Chapter 117: A Changing Of The Guard

Newt announced the Contract with America at the beginning of September. By then most of Washington knew something was up, but not the extent or breadth of the plan. The Democrats weren’t stupid. They had their spies just like we did. They knew we planned something big and bold, and they knew we were writing legislation, even if they didn’t have the printed copies in their hands.

Still, it was an election year, and they were in survival mode. The mood of the country was changing, and the pendulum was swinging from liberal to conservative. Even as the old diehards protested nothing was changing, everybody else was scrambling frantically, often trying to position themselves as conservatives, which made more than a few Republicans laugh.

John Boehner and I were pushing Newt Gingrich hard to make the Contract as showy and public as possible. We wanted this to dominate the airwaves for the next eight weeks, between now and Election Day. Every week was to be a big event. We started with press conferences and announcements, but by the third week of September we had a massive ‘signing’ of the Contract on the steps of the Capitol building. We flew in all the Republican candidates we could find who were running against Democratic incumbents and had them sign as well. We swore oaths and made promises and shook pinkie fingers and gave each other the secret passwords and did everything we could to bind ourselves to the Contract. I wasn’t sure whether it reminded me more of joining Kegs or of signing the Articles of Piracy on a buccaneer ship.

We were keeping the specific bills locked up, even though we were now talking about them in general terms. Specifics would have been used against us, since there would always be something somebody wouldn’t like. Meanwhile, our high-minded opponents would promise a counterplan that would remedy whatever we would do. Without the specifics, they could only guess and screech about Republican promises and how we were hijacking the ship of state. (I heard that phrase a few times!)

We also began to blitz the various Sunday morning talk shows. Newt might be on ABC, while John was on CBS and Rick was on NBC. The following week it might be another three of us. Between the Gang of Eight and Newt, we could alternate networks without wearing out our welcomes. The Democrats were fulminating loudly, but they were playing catch-up ball, and not doing well with it.

As we got closer to November 8, we just kept raising the pressure. I pushed Gingrich to bring the Senate in on things. Originally the Contract with America had been exclusively a House deal. Newt had an ego bigger than his butt, and he really wanted to keep it in the House. I was pushing to bring in the Senate. It wouldn’t hurt to bring in all the Senators we had lined up to sponsor the Senate versions of our ten bills. Newt could stay in charge, but when (not if - I was always stressing the positive) we took control and he became Speaker; he would have all sorts of valuable markers to call on in the Senate, especially if he lined up some support with Bob Dole and Alan Simpson, the Minority Leader and Whip. Newt could be cantankerous as hell, and as proud as a peacock, but he was smart. He might not like what I was pushing him to do, but he could see the benefits.

“Carl, you can be a real asshole at times!” he once told me, while I was pushing for him to play nice with the Senate. “You’re a goddamned pushy bastard!”

I simply smiled. “Those are just my positive traits, Newt. Talk to my wife. She’ll tell you the bad stuff about me!”

He just shook his head in disgust and made the call I wanted him to make. I only had about a fifty-fifty success rate with him, but there were people around us who told me I was doing better than most.

Back home, in the Maryland Ninth, Catherine Hartwick continued her flaming self-destruction by pissing off the state employee unions, about which I had never even talked. I was running a plain vanilla campaign - I’m wonderful, here’s what I’ve done to help you, let me shake your hand and kiss your baby. I hadn’t needed to go negative, and she was spending all her time trying to explain what she really meant to say.

On election night, we did the usual. Marilyn’s parents came down and stayed with the kids, although they did drive them over to the campaign headquarters, where we showed them around. Charlie was now thirteen and the girls were ten, and they were well behaved, if a little confused by some of it. I introduced Marilyn’s parents to John Steiner and the others with the proviso, “Don’t tell them any campaign secrets; they’re actually Democrats!” Since we didn’t have any secrets, Marilyn just laughed, and Harriet scolded me. Big Bob started arguing politics with John, so we just let him run on while my wife and I snorted in laughter.

After a bit, Big Bob and Harriet took the kids home. None of us were surprised when WBAL called the race at the first commercial break, with me beating Catherine Hartwick like a rented mule. After the applause and screams, things settled down again. Everybody wanted to see the rest of the returns.

I was using Brewster’s man, John Thomas, again as my campaign director, and he and I dragged a white board out into the main room as returns started coming in. We had started the election with a House composed of 177 Republican Congressmen, 256 Democrats, and 1 Independent (One seat was vacant, the previous owner having died two days before the election.) The Senate was 47 Republicans and 53 Democrats. As returns began coming in, John Thomas began calling RNC headquarters and figuring out other races as well. We began erasing the numbers and putting up new numbers for the 104 ^th Congress as the races were called.

