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Newt Gingrich
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Newton "Newt" Leroy Gingrich (born Newton Leroy McPherson on June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author, who served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. In 1995, Time magazine selected him as the Person of the Year for his role in leading the Republican Revolution in the House, ending 40 years of Democratic Party majorities in that body. During his tenure as Speaker he represented the public face of the Republican opposition to Bill Clinton.
A college history professor, political leader, and author, Gingrich twice ran unsuccessfully for the House before winning a seat in November 1978.
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Encyclopedia
Newton "Newt" Leroy Gingrich (born Newton Leroy McPherson on June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author, who served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. In 1995, Time magazine selected him as the Person of the Year for his role in leading the Republican Revolution in the House, ending 40 years of Democratic Party majorities in that body. During his tenure as Speaker he represented the public face of the Republican opposition to Bill Clinton.
A college history professor, political leader, and author, Gingrich twice ran unsuccessfully for the House before winning a seat in November 1978. He was re-elected 10 times, and his activism as a member of the House's Republican minority eventually enabled him to succeed Dick Cheney as House Minority Whip in 1989. As a co-author of the 1994 Contract with America, Gingrich was in the forefront of the Republican Party's dramatic success in the 1994 Congressional elections and subsequently was elected Speaker. Gingrich's leadership in Congress was marked by opposition to many of the policies of the Clinton Administration. Shortly after the 1998 elections, where Republicans lost 5 seats in the House, Gingrich announced his resignation from his House seat and as Speaker.
After resigning his seat, Gingrich has maintained a career as a political analyst and consultant and continues to write works related to government and other subjects, such as historical fiction. Recently he founded the think tank American Solutions.
Early life and education
Newt Gingrich was born Newton Leroy McPherson on June 17, 1943, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to nineteen-year-old Newton Searles McPherson and sixteen-year-old Kathleen Daugherty, who were married in September 1942. His mother raised him by herself until she married Robert Gingrich, who then adopted Newt. Gingrich has a younger half-sister, Candace Gingrich, a gay and lesbian rights activist who was born when Newt was already a young adult.
Gingrich was the child of a career military family, moving a number of times while growing up and attending school at various military installations. He ultimately graduated from Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia, in 1961. He received a B.A. degree from Emory University in Atlanta in 1965. He received an M.A. in 1968 and a PhD in 1971 in Modern European History from Tulane University in New Orleans. His dissertation topic was Belgian Education policy in Africa. While at Tulane, Gingrich, who at the time belonged to no religious group, began attending the St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church to pursue an interest in the effect of religion on political theory; he was soon baptized by the Rev. Mr G. Avery Lee.
Gingrich taught history at University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia, from 1970 to 1978, although he was untenured. He also taught a class, Renewing American Civilization, at Kennesaw State University in 1993.
Personal life
Although college peers noted Gingrich's preference to discuss politics more than his personal life, Gingrich’s personal life has been the subject of much attention from both the media and his political opponents over the years.
Gingrich has been married three times. He married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old (she was seven years his senior at 26 years old). They had two daughters and divorced in 1981. She claims he "discussed divorce terms with her while she was recuperating in the hospital from cancer surgery", an action that would later be used against him: In 1992, his Democratic opponent, Tony Center, ran an ad claiming that Gingrich had "delivered divorce papers to [Jackie] the day after her cancer operation," which was not true.
In 1981, six months after his divorce was final, Gingrich wed Marianne Ginther. He remained married to Ginther until 2000, when they divorced. Shortly thereafter, Gingrich married Callista Bisek, with whom he later admitted to having had an affair during his second marriage, at approximately the same time that he was leading the Congressional investigation of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Newt and Callista currently live in McLean, VA.
A Baptist since graduate school, Gingrich said he will soon convert to Catholicism, his wife’s faith.
Political positions
Some specific viewpoints he has expressed in recent years include:
Illegal immigration
From Gingrich's five challenges:
"No serious nation in the age of terror can afford to have wide-open borders with millions of illegal aliens crossing at will."
