The Speaker Goes Too Far

In the November 1994 elections, the Republican Party won control of both houses of Congress for the first time in more than 40 years. In January 1995, they rewarded the architect of their success -- Newt Gingrich (R-GA) -- by electing him as Speaker of the House.

As Speaker of the House, Gingrich succeeded in making two major changes to the office. However, these changes were also largely to blame for his downfall.

• He increased the formal powers of the Speaker.When Gingrich assumed office, he quickly moved to consolidate his power. He wanted to ensure that important House positions were filled with his ideological allies. As a result, Gingrich succeeded in persuading the House to change its rules, giving Gingrich more power over appointments to key positions. As a result, the formal powers of the Speaker were increased to their highest level since the reign of Uncle Joe Cannon.
• He became highly visible to the public. Most of the time, the general public knows very little about the Speaker of the House. When people think of the federal government, they usually think of the President of the United States, not the Speaker of the House. Gingrich was a huge exception to this rule. Before his election as Speaker, Gingrich had cultivated his relationship with the media, and he knew how to attract media attention. After he became Speaker, he continued to maintain a high profile. Gingrich used his visibility to rally the members of his party in Congress.

These two factors contributed both to Gingrich's impressive initial successes and his ultimate downfall. During Gingrich's first term as Speaker, the Republicans passed several major pieces of legislation, including a major overhaul of the nation's welfare system. However, because of his confrontational style, Gingrich soon became unpopular among large segments of the American public. The Democrats began to make Gingrich into a political issue, and the Republicans lost House seats in both the 1996 and 1998 elections. Following the Republicans' defeat in 1998, Gingrich resigned from the House, despite having been reelected to his congressional seat