By 9:00 it was obvious that we were witnessing something massive and historic. I mean, even I knew we were in for a change, and it seemed phenomenal to me, too. As we put the numbers up on the board, there would be occasional cheers, but as the evening went on, the networks began interrupting with some big fucking news! John Thomas was on the phone, and he tapped me and looked at me awestruck. “Rosty’s gone!” he told me just before it was announced. Dan Rostenkowski had failed to win re-election, which didn’t surprise me in some ways, considering he was linked to the House Post Office mess. Then it got crazy - Tom Foley out of Washington, the Speaker of the House, failed to win re-election! They were saying nothing like that had happened since Reconstruction!

Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather both seemed thunderstruck by what was happening, using terms such as “historic”, “unprecedented”, “watershed”, and the like. I just sat out there in the big room, taking it all in, with Marilyn sitting sideways on my lap, while John Thomas and the others kept changing the numbers on the board. People were coming up to me and congratulating me and asking how this was going to change things in Washington. I would mumble something, and talk to a reporter or two, saying some routine phrases. By the end of the evening, the Republicans had control of both houses.

It was after midnight when we went home, and the final numbers weren’t clear yet. Some of the races were still too close to call, but even so, we had won big. I made the appropriate phone calls and interviews on Wednesday and then on Thursday morning we kissed the family good-bye and flew down to Hougomont for the rest of the week. Interestingly, Marilyn and I were asked to a small reception at Government House while we were there. We met with the Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham, who had succeeded Lynden Pindling a couple of years earlier. Marilyn and I went, had dinner and drinks, talked a little shop about the election, and then headed over to Paradise Island for a bit. We flew home on Sunday after working on our tans for a few days and drinking our share of the rum.

The final results were back by the time we got home. We had picked up 60 seats in the House and were up to 238 Republicans! The Democrats were down to 196 seats (plus Bernie Sanders as an Independent) and it was like a bomb had gone off in the Capitol. People were wandering the halls of the Capitol with shocked looks on their faces. The Senate was almost as bad. We had started out at 47 Republicans and picked up 10 seats, to end at 57. The Democrats were down to 43, and if we got just 3 to go along with us, we could block a filibuster whenever we wanted to.

The staff in my office was positively gleeful! For one thing, Newt had passed the word along to them that if I wanted it, we could find a new home over in the Rayburn building. I had barely walked in my door when my staff started bombarding me with questions. I quickly called a time-out, and looked over at Marty, who was grinning at me. “Is this for real?”

He nodded. “I got the word from Newt’s office while you were gone. I also checked with the House Administration Committee. Newt spoke to them, too. We’ve got a very nice place on the third floor in Rayburn opening up.”

I waved him quiet for a moment and then turned back to the others. “Okay, it sounds official. Start making your plans. When we get the word we can move, we want to do it quickly and cleanly and efficiently. Get with Marty on what we need to do and let me know how I can help you.”

Around us the room erupted into a gabble of noise again. The Longworth Building hadn’t been bad, but Rayburn was a lot more modern and had a lot more amenities. I motioned for Marty to follow me into my office, and he did so, trailed by Sherry Longbottom. I eyed her curiously, and she said, “I wanted to see you, Congressman. You should be here, too, Marty.”

I leaned back against my desk and said, “All right. Is there a problem, Sherry?”

“Well, yes and no. I mean, not for me, but I needed to let you know. You see, I’ve been offered a position over at the Heritage Foundation.”

I smiled and nodded. I wasn’t terribly surprised. Sherry ran my legislative staff, so she had been involved with the bills we had written with the Heritage Foundation for the Contract. They must have seen in her the same abilities I had come to value! “And for probably twice what you’re making here?” She gave a shrug and a smile at that. I looked over at Marty. “You know about this?”

He shrugged and smiled too. “I caught a whiff of something but can’t say I knew about it. I’m not surprised, though. Are you?”

“No.” I turned back to Sherry. “When do they want you?”

Sherry looked relieved by my obvious acceptance of this. “The beginning of December. They wanted me sooner, but I needed to give you some time to replace me.”

