Speakership, Gingrich’s leadership showed the American people a legislative body open to media transparency, impulsed to show how it wanted to find better alternatives to save Americans faced by the failures of government bureaucracy, and bring a better future for their children. At the same time this leadership made plans to cut congressional resources and their staff to the bone, leading a pathway for a struggling Congress down the road ahead. The influx of the workload congressional staff members who mostly have low-paying jobs, have seen over the decades with hardly any inside resources for them to rely on, has made their jobs difficult to handle, and find any exit window for better opportunities of employment.¹³⁰

Because of the lack of resources for the legislative branch to do its job, Washington evolved into a place of privately funded policy research groups. As authors Lee Drutman and Steve Teles described in their heavily detailed Atlantic March 2015 piece, “Properly resourced, organized, and motivated, the institutions of government can develop the knowledge to think independently, and the resources to push back against the claims of the mobilized and wealthy in the name of the unmobilized. Government cannot do this if its capacity to collect and process information has been systematically dismantled… our policymaking institutions are losing the ability to think for themselves.” By dismantling congressional resources, the legislative body of government has become too ill-equipped to hold its head above water to keep afloat. Executing policy decisions in congressional offices have usually been made by young staffers who are aged between 20-30 years old, and don’t have the years of experience and education to be knowledgeable on complex policy, compared to someone who is more their senior.¹³¹

The Contract did trickle down a change of the culture within Congress, and that of itself has to change. To name a few fixes: Congressional resources have to be brought back to it’s numbers prior to 1995; Instead of an increased privatized legislative process that continues to be outsourced through K Street and various executive branch agency rule-making, make way for lawmakers to hire more staff that are knowledgeable about different policy fields are also include being informed about the legislative process and its chamber’s rules; Staff members who took these low paying congressional jobs out of their ambition and dedication for the work of public service deserve an earnest livable income, and medical resources attributed to the well-being of their mental health. 

In Lessig’s point of view, the legacy of Gingrich had done the nation great harm because his focus was enshrined by raising money to advance the cause of staying in power for majority control. Resulting in the harm of Congress, meant the legislative body no longer worked for the nation. Contrary to Lessig’s statement, Congress still is today the legislative body that works for the nation, but there has to be a recognition that the congressional clientele have changed since the early 1990’s.

Newt Gingrich, a man who set himself in the eyes of the historical beholder, campaigned, fundraised, twisted arms, and was creative like no other. To top it all off, he is still one of the most historic House Speakers many talk about til this day, for better or for worse. To quote famous physicist Albert Einstein, ”You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” Gingrich was just that.

1. Frances E. Lee, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 73.

2. Lee, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, 74.

3. Lee, 84.

4. Ibid.,  35.

5. Ibid., 73.

6. Ibid., 94.

7. Ibid., 61.

8. Ibid., 70.

9. Ibid., 35.

10. Ibid., 95.

11. Ibid., 95.

12. Ibid., 95.

13. Ibid., 94.

14. Ibid., 96.

15. Ibid., 103.

16. Ibid., 103.

17. Ibid., 103.

18.  Ibid., 104.

19. Sean M. Theriault, and Mickey Edwards, The Congress: The First Branch, (London, Oxford University Press, 2020), 263-264.

20.  Theriault and Edwards, The Congress, 264.

21. Ibid., 264.

22. James M. Curry, “Flows of Information in the House,” in Legislating in the Dark: Information and Power in the House of Representatives, (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2015), 59-60.

23. Curry, “Flows of Information in the House,” in Legislating in the Dark, 60. 

24. Ibid., 61.

25. Ibid., 63.

26. Ibid., 64.

27. Ibid., 72.

28. Ibid., 72.

29. Ibid., 73.

30. Ibid., 75.

31. Ibid., 77.

32. Lee, 105.

33. Ibid., 105.

34. Ibid., 106.

35. Ibid., 107.

36. Ibid., 107-108.

37. Ibid., 108.

38. Ibid., 109.

39.  Theriault and Edwards, 253.

40. Lee, 59.

41. Newt Gingrich, "Republican Contract with America Rally," (speech, Washington, DC, September 27, 1994), C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/video/?60472-1/republican-contract-america-rally.

42. Gingrich, "Republican Contract with America Rally,” C-SPAN.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63.  Ibid.

64.  Lee, 46.

65. Ron Elving, "GOP's 'Pledge' Echoes 'Contract'; But Much Myth Surrounds '94 Plan," NPR, September 23, 2010, https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/09/23/130068500/watching-washington-gop-pledge.