Although a source of friction in the conservative wing of the GOP (and some pro-union "Blue Dog" Democrats), Gingrich supports a "guest worker program" for foreign workers, meaning that an undetermined number of foreign workers would be allowed to come to the United States and work for a period of time, then return to their home country. Gingrich also supports the idea of allowing some of these guest workers to become citizens. In his book Winning the Future, he says:
"Along with total border control, we must make it easier for people who enter the United States legally, to work for a set period of time, obey the law, and return home. The requirements for participation in a worker visa program should be tough and uncompromising. The first is essential: Everyone currently working in the United States illegal must return to their home country to apply for the worker visa program. Anything less than requiring those who are here illegally to return home to apply for legal status is amnesty, plain and simple."
Global Warming
In April 2007, Gingrich held an open debate on climate change with Senator John Kerry. In this debate, he stated that he believes that global warming is indeed an occurring phenomenon: "My message, I think, is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move toward the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere." Gingrich's environmental ideas were revealed in his book, A Contract with the Earth. Gingrich supports tax breaks to mitigate carbon emissions instead of regulations such as cap-and-trade. Gingrich emphasises his long commitment to conservation efforts.
Wall Street bailouts
In late 2008, Gingrich voiced his strong opposition to allowing American taxpayers to bail out several failing financial institutions. He described the $700 billion bailout plan as "just wrong" and that "it's likely to fail, and it's likely to make the situation worse over time." Gingrich further iterated that the bailout was "essentially wrong" in other appearances on Fox News on September 23 and 24, 2008. Some commentators have suspected that he undercut John McCain by rallying the conservative elements in the House to vote no on the bailout.
United States Representative
Early elections
In 1974 and 1976, Gingrich made two unsuccessful runs for Congress in Georgia's sixth congressional district, which stretched from the southern Atlanta suburbs to the Alabama state line. Gingrich lost both times to incumbent Democrat Jack Flynt. Flynt was a conservative Democrat who had served in Congress since 1955 and never faced a serious challenge prior to Gingrich's two runs against him. However, Gingrich nearly defeated Flynt in 1974, a year that was otherwise a very bad year for Republicans due to Watergate. A 1976 rematch was similarly close, despite the presence of favorite Jimmy Carter on the presidential ballot.
Flynt chose not to run for re-election in 1978, and the Democrats fielded state senator Virginia Shapard in his place. Shapard's support of the Equal Rights Amendment backfired against her in the socially conservative district, and Gingrich defeated her by almost 9 points.
Gingrich was reelected six times from this district, facing only one truly difficult race. In the House elections of 1990, he defeated Democrat David Worley by only 974 votes.
Pre-speakership congressional activities
In 1981, Gingrich co-founded the Congressional Military Reform Caucus (MRC) as well as the Congressional Aviation and Space Caucus. In 1983 he founded the Conservative Opportunity Society, a group that included young conservative House Republicans. In 1983, Gingrich demanded the expulsion of fellow representatives Dan Crane and Gerry Studds for their roles in the Congressional Page sex scandal.
In May 1988, Gingrich (along with 77 other House members and Common Cause) brought ethics charges against Democratic Speaker Jim Wright, who was alleged to have used a book deal to circumvent campaign-finance laws and House ethics rules and eventually resigned as a result of the inquiry. Gingrich's success in forcing Wright's resignation was in part responsible for his rising influence in the Republican caucus. In 1989, after House Minority Whip Dick Cheney was appointed Secretary of Defense, Gingrich was elected to succeed him. Gingrich and others in the house, especially the newly minted Gang of Seven, railed against what they saw as ethical lapses in the House, an institution that had been under Democratic control for almost 40 years. The House banking scandal and Congressional Post Office Scandal were emblems of the corruption exposed.
Election of 1992
During the 1990s round of redistricting, Georgia picked up an additional seat as a result of the 1990 United States Census. However, the Democratic-controlled General Assembly split Gingrich's old territory among three other districts. Gingrich's home in Carrollton was drawn into the Columbus-based 3rd District, represented by five-term Democrat Richard Ray.
At the same time, they created a new 6th District in Fulton and Cobb counties in the wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta — an area Gingrich had never represented. However, Gingrich sold his home in Carrollton, moved to Marietta in the new 6th and won a very close Republican primary. The primary victory was tantamount to election in the new, heavily Republican district. Also, Ray narrowly lost to Republican state senator Mac Collins.
