The House Republican Identity Crisis
Picture this: the Republicans in the House of Representatives are a group that are gaining more and more vitriolic members who serve only as obstructionists that want to disrupt the normal business of the House in order to tout their own conspiracy theories. If you said that this sounds familiar, you would be right. But while you’re probably thinking about the current House of Representatives in 2021, this picture also describes the aftermath of the 1994 elections. And if we can understand what happened in 1994, perhaps we can deal with this new Republican Party in 2021.
What Is Happening Now?
The Republican party has shifted from the moderate conservatism of George W. Bush and John McCain towards the chaotic and (at times) undemocratic nature of Donald Trump’s presidency. This was evidenced all the way back in 2016 when, in a debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump openly said that he would refuse to acknowledge the election results if they were not in his favor. We saw that promise come to fruition in 2020 when Trump claimed that the election was stolen from him without any evidence supporting this claim. This all erupted in the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol that was incited by Trump and led to the death of five. Even after this, 139 House members still voted to overturn the election results. Furthermore, members of Congress who won their elections in 2020 off the back of Trump-style Republicanism have now begun to sow havoc into normal proceedings. It is becoming clear that the Republican party has now become the party of Trump.
A notable example of the new Republicans is House member Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose recent controversy surrounding her anti-Semitic conspiracy theories involving a “Jewish space laser” ended in a vote that kicked her off of her committee positions. A vote that ended up almost falling on party lines, with only 11 Republicans dissenting. What has led to the Republican party to act in this tribalistic manner where they only support their own to the detriment of the American populace? Why is Trumpism dominating the Republican, conservative sphere? The answer lies in the Republican Revolution of ‘94.
What Happened in 1994?
Before we can talk about what happened in 1994, we need to take a look a few years back. To 1979, when a man by the name of Newt Gingrich (pictured here) was elected to Georgia’s 6th district; a man who was stirring up controversy from the moment he started campaigning. As a candidate running for office, he delivered a speech saying “one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty.” This nastiness that Gingrich wanted to encourage was exactly the opposite of the type of legislating the House usually did.
As a junior politician, Gingrich hated the “nice” style of legislating that Bob Michel (the Republican minority leader) and other older Republicans exemplified. While senators had a fair share of disagreements over the course of US history (two senators even had a fist fight in the chamber) decorum was highly valued; members of congress would debate on the floor and then go to dinner together afterwards. The Republican minority leader, Bob Michel, had been the minority leader for 24 years, and was good friends with the Democrats. Michel understood that his party would likely never come back from the minority in the House and insisted on playing nice and compromising with the Democrats.
Gingrich didn’t like this. And he had a plan. When congressman Jim Wright became the new Speaker of the House in 1987, Gingrich took aim, finding an old book deal between Wright and a small book company that gave Wright 5 times the normal share of royalties for a book publishing. Bob Michel and others at the top of the Republican ladder didn’t want to do anything about the book deal. During this time, it was highly unusual for smear campaigns that tackled congressional members’ personal lives. But Gingrich wanted to change things. He did a few press releases accusing Wright of “money laundering” and calling him a “genuinely corrupt man.” Not soon after, an ethics investigation was launched investigating Wright, causing him to step down as Speaker. Everyone was shocked. This was the first time in recent history that a junior member was able to take down the Speaker of the House. Newt Gingrich showed the world that he knew what he was doing.
More and more Republicans, especially those that were hesitant about him originally, started to realize that he represented their way back into the majority. Gingrich emphasized the power of “holding the line,” that is, voting only with your own party and not compromising with the other. As time went on, Gingrich earned even more power within his party. He was elected to be the minority whip against all expectations. But this was still not enough, Gingrich wanted to overturn the “permanent” Democrat House majority that had been in power for 40 years. So he came up with the Contract with America.
What’s The Contract With America?
The Contract With America was an agenda that every single Republican candidate, from the House member in Maine to the senator from Nevada, was encouraged to use as part of their platform. What this did was that it nationalized politics. Soon, every Republican in households across America recognized the 8 reforms that Gingrich had promised. And after election night in 1994, the world sat stunned as the Republicans gained 54 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate, giving them the Speakership for the first time in 40 years.
But these 62 new Republicans were unlike the Republicans of past years. They wanted nothing to do with the other party. As a show of their distaste for the Democrats, the new Republicans of both the House and the Senate skipped over the traditional junior congress orientation, opting instead to attend an orientation that was organized by conservative think-tanks. It was in this first act that they showed how they would act in Congressional halls. This would not be a group of people that favored bipartisanship and compromise, this would be a group that followed Newt Gingrich’s belief that you shouldn’t stop at anything to get what you wanted, even overriding traditional democratic norms.
What Ended Up Happening With These New Republicans?
Republicans in 1995 were enjoying the spoils of Gingrich’s plan. The Republican Revolution, as it came to be called, allowed the Republicans to wield plenty of power in order to start enacting the policies promised in their Contract. They kept gaining seats in the 1996 election, but then, one of the biggest scandals involving a president had just come out: Bill Clinton had become accused of having “sexual relations” with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich wanted to keep pushing this scandal in order to hurt Bill Clinton’s image and hopefully win more seats in the 1998 midterm elections.
But the exact opposite happened. The Republicans lost 5 seats, the worst showing in 64 years by the non-presidential party. In 1999, his party was ready to throw a coup; they felt as though Gingrich’s image as a divisive figure was starting to be too unappealing to the American public who showed their feelings in the prior election. They confronted Gingrich multiple times and finally gave him an ultimatum: step down or be challenged by his own party. Amidst an ethics trial of his own, Newt Gingrich resigned from office in 1999 and let Dennis Hastert become the new Speaker of the House
Why Should I Care About What Happened In 1994?
I’m sure we’ve all heard the famous phrase that our history teachers love to utter: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” While I find myself often rolling my eyes at this phrase, it cannot be more true in this case. The Republicans now are akin to the divisive Republicans in 1994 who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader in the Senate, can be seen as the star obstructionist, who threatened recently to cause such massive obstruction that would “make the current gridlock look like child’s play.” And most of the Republicans are falling right in line. They support their minority leader’s attempts to obstruct and delay the removal of the filibuster that the Democrats are trying to pass through Congress.
Touting these disruptions as victories, the Republicans in power will focus on helping and donating money to those who think like them and want to create controversy and chaos in the House halls. But as we’ve seen in 1994, an agenda composed of ensuing chaos and obstruction can never last long. Being a party that elects controversial figures who want to cause disorder will invariably lead to disorder being caused within their own party.
Looking Towards the Future
So what does this mean for all of us? For those of us who value democratic norms and don’t want an obstructionist party, voting against those candidates who hold these divisive views should be the first step. The second step is directed more towards our own representatives, who should be urged not to try to play nice when threats like McConnell’s are made. By caving in to what McConnell and others are trying to do, they send a message to the American people that this is acceptable behavior for a legislator. Instead, representatives should condemn these acts and should continue to show the American people how senators should act.
References
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