Hastert Leaving

rimrocker · Aug 14, 2007

Goodbye. Good riddance. This country doesn''t need any other "leaders" who will trash the institutions of government in the service of party... any party.

Hastert Planning to Retire at End of 2008, GOP Sources Say
By Jonathan Allen | 1:00 PM; Aug. 14, 2007 | Email This Article
http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/08/hastert_planning_to_retire_at.html

After less than a year as a rank-and-file House member, former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is expected to call an end to a political career that made him the longest serving Republican Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives.

Several Illinois newspapers, including the Aurora Beacon News and the Chicago Tribune, reported Tuesday that the Illinois Republican has scheduled a Friday announcement on the steps of the Kendall County Courthouse in Yorkville, Ill. While Hastert aides are refusing to discuss what he plans to say, he is expected to announce that he will not run for a 12th term in 2008, according to Republican sources.

“Everybody was surprised when he stayed on beyond his speakership. He had reached the pinnacle of his political career as Speaker. Staying on was totally about keeping the seat Republican and having some say in who his successor is,” said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., adding that he had not spoken with Hastert but had heard that Hastert’s staff was putting together a press conference.

LaHood, who recently announced his own plan to retire, said he believed there would be additional retirement announcements from within the House GOP. “I retired because it was the right time to leave. Others will also be leaving, for their own reasons,” he said.

For his rural and suburban Illinois district, a Hastert retirement will mean a new face in Congress for the first time in two decades.

Hastert, 65, was first elected to Congress in 1986 after GOP Rep. John E. Grotberg retired. He quietly worked his way up the ranks in the House, propelled into the Republican leadership in 1994 by then-Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Hastert ran DeLay’s successful upstart campaign for majority whip after Republicans captured control of Congress, and DeLay in turn named Hastert as his chief deputy. Four years later, in 1998, DeLay helped to elevate Hastert to Speaker after Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., stepped down following the loss of GOP seats in that year’s elections and Robert L. Livingston, R-La., withdrew abruptly from contention after acknowledging an extramarital affair.

As Speaker, Hastert led the House Republican majority for eight years during which the GOP solidified its power and aggressively pursued conservative policies.

He presided over the House through the Sept. 11 attacks and the start of the Iraq war, and shepherded through the massive 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (PL 107-16, PL 108-27) that pleased the conservative majority. He managed to float above various scandals and public discontent with Republican policies while many of his colleagues fell by the wayside *— including, ultimately, DeLay.

Throughout his time as Speaker, Hastert was personally popular with rank-and-file Republicans, who never saw him as part of the ethics problems that plagued DeLay and former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. (1995-2006), or the criminal misdeeds of former Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif. (1991-2005) and Bob Ney, R-Ohio (1995-2006).

The impact of the scandals added up, however, and became campaign fodder for Democrats, who made the “culture of corruption” in Congress a 2006 campaign mantra. When Democrats took over at the start of the 110th Congress, Hastert made no attempt to remain in the leadership. He has spent this year as a mostly silent back-bencher.

Off-Stage Operator, Staunch Partisan

As Speaker, Hastert had a reputation as a low-key, affable leader who got things done behind the scenes, in contrast to the self-styled “revolutionaries” like Gingrich and DeLay. He survived so long in the stressful position of Speaker by staying mostly above the fray, getting involved in crises when he absolutely had to, but generally prodding members of the House Republican Conference to work out problems among themselves.

He presided over a consolidation of power in the congressional leadership that left committee chairmen with only as much autonomy as they were afforded by Hastert and DeLay.

Under Hastert, a Republican-written term limit on the Speakership was abandoned even as six-year limits on chairmen were kept in place. The move solidified the caucus-elected leaders as permanent power centers. Meanwhile, the seniority system eroded. When chairmen cycled out they were not necessarily replaced by the next-most-senior member on the committee. Instead, they were forced to compete with each other by proving their loyalty to the party through their campaign fundraising efforts and voting records.

The chairmen and subcommittee chairmen owed their allegiance to the leadership, which in turn was elected by the caucus at large. The system, which Democrats have largely followed, gave tremendous authority to party leaders to develop and deliver a legislative agenda.

