Posts Tagged ‘Denny Hastert’
September 7th, 2011 by John Feehery
Ev and Gerry started the whole response thing.
Everett Dirksen and Gerry Ford, the former Senate Republican leader from Illinois and the former House Minority Leader (and later President) from Michigan used to have a radio show broadcast from the Capitol.
They turned that radio show into a televised rebuttal to President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address.
Dirksen, with his mop of white hair, and Ford, with his bald pate, must have been quite a sight in the years leading up to the Age of Aquarius. Dirksen was the one who famously said, “a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.”
I could understand the frustration of the two Republican (and minority) leaders. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t much to tell the truth, and Republicans at the start of 1966 didn’t have any legislative power. Dirksen, a genius when it came to the political communication innovation, probably dreamed up the idea of a joint response, and a new idea was born: Let’s tell our side of the story. Read more...
Tags: Age of Aquarius, America, Ames Straw poll, assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Livingston, Bob McDonnell, Bob Michel, Bobby Jindal, Congress, Denny Hastert, Dick Armey, Everett Dirksen, Gerry Ford, GOP, Government, House Republicans, Jennifer Dunn, Jim Wright, John Boehner, Lyndon Johnson, Michele Bachmann, Mike Mansfield, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, NFL, Obama, Paul Ryan, Politics, President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address, President Obama, Presidential election, Republican, Richard Nixon, Robert Byrd, Ronald Reagan, Senate Republican leader from Illinois, spending, Steve Largent, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Politics, Theory, election, speeches | No Comments »
July 27th, 2011 by John Feehery
John Boehner is doing an exceptional job as Speaker under extraordinarily tough times.
When I first started working in Congress, Tom Foley had just taken over from Jim Wright as Speaker of the House. Unlike the dictatorial Wright, Foley ran a decentralized process that gave too much power to Committee barons like Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Brooks and John Dingell.
Foley could never quite get the Chairmen to work together enough to overcome their jurisdictional squabbles, and Democrats faltered under the House Bank scandal, the Post Office debacle and a series of other damaging revelations about a Congress that was out of control.
When Newt Gingrich came to the Speaker’s Office, he leap-frogged over the gentlemanly Bob Michel (my former boss) who unfortunately announced his retirement before he could see the promised land of a Republican majority. Gingrich learned the lessons of the ineffective Foley, centralized power in his chambers, and bull-rushed an ambitious Contract with America legislative agenda. Along the way, Gingrich alienated some of the new Freshmen, his committee Chairmen, and some key members of the leadership, so much so that a few of them launched a failed coup against the embattled Speaker. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Michel, Congress, Conservatives, Dan Rostenkowski, Democrats, Denny Hastert, Dick Armey, George Bush, GOP, Government, Grand Bargain, House Republicans, Jack Brooks, Jim Wright, John Boehner, John Dingell, Mark Foley scandal, Nancy Pelosi, Newt Gingrich, President Obama, Republican, Republican Conference, Republicans, Speaker of the House, spending, taxes, Tea Party, the Iraq War, Tom DeLay, Tom Foley, White House
Posted in Bailouts, Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Media, Politics, Promises, Reviews, Scandals, Theory, election, speeches, spending, taxes, war | No Comments »
July 19th, 2011 by John Feehery
There are two kinds of politicians.
Fixers come into office to fix things. They seek to fix problems for their constituents, fix the legislative process and fix government.
Breakers come into office to break things. They seek to take down the political order, break up the status quo and destroy icons.
Fixers occupy the political middle on both the left and the right. They like to work within the system, they don’t demonize their opponents; they tend to be workhorses who find the media a necessary, but tedious evil.
Breakers occupy the political fringes on both the left and the right. They hate the current system. They hate their opponents. They tend to be show horses who use the media to carry their message.
Breakers can become fixers, but fixers rarely become breakers.
Newt Gingrich was a breaker. Denny Hastert was a fixer.
John Boehner is a fixer. Nancy Pelosi was a breaker.
Both Bush’s were fixers, as was Bill Clinton. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama started as breakers. Franklin Roosevelt campaigned as a fixer, became a breaker when he took the White House (his Hundred Days was a prime example of how the breaker operates) but became a fixer during the Second World War. Read more...
Tags: America, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, budget amendment, Democrats, Denny Hastert, Economy, election, Franklin Roosevelt, George W Bush, George Washington, GOP, Government, Haley Barbour, Hermann Cain, John Boehner, Jon Huntsman, Media, Michele Bachmann, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, Napoleon, Newt Gingrich, Patrick Henry, politicians, President Bush, Republican Conference, Republicans, Robespierre, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, Second World War, Tea Party Caucus, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Tim Pawlenty, White House
Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Laws, Liberal Media, Media, Politics, Presidential election, Promises, Theory, election, spending, taxes | 1 Comment »
October 1st, 2010 by John Feehery
When Denny Hastert started as Speaker of the House, he promised, after four tumultuous years of Newt Gingrich, to bring regular order back to the lower chamber.
To Hastert, regular order meant that the House would do its business in the right order. First, it would do a budget. Then it would work on its 13 Appropriations bills and if there were reconciliation instructions, that too would come after the budget was completed.
For Hastert, regular order was all about sticking to the budget process.
House Minority Leader John Boehner yesterday gave a speech in which he promised a different kind of regular order.