Speaker of the House
The Contract with America and rise to Speaker
In the 1994 campaign season, in an effort to offer a concrete alternative to shifting Democratic policies and to unite distant wings of the Republican Party, Gingrich presented Dick Armey's and his Contract with America. The contract was signed by himself and other Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The contract ranged from issues with broad popular support, including welfare reform, term limits, tougher crime laws, and a balanced budget law, to more specialized legislation such as restrictions on American military participation in U.N. missions. In the November 1994 elections, Republicans gained 54 seats and took control of the House for the first time since 1954.
Longtime House Minority Leader Bob Michel of Illinois had not run for re-election in 1994, giving Gingrich, as the highest-ranking Republican returning to Congress, the inside track to becoming Speaker. Legislation proposed by the 104th United States Congress included term limits for Congressional Representatives, tax cuts, welfare reform, and a balanced budget amendment, as well as independent auditing of the finances of the House of Representatives and elimination of non-essential services such as the House barbershop and shoe-shine concessions. Congress fulfilled Gingrich's Contract promise to bring all ten of the Contract's issues to a vote within the first 100 days of the session, even though most legislation was held up in the Senate, vetoed by President Bill Clinton, or substantially altered in negotiations with Clinton. The Contract was criticized by the Sierra Club and by Mother Jones magazine as a Trojan horse tactic that, while deploying the rhetoric of reform, would have the real effect of allowing corporate polluters to profit at the expense of the environment; it was referred to by opponents, including President Clinton, as the "Contract on America".
However, most parts of the Contract eventually became law in some fashion and represented a dramatic departure from the legislative goals and priorities of previous Congresses. See Implementation of the Contract for a detailed discussion of what was and was not enacted.
Government shutdown and the snub
The momentum of the Republican Revolution stalled in late 1995 and early 1996 as a result of a budget fight between Congressional Republicans and President Bill Clinton. Speaker Gingrich and the new Republican majority wanted to slow the rate of increase in government spending including on Medicare, which Clinton flatly rejected. Without enough votes to override President Clinton's veto, Gingrich led the Republicans not to submit a revised budget, allowing the previously approved appropriations to expire on schedule, and causing parts of the Federal government to shut down for lack of funds.
Gingrich inflicted a blow to his public image by seeming to suggest that the Republican hard-line stance over the budget was in part due to his feeling "snubbed" by the President the day before following his return from Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel. Gingrich was lampooned in the media as a petulant figure with an inflated self-image, and at least one editorial cartoon depicted him as having thrown a temper tantrum. Democratic leaders took the opportunity to attack Gingrich's motives for the budget standoff, and some say the shutdown might have contributed to Clinton's re-election in November 1996.
Tom DeLay recounts the event in his book, No Retreat, No Surrender, that Gingrich "made the mistake of his life" and says the following of Gingrich's mis-step of the shutdown:
"He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One...Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child..The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same."
In her autobiography Living History, former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton shows a picture of Bill Clinton, Dole, and Gingrich laughing on the plane. Gingrich claims in his book Lessons Learned the Hard Way that the picture was taken on the plane going to Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel rather than on the return trip from Israel, contradicting Clinton's claim.
Ethics sanctions
Eighty-four ethics charges, most of which were leveled by House Democratic Whip David Bonior, were filed against Speaker Gingrich during his term, including claiming tax-exempt status for a college course run for political purposes. Following an investigation by the
House Ethics Committee Gingrich was sanctioned US$300,000. "In my name and over my signature, inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the committee", stated Gingrich after he finally pled guilty in January of 1997. The House Ethics Committee concluded that inaccurate information supplied to investigators represented "intentional or ... reckless" disregard of House rules.
Special Counsel James M. Cole concluded that Gingrich violated federal tax law and had lied to the ethics panel in an effort to force the committee to dismiss the complaint against him. However, the full panel refused to reach a conclusion about whether Gingrich had violated federal tax law and instead decided to leave that finding up to the IRS. In 1999, the IRS cleared the organizations connected with the "Renewing American Civilization" courses under investigation for possible tax violations.
Leadership challenge
In the summer of 1997, a few House Republicans had come to see Gingrich's public image as a liability and attempted to replace him as Speaker. According to Time, the replacement was engineered by several Republican backbenchers, including Steve Largent of Oklahoma, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mark Souder of Indiana. They soon gained the support of the four Republicans who ranked directly below Gingrich in the House leadership Dick Armey, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Republican conference chairman John Boehner of Ohio, and Republican leadership chairman Bill Paxon of New York.