I smiled at her. “I can’t replace you. I can only find somebody else and hope they’ll do as good a job as you did. Who in your staff can move up to your slot, and who do we get to replace them? I’d prefer to move somebody up rather than bring in somebody new.” The three of us made some plans, and after a bit, I shooed them out. “Make sure we have a nice going away party and have a cake I can get a piece of.” I told them.

Sherry was the first senior staffer I had lost. I had replaced a couple of very junior people prior to this. I wasn’t surprised though. Sherry was very good at her job, and most Congressional staffers are trying to move up the ladder into the private sector. The system had an incredible potential for abuse and corruption, but she couldn’t be blamed for playing the game by rules she didn’t create. I just smiled and shook my head and asked Mindy to get me a meeting with Gingrich at his pleasure. We had a lot of details to go over about the new session.

When I did meet with Newt, I got another thank you from him for helping with the Contract. I was out of both Science and Veterans Affairs and was in Armed Services. He would let me pick which subcommittee I wanted, and I promised to let him know in a few days. Armed Services was one of the important committees, and a regular Congressman could make a lot of money by knowing about pending appropriations bills. That wasn’t an issue for me, but maybe I could make the services more efficient. I had some potential in the committee, too, because since the election I was about a third of the way up the seniority ladder. After only four years, I was one of the seasoned veterans!

I also stroked his ego some, by referring to him as ‘Mister Speaker.’ He liked the way that sounded! You could almost see his dick getting hard. Terrible mental image. In some ways, the biggest problem we had going forward was to keep Newt from self-destructing. He had immense talents and brainpower, but an ego and self-image to match. Right now, he was damn near at the peak of his political power. He had just managed to thoroughly hose the Democrats, was about to be named Speaker of the House, and had a raft of legislation to be brought to the floor.

Unfortunately, Newt was matched up against the wiliest politician of the age, Bill Clinton. I don’t think the nation had seen a politician of his caliber since FDR. Now it was the two of them going head-to-head. In my previous life, where I had just been a spectator of all of this, Newt had really thrown his weight around for the next few years, and shut down the government in a spending showdown with Clinton. Clinton came out of it smelling like a rose, and Gingrich ended up in big trouble. He wore out his welcome in only four years and found himself voted out as Speaker, and then left the House in disgrace. Could I change that? Should I change that? Did my presence in Congress now mean things would be different?

Back in my office, I was talking to Marty about the legislation we would be bringing out. The plan was that once we were all sworn in again, and the House was back in session, we would keep the pressure up by introducing a new bill every day. I had the two bills that I was going to introduce. In both cases I was going to make sure I had a little speech prepared. While it would be too much to hope that the TV news would pick up even one for a soundbite, the odds were that they would focus on what we were doing with the Contract.

“What do you think Clinton’s going to do about them?” asked Marty.

I shrugged. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee ... He’s going to bob and weave for a bit, and then try to bury them or whatever. Some he’ll sign, after trying to highjack them. Others he is just going to veto and hope he can get away with it. Hell, some of them are going to end up at the Supreme Court!”

“You think?”

“For sure. The line-item veto, for instance, that’s a clear break in the rules for the legislative branch versus the executive branch. Likewise, at least one or two of the states will sue over D2A. That will be a states’ rights issue.”

“Too bad we don’t have a lobbyist we could hire for these things,” he said with a laugh. “We could lobby for our own legislation.”

Marty just tossed that off in passing, but as he did, it felt like lightning had just struck. I was quiet, and he was quiet, and we looked at each other in awe. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked me.

“You’d better tell me what you’re thinking,”, I said eagerly.

“I’m thinking why don’t we set up our own lobbying outfit!”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too!”

“Look, it’s your money, but you don’t seem to mind spending it. What if you funded a lobbying group?” he asked.

“Could I do that? Is it legal?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I can tell you this much, it would have to be buried deeper than a coal mine! Nobody, and I mean nobody, can know about this, or it destroys whatever chance you have of making it work! You can’t be seen to be buying your own legislation. You’d become a laughingstock overnight!”

“Holy shit! Are you serious? We could do this?” I asked him. “How much would it cost?”

Marty gave me an incredulous look and raised his hands palm up. “No fucking idea. Could you raise the money without anybody catching on?”

“I think so.”

“Un-fucking-real! Let me look into this...”

“Quietly!” I interjected.

Marty nodded. “ ... and I’ll talk to you about it.”

That night I called John Steiner and asked to meet him quietly at the office in Hereford the next day. That morning I drove into the office and said hello to everybody, and then John and I went into his office and lowered the Cone of Silence. “What’s up?” he asked.