He promised to fight to change the balance of power in the House from the prejudice towards spending more money to a prejudice towards cutting spending. He proposed that the Appropriations process be fundamentally transformed so that each agency would be voted up or down, and not bundled into divergent, omnibus spending bills. He said that members should be given three days to thoroughly vet all of the bills that come to the floor. And he promised an open process, where the leadership would play a less intrusive role in setting the agenda. Read more...
Tags: Congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Denny Hastert, election, Government, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich, Obama, Politics, Republicans
Posted in Government, Promises, Theory, election | No Comments »
March 22nd, 2010 by John Feehery
The same weekend that the President won his biggest legislative victory, a group of black leaders, including Jesse Jackson and radio talk show host Tavis Smiley, convened a meeting in Chicago to criticize the President for not doing enough for their besieged community.
“It would be fascinating right now to see how Martin Luther King Jr. would navigate and negotiate a dance with Barack Obama, with this president who doesn’t want to focus on a black agenda,” Smiley, a frequent critic of Obama’s policies, told the Sun-Times recently.
I think Smiley has a point.
With unemployment rates for the black community averaging 15% nationally, with certain areas, like Detroit, having unemployment rates hitting 50%, and with the unemployment rates among black males aged 18 to 35 averaging about 35%, there is no doubt that the African-American community is facing a real crisis.
And the President, who is the nation’s first African-American President, hasn’t said much about the community’s plight.
I understand why. The President wants to be the nation’s first post-racial President. He doesn’t want to be put into a “black” box, so to speak, where he is seen only as a black President. He and his advisors believe that this is bad politics and could hurt his chances at re-election. Read more...
Tags: Black, Denny Hastert, Inner City, jesse jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., race, Tavis Smiley
Posted in Government, Politics, Theory, election | No Comments »
March 12th, 2010 by John Feehery
Washington (CNN) — When the Founding Fathers decided to create a bicameral legislative branch, they were trying to make things difficult for the federal government to grab power from the people.
What the Founding Fathers may not have foreseen was how much the House and the Senate would grow to dislike and distrust each other. Why is this important now? Democrats in the House may have to take the political risk of voting to pass the health care bill based on assurances from the Senate that the upper chamber will eventually modify the law to change some things House Democrats don’t want.
I live a bipartisan household. I am a creature of the House, having spent 15 years toiling as a Republican staffer in the lower chamber. My wife is a Senate girl, having spent about the same amount of time as a Republican staffer in the upper chamber. Talk about Mars and Venus.
When you are working for the House majority, you worry less about the tactics of the minority and more about the workings of an inscrutable Senate. Former Speaker Tip O’Neill reportedly once said to a Democratic colleague: “Remember, the House Republicans are merely the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.” Read more...
Tags: CNN, Democrats, Denny Hastert, House Republicans, Senate
Posted in Government, Politics | No Comments »
March 11th, 2010 by John Feehery
I always liked David Bonior. Sure, he was a left-wing, pro-labor, hard-core Democrat, who opposed much of what my personal world-view may be.
But he had integrity. He was pro-life Democrat, which takes a lot of courage. And you could tell he really cared about people.
My former boss, Speaker Denny Hastert, liked Bonior too. He was somebody in the opposition’s leadership who would always give the Speaker the straight scoop.
So, when he and his wife invited my wife and I to dinner at their new restaurant on Capitol Hill’s Barrack’s Row, I was happy to accept. Bonior is the major investor, and his son and daughter-in-law, who have long experience in the restaurant business, actually run it.
Called “Zest”, the restaurant is just about what you would expect from somebody like David Bonior. It serves good, American food at great American prices. It’s not particularly flashy, but it is very comfortable, nicely lit, with a good vibe to it.
There is a bar towards the front of the restaurant with a nice-sized big screen television, which I am fairly certain will have ESPN on it all day. Read more...
Tags: David Bonior, Denny Hastert, Jennifer Granholm, John Edwards, Restaurant, Zest
Posted in Food, Politics, Reviews | No Comments »
March 6th, 2010 by John Feehery
The resignation of Congressman Eric Massa complicates the life of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And her life is already pretty complicated.
Of course, it means one less vote for a health care bill that Congressional Democrats are trying to get through a reluctant House.
And one vote is a big deal, because it looks like pro-life Democrats aren’t going to swallow what the Senate passed late last year.
The Democrats have constructed a complicated scheme to pass health care, overly complicated in my view. The House has to somehow pass a Senate bill that includes a huge new tax increase on labor union health plans and abortion language that is still unacceptable to Bart Stupak.
Then they are going to pass another follow-on bill that will somehow reverse that labor union tax with so-called “reconciliation” instructions that the Senate then will theoretically take up and pass with 51 votes.
But first, the Senate has to hope that the Senate parliamentarian decides that whatever the House passes somehow fits in with the Senate rules, not a certain proposition.
And if the Parliamentarian decides that it is not kosher, well, then, Joe Biden has to step in and create a new precedent that will give the Republicans ample cause to shut the Upper Chamber down for a while. Read more...
Tags: abortion, Bart Stupak, Bill Clinton, Charlie Rangel, Congress, Democrats, Denny Hastert, Eric Massa, health care, House, Joe Biden, Mark Foley, Nancy Pelosi, Republicans, Senate, Tom DeLay, Ways and Means Committee
Posted in Government, Politics, Scandals, election | No Comments »
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