Gavel Falls to Old-Style Republican

When the U.S. House of Representatives assembles Thursday to consider impeaching President Clinton, the man with the gavel will be an old-style Republican of the sort who dominated House Republican ranks before the 1994 “revolution” swept in the hard-core conservatives who are now spearheading the campaign against Clinton.

Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who has resigned as speaker as of next year, has declined to preside. Gingrich, Speaker-to-be Bob Livingston (R-La.) and other House Republican leaders chose Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois, who has sat in the speaker’s chair many times during his four years in Congress.

“I’ve had a lot of experience in the chair and people generally recognize me as someone who’s very fair-minded,” LaHood said in an interview. “I think those are the two main reasons that I was chosen.”

LaHood was first elected to the House in 1994, the same year that the Gingrich conservatives wrested control of the House from the Democrats for the first time in 40 years.

But that’s about where the similarity between him and the largely conservative class of 1994 freshmen ends. A congressional insider, LaHood had been an aide to Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois, a longtime leader of House Republicans when they were in the minority. When Michel retired, LaHood ran successfully for his Peoria seat.

Though solidly conservative, LaHood was one of only three freshman Republicans in 1994 who refused to endorse Gingrich’s “contract with America” campaign manifesto. The main reason: He opposed cutting taxes severely without first reducing spending and balancing the budget.

Although the new GOP leadership has relished open combat with the Democrats, LaHood has sought to revive some of the comity that prevailed when Michel was in office. In 1997, he was tapped to co-chair a weekend retreat in Hershey, Pa., to bring the parties together.

The conference succeeded, but its glow was short-lived.

Gingrich was predictably frosty when LaHood won Michel’s seat, denying him a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.

Since then, LaHood has shown some loyalty to the new Republican leadership. Last summer, he introduced a resolution urging Clinton to reimburse the federal government for the then-$4.4-million cost of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal.

That resolution has had no legislative success, but it could be a model if the House proposes to fine Clinton.

LaHood’s supporters credit his skills as a presiding officer--good knowledge of parliamentary procedure and consistent evenhandedness--to his years as Michel’s aide.

He’ll need those talents when he presides over the impeachment debate. Besides steering the House through an unusual amount of partisan bickering and parliamentary ploys, LaHood is likely to have to make one potentially explosive decision--whether to permit Democrats to force a vote on replacing the impeachment motion with one that would merely censure Clinton.

LaHood asserted that he will accept whatever the House parliamentarian rules. Either way, he is likely to become a target of criticism by the losing side.

And how does the presiding officer himself plan to vote when the impeachment issue comes up? “I’m not going to disclose that until I cast my vote,” he said. “If you’re going to maintain some sort of impartiality, you can’t come out with it in advance.”