Gingrich Term to Be Short, Bittersweet, Democrats Say

WASHINGTON — Even if Newt Gingrich is reelected House speaker, his ethical woes may continue to escalate enough to force him from the post before the end of the year, two prominent House Democrats predicted Sunday.

With nearly all sides anticipating that the Georgia Republican will be returned to the powerful position Tuesday, Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), the Democratic whip and a leading Gingrich antagonist, said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” that Republicans should think carefully about their votes because the beleaguered speaker may not be able to serve out his term.

“I don’t think he’s going to finish” the year as speaker, Bonior said, adding that the results of a pending House Ethics Committee report concerning the financing of a college course Gingrich taught are likely to hound the speaker as long as he is in office.

“I don’t see how this will not get referred either to the Justice Department or the criminal division of the IRS,” Bonior said.

Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, made a similar prediction on ABC-TV’s “This Week.”

The discussion of Gingrich’s troubles dominated the Sunday talk shows, and the comments by Bonior and Frost signaled that Democratic congressional leaders will press ahead with attacks on the speaker’s character and fund-raising tactics during the upcoming 105th Congress.

At issue in the Gingrich case is a college course he taught from 1993 to 1995 with financial support from a nonprofit foundation. The ethics panel’s investigative subcommittee found--and Gingrich last month admitted--that he had violated House rules by presenting false information to the committee about the course’s relationship with GOPAC, his political action committee, and by failing to ensure that he complied with laws prohibiting the use of tax-exempt contributions for partisan purposes.

Republican leaders on Sunday again said that Democratic warnings about Gingrich’s future are motivated by partisan politics. The Republicans confidently predicted that the speaker will be easily reelected Tuesday and that the GOP House leadership will then turn its attention to its legislative agenda.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas also downplayed a Time magazine report quoting a key member of the investigative subcommittee as saying he and the other GOP subcommittee member were pressured by party leaders to send a signal of support to lawmakers who were reluctant to support the speaker.

Rep. Steven H. Schiff (R-N.M.) told Time that in response to that pressure, he and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) issued the letter last week saying they knew of “no reason now, nor do we foresee any in the normal course of events in the future, why Newt Gingrich would be ineligible to serve as speaker.”

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Armey, appearing on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” described the letter as an effort by the two panel members “to clarify” what he called “bad information, wrong information, assertion, allegation, hypotheses” about the Gingrich case. “These are not two people, neither one of whom will, one, do something they think is inappropriate, or, two, be pressured into doing something they don’t want to do.”

Armey said he knows of only one Republican who is planning to vote against Gingrich, referring to Rep. Michael P. Forbes of New York.

“I think Newt will be elected speaker, but I don’t think it will be unanimous,” Armey said. “We now have Congressman Forbes, who has clearly said he will not elect the speaker. But, with that exception, yes, I think the speaker is going to be reelected.”

Forbes, who appeared on “Meet the Press,” could not name another Republican who will join him in voting against Gingrich. But he insisted that many House GOP members remain troubled about Gingrich’s predicament. “If this were a secret ballot, I believe in my heart that, unfortunately for Newt, he would not be the speaker.”

And Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), while saying he will vote for Gingrich if that is his only choice, continued to call for the speaker to temporarily step aside until the ethics controversy is resolved.

“Our agenda is too important to let any one man or any one person get in the way, and so I’m asking him, at least for a time, to step down and consider that as an honorable thing to do,” Salmon said on “This Week.”

Salmon said he spoke with Gingrich on Friday to make the case for a caretaker speaker. In that conversation, according to Salmon, the possibility that Gingrich may step aside--either before or shortly after the election--was discussed.

“He said he was keeping his options open, and that still might be a possibility,” Salmon said. He quoted the speaker as saying: “I understand totally where you’re coming from, Matt, and frankly, I don’t necessarily disagree out of pocket with what you’re saying.”

Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s spokesman, attempted to kill that idea before it gained any credibility. He called Associated Press to say the speaker will stand for reelection Tuesday and has “no plans to step aside.”

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For their part, Democrats on Sunday pressed their case that Gingrich’s future is clouded, regardless of the outcome of the speakership vote.

Frost was asked if Gingrich would be speaker at the end of this session. “I think there’s a very good chance he will not be,” he replied.

That comment drew a sharp rebuke from Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), who appeared on “This Week” with Frost. “No! No!” he said. “That’s just not true. Democrats . . . didn’t win control of the House [in the November elections]. Now they want to take control of who’s going to be the speaker. We’ve accomplished much on a bipartisan basis last year, and we’re not going to let this get in our way in this Congress either.”