Newt Marion
Carlson, Tucker
Congress Newt Marion by Tucker Carlson Newt Gingrich took the stage at Eastern High School in Washington, D.C., this summer to face one of the toughest audiences of his political life: a thousand...
...Or, as the Speaker put it, the District's budget must be created "within the framework of...
...He was livid," says one staffer...
...State legislatures pass laws all the time that trump those enacted by municipal governments, telling cities which taxes they can collect, what sorts of companies they can do business with, how much to pay their mayors...
...Not unless you're poor, black, and live in Washington...
...In the case of the District, which was chartered by Congress and is neither a county nor a state, the term seems particularly empty...
...No city in America enjoys complete home rule, at least as defined by Barry and Norton...
...A day after Gingrich put the bill on hold, the Senate's budget for the District, in some ways more radical than the House version, passed with hardly a debate...
...In late September, Rep...
...Our Speaker cares about Washington," concluded Mayor Marion Barry...
...It will be quite a trick...
...Why would Gingrich publicly overrule-even humiliate-political allies to appease ideological enemies...
...Home rule is nothing if not a flexible concept...
...Gingrich, explains one observer, "doesn't want Congress to come off looking like a bunch of white Republicans who just want to beat the hell out of the District...
...Two months later, Gingrich's words seem less like hollow flattery and more like a statement of fact...
...And to such an extent that Gingrich's own party members are taking a seriously junior role...
...And why would he solicit suggestions on the District's future from the very people who have run the city into the ground...
...He flipped out...
...It has been a model of home-rule consultation...
...While it may make for good public relations, the Speaker's strategy leaves at least one question unanswered: How does Gingrich intend to make Washington into the model capital city he envisions without allowing House Republicans to chart a radically new course for the District-without stepping on a few local toes and braving the usual Barry-inspired hysterics about congressional racism and the return of plantation overseers...
...Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's non-voting congressional delegate, was no less enthusiastic about Gingrich's speech: "You would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to have heard and understood the commitment...
...Thanks to the Speaker, Marion Barry and Eleanor Holmes Norton have indeed become senior partners in the Republican effort to reform city government in Washington...
...And, 20 years after the "home rule act" of 1975 was passed, every piece of legislation the District's city council passes still must be sent to Congress for approval before it becomes law...
...The Speaker was there to convince the assembled that the new Congress had no intention of meddling in the affairs of local government...
...A more plausible explanation for the Speaker's actions: the politics of race...
...The citizens of the city have to deal with the reality of everyday life," he intoned, "and those of us who visit do not have the knowledge and do not have the right to micromanage the daily lives of the people of this city...
...In other words, appealing to the sanctity of home rule doesn't quite cut it...
...And they were impressed, local politicians especially...
...The reason...
...The federal government still appropriates every dollar of the city's budget-not just federal dollars, all dollars, including those raised by local property taxes...
...The official answer is that the Speaker has too much respect for the concept of home rule to shove improvements down the city's throat...
...It was, needless to say, a hard sell, but Gingrich sold it...
...I am optimistic," Barry went on, "that members of the House . . . are going to work with us to bring in added resources, new ideas, not in a patronizing way, not in a slap-you-on-the-head kind of way, in a partnership kind of way...
...City officials, however, threw a very public fit at the news...
...Congress Newt Marion by Tucker Carlson Newt Gingrich took the stage at Eastern High School in Washington, D.C., this summer to face one of the toughest audiences of his political life: a thousand or so District residents upset about Republican plans to cut the city's budget...
...There's not a lot at stake here, not exactly the great issues of the day...
...And Gingrich responded, stopping Walsh's bill in its tracks...
...Our Speaker...
...House Republicans, many of whom had spent years waiting for the chance to do something about the mess in city government, were horrified...
...home rule...
...As for Barry, Gingrich said he and the flamboyant mayor are now "more in agreement than disagreement...
...Most of those present had never expected to hear such sentiments from a Republican...
...Our Speaker cares about our children...
...For a city at least $700 million in the red and unable to pay its bills (in the first three weeks of last month alone, 66 city vehicles were repossessed for nonpayment), these were not unreasonable suggestions...
...After all, as a congressional staffer close to the issue put it, the matters at stake are "relatively minor stuff: rent control, something about the salaries of the school boards...
...It is never politically pretty when a white Congress tells a black city what to do...
...Sounds sensible enough, until you try to define what "home rule" actually means...
...Marion Barry promised to "fight to the death" against the Walsh plan...
...What happened...
...As other Congresses and other Speakers have found in years past, the two goalsfixing the city and retaining the good will of its elected leaders-are almost always mutually exclusive...
...Reforming the District may get lost in the shuffle, a casualty of more pressing concerns, like Medicare reform and reelection...
...Then he called Newt Gingrich...
...Gingrich returned the compliment...
...In D.C.," said the Speaker, referring to his para-colleague, "she's the senior partner and I'm the junior partner...
...Or perhaps nothing will happen...
...In addition to a chastened Walsh, Bob Livingston, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was said to be utterly nonplused...
...Walsh's recommendations included ending rent control, cutting salaries for school board members (now the highest in the nation), and paring the District's bloated municipal workforce...
...He has been made even more aware by two of his key advisors on District matters- Steve Gunderson, one of the House's most liberal Republicans, and Jane Fortson, a senior fellow at the Speaker's own Progress and Freedom Foundation and a liberal Democrat...
...To give local officials, as well as the city's newly-appointed financial review board, a voice in the appropriations process...
...James Walsh of New York, who heads the subcommittee responsible for the District's annual appropriation, came up with a new city budget...
...Gingrich, whose interest in the District is longstanding, is particularly aware of the symbolism involved...
Vol. 1 • October 1995 • No. 4