On July 9, DeLay, Boehner and Paxon had the first of several secret meetings to discuss the rebellion. The next night, DeLay met with 20 of the plotters in Largent's office, and appeared to assure them that the leadership was with them.
Under the plan, Armey, DeLay, Boehner and Paxon were to present Gingrich with an ultimatum — resign or be voted out. Combined with the votes of the Democrats, there appeared to be enough votes to vacate the chair. However, the rebels decided that they wanted Paxon to be the new Speaker. At that point, Armey backed out, and told his chief of staff to warn Gingrich about the coup.
In response, Gingrich forced Paxon to resign his post, but backed off initial plans to force a vote of confidence in the rest of the Republican leadership.
Fall from speakership, resignation from the House
By 1998, Gingrich had become a highly visible and polarizing figure in the public's eye, making him an easy target for Democratic congressional candidates across the nation. In 1997 a strong majority of Americans believed Gingrich should have been replaced as Speaker of the House, and he held an all-time low job approval rating of 28% although his approval later rose to 45% by April 1998.
During this period, Gingrich focused on the perjury charges against Clinton as a unifying campaign theme in national Republican advertising. While Republicans believed this theme would ensure gains in the 1998 midterm elections, they instead lost five seats in the House — the worst performance in 64 years for a party that didn't hold the presidency. Polls showed that Gingrich and the Republican Party's attempt to remove President Clinton from office was widely unpopular among the American public.
Gingrich suffered much of the blame for the election loss. Facing another rebellion in the Republican caucus, he announced on November 6 that he would not only stand down as Speaker, but would leave the House as well. He had been handily reelected to an 11th term in that election, but declined to take his seat. According to Newsweek, he had lost control over his caucus long before the election, and it was possible that he would not have been reelected as Speaker in any case.
Post-congressional life
Gingrich has since remained involved in national politics and public policy debate. He is a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, focusing on health care (he has founded the Center for Health Transformation), information technology, the military, and politics. Gingrich is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the conservative think tank Hoover Institute, focusing on U.S. politics, world history, national security policy, and environmental policy issues. He sometimes serves as a commentator, guest or panel member on television news shows, mostly on the Fox News Channel. He is listed as a contributor by Fox News Channel, and frequently appears as a guest on the channel; he has also hosted occasional specials for the Fox News Channel. He is also a guiding coalition member of the Project on National Security Reform.
In late September 2007, Gingrich founded the non-partisan organization American Solutions for Winning the Future. The stated mission of the group is to become the "leading grassroots movement to recruit, educate, and empower citizen activists and elected officials to develop solutions to transform all levels of government." Gingrich spoke of the group and its non-partisan objectives at the CPAC conference of 2008 and currently serves as its General Chairman.
In June 2006, Gingrich publicly called for Congressman Jack Murtha to be censured by the United States Congress for what Gingrich claims was Murtha's statement that America was a greater threat to world stability than Iran or North Korea. The paper that originally printed the statement has recently backed away and admitted that Murtha had been misquoted and was merely citing a poll that showed the world believed the United States was a greater threat than either of those nations. Gingrich, however, has refused to apologize or retract his call for Murtha to be censured.
Besides politics, Gingrich has authored a book, Rediscovering God in America, attempting to demonstrate that the Founding Fathers actively intended the new republic to not only allow, but encourage religious expression in the public square. Since Gingrich has, "dedicated much of his time to calling America back to our Christian heritage", Jerry Falwell invited him to be the speaker, for the second time, at Liberty University's graduation, May 19, 2007. Speaker Gingrich has also collaborated with David Bossie and Citizens United Productions to produce and co-host with his wife, Callista Gingrich, a DVD which shares its name with the book.
Recently, he has responded to Geraldine Ferraro's comments about Barack Obama's success by saying they are "childish" but "true".
Alternate history collaboration with William R. Forstchen
In 1995, Gingrich collaborated with William R. Forstchen on the alternate history novel 1945, describing a World War II in which the US remained outside the European theater, focusing solely on fighting against (and defeating) Japan alone, while Nazi Germany defeated the Soviet Union, and the two respective victors subsequently confront each other in a cold war that swiftly turns hot. (The Robert Harris novel Fatherland is based on a similar premise.)
