Newt the anti-federalist
CONNELLY, WILLIAM F. Jr.
Newt, the Anti-Federalist by William F. Connelly, Jr. House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes ideas have consequences. During the 104th Congress he sought to use the bully pulpit of the speakership...
...Note the natural rhythm of elections in the 1990s: Had George Bush not lost the White House in 1992, House Republicans would not have won a majority in 1994...
...Republicans in the U.S...
...The Anti-Federalists wanted "citizen legislators," not career politicians...
...In the speaker's thought, one hears clear echoes of the Anti-Federalist critique of the Constitution 200 years ago...
...Indeed, he thought he was returning our constitutional system to some mythic natural condition of legislative supremacy...
...In the heady days of 1995, Gingrich acted as if he had in fact created parliamentary government, with the speaker as prime minister...
...The president, and even the Senate, were irrelevant, House Republicans insisted...
...Ideas matter...
...No doubt they would cheer Republican efforts to devolve power to state and local governments...
...Madison understood that different institutions do different things...
...Or, as that famous House Republican revolutionary Sonny Bono might say, "The beat goes on...
...Congress and the president need each other...
...The Anti-Federalists were, in fact, federalists...
...Both parties can, and should, learn a great deal by heeding the separation of powers...
...Perhaps the fatal manifestation of the House GoP's error was the decision to take on Medicare without holding the presidency...
...The executive can act with energy, dispatch, and direction...
...Paradoxically, the separation of powers not only provides for the institutional independence of the president and Congress, but simultaneously makes them dependent on each other...
...More important, he temporarily convinced America that he had recreated congressional government...
...Gingrich tried to govern from the House...
...He often pointed to the golden age of supposed legislative dominance in the late 19th century...
...And the very idea of a Contract With America echoes the Anti-Federalist call for accountability in government...
...The Anti-Federalists were suspicious of executive power and skeptical of the magisterial tendencies of the presidency ("This Constitution squints toward monarchy," in Patrick Henry's phrase...
...Congress is very good at talking, at second-guessing the executive and equivocating...
...Given the House GOP's erstwhile fondness for revolutionary rhetoric, an apt description of the 1996 election might be Lenin's "two steps forward, one step back...
...And Clinton's 1996 victory virtually guarantees substantial gains for congressional Republicans in 1998...
...This differentiation of functions at the heart of the separation of powers makes each branch better at doing its own thing...
...they favored "rotation" in office, the functional equivalent of term limits...
...The people want presidents to discipline the disorderly legislature...
...We hear much today about how both Democrats and Republicans have been "chastened" and how they've "learned" from the failings of the 103rd and 104th Congresses...
...The bully pulpit of the presidency still trumps the bully pulpit of the speakership...
...is a professor of politics at Washington and Lee University...
...Congress is good at watching the executive, at providing oversight...
...To Gingrich goes much of the credit for the first reelection of a House Republican majority since 1928, along with the credit and blame for the successes and failures of the 104th Congress...
...Ironically, today's House GoP faction calling itself the "New Federalists" should strictly be the "New Anti-Federalists," as no doubt historian Gingrich could tell them...
...He co-authored with John J. Pitney, Jr...
...Speaker Gingrich thought he could create "congressional government" within existing insitutions...
...During the 104th Congress he sought to use the bully pulpit of the speakership to "set the intellectual framework" of political discourse in America...
...Now this former history professor has made history...
...Ideas have practical political consequences, especially ideas embodied in our constitutional institutions...
...They were the legislative supremacists of their day, though they were wary enough of the aristocratic proclivities of the Senate...
...Congress' Permanent Minority...
...The separation of powers limits the abuse of power, but it also provides for the effective use of power...
...Normally we would blame the president if the lights went out in Washington, but after being told that we were watching congressional government in action, the country blamed the House Republicans...
...The "six-year itch" will almost certainly strengthen GOP control of Congress beyond the 1998 midterm elections...
...neither is a complete policy-making institution unto itself...
...They wanted government close to the people and feared a strong national government...
...As a consequence, it is often open to the charge of being run by special interests...
...Congress is creative chaos and poor at appealing to public affections...
...They are two halves of a whole...
...Gingrich similarly sought to institute "congressional government" during the 104th Congress, with the House as its center of gravity...
...Today we are governed by James Madison's Constitution...
...Congress is responsive to the multiplicity of interests and opinions in the nation...
...Consequently, whom did America blame when the government shut down...
...Each brings its peculiar virtues to the relationship...
...More to the point, Congress cannot ignore the constitutional authority of the president, including most obviously the veto...
...But Congress is at a disadvantage when it comes to action...
...This left the Republicans open to Clinton's shameless medagoguery...
...But the Anti-Federalists lost the ratification debate 200 years ago...
...indeed, he convinced us that the House was the government pure and simple...
...Congress is deliberate...
...Finally, the competition between the two political branches can inject energy into the policy process...
...But Congress is also a good incubator of ideas, including ideas borrowed by presidents...
...Following the 1996 election, Bill Clinton is president, Newt Gingrich is speaker, and James Madison still rules America...
...Had they not won in 1994, Clinton's second two years would have been as dismal (and as liberal) as his first two years...
...And in this confusion lies an intellectual error that explains the most serious failure of the House Republican revolutionaries in the 104th Congress: They misunderstood the constitutional separation of powers...
...For that reason we may want to take seriously his ideas...
Vol. 2 • December 1996 • No. 12