He also set a standard for the GOP majority by only allowing legislation on the floor of the House that was backed by the “majority of the majority,” an approach that all but denied Democrats a chance to help shape legislation.

While Republicans cheered Hastert’s exclusionary approach to legislation, and his efficient and ruthless use of House rules to eliminate the possibility of Democratic victories on the floor, Democrats chafed and complained.

The minority party had little say in conferences with the Senate during Hastert’s tenure, because conference committees became an after-the-fact formality that rubber-stamped deals worked out by a handful of House and Senate Republican members who operated under the thumb of party leaders.

Here, too, Democrats are taking a page from the Hastert playbook — and Republicans are the ones now crying “foul.”

Hastert further irritated the minority party by showing little desire to push committee chairmen to investigate problems in the executive branch, whether it was pre-war intelligence in Iraq or the federal response to Hurrican Katrina in 2005.

Though Hastert in manner and style seemed the polar opposite of DeLay, the two men shared a common vision — a unified, lasting Republican majority.

In his biography “Speaker,” Hastert recalled the time that he had a fellow athlete cut open his shouder with a razor blade —with no anesthetic — to release the buildup of puss from an injury. That raw edge rarely showed as he worked the House floor, but he could be an insistent and demanding leader if necessary. In 2003, for example, Hastert held open a vote on a landmark Medicare drug bill for three hours, forcing a pre-dawn vote on a Saturday on what was then a major GOP priority.

But while others preferred explicit threats, Hastert knew how to appeal with a soft pitch, too.

“Give us a shot to try to reform something. That’s all I’m asking,” Hastert told C.L. “Butch” Otter after catching the future Idaho governor after chasing him down in a hallway during the Medicare vote. Otter was ultimately one of two GOP backbenchers who switched their votes to assure adoption of the Medicare conference report.

As the GOP majority stumbled and President Bush’s popularity waned in 2005 and 2006, Hastert found himself challenged by his own rank-and-file conservatives as never before.

Hastert in the spring of 2006 had to head off rebellions from conservatives, who said Republicans had allowed spending to increase too much, and from moderates who argued the party had allowed too many holes to develop in the social safety net. He appeased conservatives in 2005 by proposing a plan to offset the costs of the federal relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, and in July 2006 he and then-Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, gave moderates a vote on a minimum wage increase, easing conservative opposition by tying it to a permanent increase in the estate tax.

Early Years

The oldest of three boys, Hastert grew up in Aurora, Ill., helping his father make deliveries from the family’s farm supply store. His mother, who helped run the store, was funny and made friends easily but could also be strict with her children. “I learned pretty quickly that if I broke the rules, I’d probably get a smack across the face,” Hastert recalled in his autobiography.

In high school, Hastert played football and wrestled, suffering a shoulder injury that later forced him to leave the Reserve Officer Training Corps during college. Inspired by the athletic directors he admired, he decided to become a coach, a career choice that meant he’d have to teach as well.

Even though he left teaching behind for a 25-year career in politics, Hastert used his teaching and coaching tactics to lead the GOP majority, emphasizing teamwork while motivating those he led to work things out amongst themselves without the heavy hand of leadership.
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RocketMan Tex · Aug 14, 2007

Bye Otis...

leroy · Aug 14, 2007

While I disagree with Hastert on just about everything, I agreed with him on his stance on Title IX. He was a wrestling coach and was fighting for change in the language that would allow colleges to keep the programs that were getting killed off in the name of Title IX. The idea was to basically not count the scholarships for football in the overall number causing schools to drop many men's programs (men's college soccer is basically dead).

Other than that, good riddance.

Dairy Ashford · Aug 17, 2007

leroy420 said:

While I disagree with Hastert on just about everything, I agreed with him on his stance on Title IX. He was a wrestling coach and was fighting for change in the language that would allow colleges to keep the programs that were getting killed off in the name of Title IX. The idea was to basically not count the scholarships for football in the overall number causing schools to drop many men's programs (men's college soccer is basically dead).
Click to expand...

I don't know how I feel about that, seems like that would just cut 50-100 women's scholarships. If colleges want to waste time and money, while lowering academic standards, they might as well be equitable about it.

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