Winston Churchill once observed that, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Variations on that timeless truism can be traced back to the Bible and before. Whether humankind has benefitted from that wisdom is another matter.
I recently thought about this when I was asked to interview for a documentary on the legacy of the Newt Gingrich Speakership (1995-1998). After giving it some thought, I declined the request, admitting that I had forgotten more about that period than I knew then, some 25 years ago.
The invitation, however, did prompt me out of curiosity to go back and read those portions of my first book, “Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial” (2000), four chapters of which dealt with the Gingrich revolution — from its inception in the late 1980s to its demise in 1998.
The more I read, the more I was hearing echoes from those bygone days reverberating through the corridors of today’s House under the new Republican majority. History may not be repeating itself but, as Mark Twain remarked, ‘it often rhymes.”
The principal lesson that emerged from the Gingrich period was that the newly energized majority began to take its victory hubris so seriously that it forged boldly ahead with its grand plans, oblivious to the potential pitfalls along the way. That heady intoxication of newly conferred majority status can lead a party to believe its every move will be cheered by the people and thereby be blessed with success.
Though the Republican majority could point to notable accomplishments over its first four years in power and did not lose control of the House for another eight years, it was clear House Republicans had to do some backtracking and compromising — namely spending its way out of risking another government shutdown, as happened in 1995 and 1996. All that ran contrary to the grain of the fiery GOP idealists who had promised a balanced budget in their 1994 “Contract With America.”
When the final omnibus spending bill conference report came to the House floor in January 1999, former Speaker Gingrich, who had given up the reins as Speaker in December (and stepped down from his House seat at adjournment), chided GOP critics of the spending compromise as being, “the perfectionist caucus.” He lectured that, “In a free society we have to give and take. We have to be able to work.” The measure passed handily, 333 to 95, but with 64 Republicans voting against.
In the 1998 election two months earlier, although Gingrich had predicted up to a 30-seat GOP pickup, the party lost five seats. Gingrich said he did not understand what had happened but accepted responsibility. He stated, “it was a mistake not to have been more consistent, more aggressive, and stay focused more on reforming government…so we could cut taxes and save Social Security.”
The House Democratic Policy Committee, in its final critique of the 105th Congress (“A Failed Republican Congress: Partisanship Instead of Progress”) charged that the GOP “focused their time and resources on conducting endless, highly partisan investigations — targeted at their political enemies,” instead of “enacting legislation aimed at the everyday problems of working families.”
The current House cannot be accused of being as blinded by hubris as its 104th Congress counterparts: it took four days and 15 ballots just to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker last January. In that process he practically gave away the store to secure sufficient votes, making all manner of promises his party is already having difficulty keeping, such as finding sufficient spending cuts to balance the budget in 10 years.
Moreover, he acceded to demands for a plethora of investigations, not just of the Biden administration but also of state and local officials, prosecutors, judges and controversies (whatever happened to federalism?). The most noteworthy promise was to create in the Judiciary Committee a “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” — a forum to “investigate the investigators” at the Justice Department and FBI who are pursuing various alleged instances of misconduct by former President Donald Trump (so much for not interfering with ongoing legal investigations).
Speaker McCarthy, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio), can hardly be accused of ignoring Gingrich era history lessons they had witnessed firsthand: all three were only first elected to the House eight years after Gingrich had left the building.
Whenever a new majority takes control of one or both houses of Congress and the president is of the opposite party, long-neglected congressional oversight becomes a natural priority, and rightly so. However, when those oversight investigations stray far afield from an administration’s actual policies and actions, the more curious and questionable the majority’s motives and tactics become.
This 118th Congress has a long way to go before its behavior is subject to judgment by voters in November 2024. Whether in the interim it will learn and heed the lessons of the past remains to be seen. But voters have previously demonstrated little patience with congresses that forget about the people and their problems in favor of chasing after bright shiny objects for purely partisan show and tell purposes.
Don Wolfensberger is a Congress Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former staff director of the House Rules Committee, and author of, “Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays.” The views expressed are solely his own.