Gingrich Gives Up Book Advance to Defuse Furor

WASHINGTON —  Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), seeking to defuse a mounting furor over his multimillion-dollar book contract before Congress opens next week, announced Friday that he will give up the planned $4.5-million advance and accept only royalties from the sale of the books, which are expected to be substantial.

Speaking from his Cobb County, Ga., district, the conservative House leader offered a spirited defense of the decisions that led him to enter into the lucrative book deal. But he conceded that the controversy it has generated is becoming a distraction to Republicans just as they are embarking on an historic effort to reform Congress.

“We frankly thought we were doing everything that was correct,” Gingrich said, referring to himself and his wife, Marianne. “Obviously becoming Speaker of the House in this context is a different situation.”

In a letter sent to House colleagues on Friday, Gingrich said he will sign a contract with New York publisher HarperCollins that will award him an advance of just $1. Beyond that, he said, he will rely on “only those royalties which the American people decide we should have based on their decisions about buying the books.”

Although Gingrich gave details of the book advance, other specifics of the book contract, including royalty rates, are not known.

Gingrich was criticized last week for striking the deal with the New York publisher, which is controlled by communications mogul Rupert Murdoch. Democrats accused Gingrich of taking part in a “sweetheart deal” in which the Speaker would try to change the law that prevents Murdoch, a naturalized American citizen, from buying U.S. television stations with foreign capital.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who criticized Gingrich’s book deal on Thursday, said Friday that Gingrich’s action “lays to rest the book issue.” But incoming Minority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) continued to criticize Gingrich, calling for the House Ethics Committee to appoint an outside counsel to investigate the deal, and raising questions again about the funding sources of GOPAC, the political action committee that Gingrich heads.

“I would suggest to you that he didn’t see the light so much as he felt the heat,” Bonior said. “It even outraged members of his own party. He had no other choice but to back down.”

Indeed, Gingrich made clear that he was forfeiting the $4.5-million advance with some reservations.

“As you might imagine, Marianne and I were very happy two days before Christmas,” said Gingrich. “Our attorney had reviewed a legitimate proposal for an advance on two books. The project was a real book with a real publisher. And it offered us financial independence for the first time in our lives. Every ethics question had been answered in a positive manner.”

*

The Georgia Republican, who was a college professor before his 1978 election to the House, stressed what his financial disclosure forms have revealed for many years. “We are not wealthy people and we understand that $4.5 million is a lot of money.”

But Gingrich suggested that he was being held to a stricter standard than the congressional ethics code lays out for members and suggested that the House should rethink some of its current prohibitions against lawmakers’ earning outside income.

“While the congressional ethics code has been biased in favor of inherited wealth and against earned income, it does allow members to write books,” he said. “This auction had impartially established what the market value of the book idea was and HarperCollins has been publishing books since 1817. Everything seemed to be in order.”

But as congressional Republicans readied an ambitious agenda for action starting next Wednesday, even some of Gingrich’s allies began raising questions about the propriety of Gingrich’s book deal. Gingrich said he was particularly moved by the reaction of an older precinct committeeman in Lancaster, Pa., reported to him by Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), a member of Gingrich’s team.

“Tell our new Speaker we all worked for this victory and he should not take advantage of our efforts,” the man said, according to Gingrich. “That committeeman was right,” Gingrich added.

On Thursday, Dole took a jab at Gingrich’s book deal, saying that it had raised “concerns” that needed to be “laid to rest” if Congress is to work without distractions.

In the end, said Gingrich, he and his wife concluded “it was worth more to the two of us to decide that we’ll write a book, we’ll take our chances with the American people, with the marketplace, we’ll do something which I don’t think any political author has done in recent times, because we have a chance to really change things for the country and anything which detracts from it would be wrong.”

*

House ethics rules bar lawmakers from virtually all types of outside earned income, with an exemption for copyright royalties. The rules, partly rewritten after Gingrich’s efforts helped snare then-Speaker Jim Wright of Texas in an ethics scandal over a lucrative book deal, were designed to ensure that outside jobs would not pose conflicts of interest or distract lawmakers from their congressional responsibilities.

But Washington attorney Stanley M. Brand said that even in its current form Gingrich’s book deal as well as his wide range of other activities appear to conflict with the intent of the ethics rules he helped rewrite. Brand served as counsel to the House from 1976 until 1983. Now in private practice, he advises clients on ethics disputes.

“It’s one thing to say that a member, as a sideline, wrote a book once and got some money from the royalties. It’s another to say we’re going to build a virtual publishing empire around this man and market the speakership,” Brand said. “That’s what is being done. He has a multi-book deal, a set of videotapes and an alleged 501C3 (the designation for a tax-exempt organization) built around his ideology.”

Those activities alone, Brand said, “are full-time jobs. . . . All of a sudden, we have Newt Inc. It’s like the Blockbuster of politics. He makes Jim Wright look like a piker.”

On Friday, Gingrich suggested that the House should revisit the rules that restrict members from seeking income outside their congressional responsibilities.

“I think, frankly, the rules are too strict on earned income,” Gingrich said. “We want to get members of Congress back into the private sector. We don’t want them to become socialist parasites on the taxpayers.”

The first book, tentatively titled “To Renew America,” is to be a series of essays by Gingrich on the GOP agenda. The second is to be a compendium of essays on government by historical figures, with commentary by Gingrich.