Some years later, Gingrich and Forstchen turned to co-authoring an alternate history trilogy of the American Civil War, in which the Confederacy wins the battle of Gettysburg. The trilogy consists of Gettysburg (2003), Grant Comes East (2004), and Never Call Retreat (2005).
In 2007 they published Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th, the first of a new series. The next year he published the sequel Days of Infamy, an alternate history with an identical title and similar basis as successful alternate history novelist Harry Turtledove's own Pacific War novel.
Declined 2008 presidential run
Between 2005 and 2007, Gingrich expressed interest in being a candidate for the 2008 Republican nomination for the Presidency. On September 28, 2007, Gingrich announced that if his supporters pledged $30 million to his campaign (until October 21), he would compete for the nomination.
However, on September 29 spokesman Rick Tyler said that Gingrich would not seek the presidency in 2008 because he could not continue to serve as chairman of American Solutions. "It is legally impermissible for him to continue on as chairman of American Solutions (for Winning the Future) and to explore a campaign for president," Tyler said.
Some have speculated that the true reason behind Gingrich's abandoned 2008 presidential bid is the revelation in 2007 of Gingrich's extramarital affair, which took place during the Clinton impeachment (which Gingrich himself has admitted to).
2012 presidential speculation
Several political commentators, including Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic and Robert Novak in the Washington Post, have identified Gingrich as a top contender for a presidential run in 2012, with Ambinder stating that he "is already planting some seeds in Iowa, New Hampshire".
Books authored
Nonfiction
- The Government's Role in Solving Societal Problems. Associated Faculty Press, Incorporated. January 1982 ISBN 0-86733-026-0
- Window of Opportunity. Tom Doherty Associates, December 1985. ISBN 0-312-93923-X
- Contract with America (co-editor). Times Books, December 1994. ISBN 0-8129-2586-6
- Restoring the Dream. Times Books, May 1995. ISBN 0-8129-2666-8
- Quotations from Speaker Newt. Workman Publishing Company, Inc., July 1995. ISBN 0-7611-0092-X
- To Renew America. Farrar Straus & Giroux, July 1996. ISBN 0-06-109539-7
- Lessons Learned The Hard Way. HarperCollins Publishers, May 1998 ISBN 0-06-019106-6
- Presidential Determination Regarding Certification of the Thirty-Two Major Illicit Narcotics Producing and Transit Countries. DIANE Publishing Company, September 1999. ISBN 0-7881-3186-9
- Saving Lives and Saving Money. Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, April 2003. ISBN 0-9705485-4-0
- Winning the Future. Regnery Publishing, January 2005. ISBN 0-89526-042-5
- Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future. Integrity Publishers, October 2006. ISBN 1-59145-482-4
- A Contract with the Earth, (Newt on the environment) Johns Hopkins University Press, October 1, 2007. ISBN 0-8018-8780-2
- Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works. Regnery Publishing, January 2008. ISBN 978-1596980532
- Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less: A Handbook for Slashing Gas Prices and Solving Our Energy Crisis (Newt Gingrich with Vince Haley) Regnery Publishing, September 2008 ISBN 1596985763
Alternate history
Alternate history is a subgenre of speculative fiction that is set in a world in which history has diverged from history as it is generally known. Gingrich co-wrote the following alternate history novels and series of novels with William R. Forstchen.
Civil War Series
Pacific War Series
- Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th Thomas Dunne Books, May 2007 ISBN 0-312-36350-8
- Days of Infamy Thomas Dunne Books, April 2008 ISBN 0-312-36351-6
External links
- , The American Enterprise Institute
- , The Hoover Institute
- , a weekly column by Gingrich at Human Events
- news stories and commentary
- , Notable Names Database
- issue positions and quotes
- PBS Frontline, Peter Boyer and Stephen Talbot, January 16, 1996.
- expose detailing the earliest days of Gingrich's political career, November 1, 1984
- CNN, November 16, 1995
- contemporary comments on Gingrich's resignation as Speaker, November, 1998
- on Gingrich's resignation, November, 1998
- Gingrich interview on the Tavis Smiley show, January 30, 2006
- ScribeMedia.org, December 15, 2006
Grassroots campaigns
- — campaign for people to vote Newt in 2008
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