66.  Lee, 36.

67.  Ibid., 37.

68.  Ibid., 37.

69.  Ibid., 55.

70.  Ibid., 57-58.

71.  Ibid., 58.

72.  Ibid., 36.

73.  Ibid., 37.

74.  Ibid., 40.

75. Ryan Grim, "Nancy Pelosi’s Eviction Crisis Driven By GUTTING Of Congressional Brainpower," The Hill, August 3, 2021.

76. Grim, "Nancy Pelosi’s Eviction Crisis Driven By GUTTING Of Congressional Brainpower," The Hill, August 3, 2021.

77.  Ibid.

78.  Ibid.

79.  Ibid.

80. Lee Drutman, and Timothy M. Lapira, “Capacity for What? Legislative Capacity Regimes in Congress and the Possibilities for Reform,” in Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform, (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2020), 30-31.

81. Drutman, and Lapira, Congress Overwhelmed, 31.

82. Molly Reynolds, “The Decline in Congressional Capacity,” in Congress Overwhelmed, 44.

83. Ibid., 45.

84. Ibid., 46.

85. Ibid., 46-47.

86. Ibid., 47-48.

87. Ibid., 47.

88. Ibid., 50.

89. Grim,  "Nancy Pelosi’s Eviction Crisis Driven By GUTTING Of Congressional Brainpower," The Hill, August 3, 2021.

90. Peter Hanson, “Still Muddling Along? Assessing the Hybrid Congressional Appropriations Process,” in Congress Overwhelmed, 148.

91. Hanson, 148.

92. Ibid., 149.

93. Ibid., 149.

94. Newt Gingrich, "House Speaker Inaugural Address," (speech, Washington, DC, January 4, 1995), C-SPAN,

95. Gingrich, "House Speaker Inaugural Address,” C-SPAN. 

96. Ibid. 

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid.

99.  Ibid.

100.  Ibid.

101.  Ibid.

102.  Ibid.

103.  Ibid.

104.  Ibid.

105.  Ibid.

106.  Ibid.

107.  Ibid.

108.  Ibid.

109.  Ibid.

110.  Ibid.

111.  Ibid.

112.  Ibid.

113.  Ibid.

114.  Ibid.

115.  Ibid.

116.  Ibid.

117.  Ibid.

118. Katharine Q Seelye, “Gingrich Takes Capital by Storm With Eye on History,” The New York Times, January 5, 1995, https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/05/us/104th-congress-speaker-s-day-gingrich-takes-capital-storm-with-eye-history.html.

119. Seelye, “Gingrich Takes Capital by Storm With Eye on History,” The New York Times, January 5, 1995. 

120. Ibid. 

121. Ibid. 

122. Katharine Q Seelye, “Speaker, Celebrating 100 Days, Pledges to 'Remake Government',” The New York Times, April 8, 1995, https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/08/us/speaker-celebrating-100-days-pledges-to-remake-government.html. ; Newt Gingrich, "House Speaker Address," C-SPAN, (speech, Washington, DC, April 7, 1995), https://www.c-span.org/video/?64434-1/house-speaker-address.

123. Seelye, “Speaker, Celebrating 100 Days, Pledges to 'Remake Government',” The New York Times.

124. Ibid.

125. Ibid.

126. Lawrence Lessig, “How Gingrich Broke Congress,” CNN, July 13, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/13/opinions/how-gingrich-changed-congress-lessig/index.html. ; Norah O'Donnell, “Are Members of Congress Becoming Telemarketers?,” CBS 60 Minutes, April 24, 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-are-members-of-congress-becoming-telemarketers/.

127. Lessig, “How Gingrich Broke Congress,” CNN.

128.  Craig Angioletti, “The Rise of Congressional Communications Staff,” The Legislative Route, June 3, 2021, https://thelegislativeroute.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-communications-staff

129. Craig Angioletti, “The Congressional Earmarks Ban: A Ten Year History,” The Legislative Route, September 13, 2021, https://thelegislativeroute.substack.com/p/the-congressional-earmarks-ban

130. Kristie-Valerie Hoang and Kayla Epstein, "Capitol Hill Staffers Divulge How a Cutthroat Workplace with Low Pay and Lots of Bad Bosses Shape Their Lives," Insider, September 12, 2021, https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-hill-staffers-spending-diaries-low-pay-2021-6. ; Erika Lovley, "Staffers Losing Jobs Get Little Help," Politico, September 14, 2010, https://www.politico.com/story/2010/09/staffers-losing-jobs-get-little-help-042118.

131.  Lee Drutman and Steve Teles, “Why Congress Relies on Lobbyists Instead of Thinking for Itself,” The Atlantic, March 10, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/when-congress-cant-think-for-itself-it-turns-to-lobbyists/387295/.