Shortly after Bob Livingston started campaigning for speaker eight months ago, he was asked to explain the differences between him and his likely opponent, Dick Armey. He replied by telling a story about their approaches to fishing. “Dick likes to catch and release,” said Livingston, “and I like to catch’em and eat ’em.”
As things have turned out, Armey isn’t running for speaker. But the story is a fair indication of how Livingston, set to become the next speaker of the House, will tolerate half-hearted Republicans: He won’t. And that’s significant, because the most important challenge facing Livingston in the next Congress is not fiscal discipline, or impeachment, or checking his tremendous temper. The real challenge, given the GOP’s slender House majority, is much simpler: Can he convince his Republican colleagues to stick together on anything?
Across the aisle, Richard Gephardt is predicting “a unified Democratic party that can work with moderate Republicans and get a lot of things done. I don’t see it’s going to be very easy for Bob Livingston.” Indeed, the election results have emboldened not only the White House, but also congressional Democrats. They’re renewing their efforts to pass bills regulating HMOs, curtailing campaign spending, and hiking tobacco taxes. Livingston’s task is building enough support to stop these bills and others from getting through the House, and doing it without looking obstructionist or rewarding Democrats during the presidential season.
Livingston’s mandate, in other words, is narrow. Four years ago, Newt Gingrich may have talked about transforming civilization, but his successor will be a glorified party whip, counting heads and cajoling Republicans to toe the party line. Livingston, a conservative technocrat, is better suited to the role of disciplinarian-in-chief than Gingrich. He’s also better suited than Gingrich to lead a party that cares more about what happens in the coming week than in the coming millennium.
Livingston’s coronation has been overshadowed by Gingrich’s impending departure, yet his accession is the most dramatic evidence yet that in four years the GOP has turned from insurgency to incrementalism. In a caucus dominated by members elected in the past four years, he’s been in the House for over two decades. Even more revealing is that the committee Livingston has chaired since the Republicans won their congressional majorities — Appropriations — has traditionally been the province of big spenders. As such, it’s the bete noire of fiscal conservatives (he’s the first Appropriations chairman to become speaker since 1881).
In elevating Livingston, Republicans are handing the reins of power to someone whose sole mission was to fund the government. And while his outlook is clearly conservative, he’s not the slasher Gingrich was. He makes distinctly unrevolutionary statements like, “My job is getting bills passed,” and he gets along with Democrats. Gephardt called him “a nice, friendly person” last week, and he’s had a civil relationship with David Obey, the moody senior Democrat on Appropriations. Moderate Republicans like him — he has a portrait of the late Silvio Conte, a long-time GOP liberal from Massachusetts, in his Capitol office — yet even they have worries about his background. “My biggest concern is that [Bob] will be willing to spend more rather than less,” says Chris Shays, the House GOP’s most influential moderate.
Indeed, the rap on Livingston, in addition to his being a spendthrift, is that he gives process precedence over policy. A few hours before announcing his candidacy for speaker, he sent Gingrich 15 demands designed to boost his authority as Appropriations chairman. It looked like a naked power grab, though it was also a reflection of Livingston’s distaste for legislative chaos. Over his years as chairman, he sparred with conservatives who tried to tack abortion-related and other riders onto appropriations bills. Right-wingers who live by the maxim “personnel is policy” were similarly aghast when, on grounds of institutional expertise, he retained many of the Appropriations Committee’s long-time Democratic staffers after the 1994 election. Livingston’s top staffer at Appropriations, Jim Dyer, has a reputation for shafting conservatives, but early indications are that the top job in the speaker’s office will go to Allen Martin, a long-time aide to Livingston and a trusted figure on the right.
For all the concerns about Livingston, he’s received quite an endorsement from his Republican colleagues, not one of whom is running against him for speaker in the GOP’s November 18 leadership elections. There was never even talk of Armey’s getting into the race, and Chris Cox withdrew in less than 72 hours. Livingston is drawing support from all sides: junior conservatives like Matt Salmon, old-bull appropriators like Ron Packard, and outspoken moderates like Mike Forbes. How does he maintain this balancing act? “Bob has a basic conservative ideology,” says congressman Pete King, a New York Republican, “from which he will wheel and deal.”
Livingston would have faced a serious conservative challenge if the climate among Republicans today were the same as it was four years ago. But it’s not. After November 3, there’s a grudging recognition among House conservatives that few of their goals are going to be realized this term and that the best they can hope for is to limit the damage. The low expectations benefit Livingston, as does the desire for unity. Last week, I asked one House Republican if he had any reservations about the next speaker. This member, never shy about criticizing GOP leaders, said he was going to keep his concerns to himself.
The goodwill won’t last forever, but Livingston is already enjoying a honeymoon; his lack of an opponent indicates House Republicans are willing to put aside their differences for now and unite to foster a climate advantageous to them and their party’s presidential nominee in 2000. One reason Livingston was unopposed is that he’s been campaigning for the speaker’s job since March, when it looked like Gingrich would be leaving sometime in 1999 to run for president. Many months of schmoozing your colleagues everywhere from the cloakroom to the men’s room, and dishing out nearly $ 2 million in campaign funds, can do wonders for your popularity.
All of this is a dramatic turnaround for the 55-year-old Louisianan, who in February was on the verge of announcing he wouldn’t run for reelection. He changed his mind after urging from constituents and the decision by Rep. Bill Paxon, another potential candidate for speaker, not to seek another term.
It’s easy to see why Livingston wanted to get out. Having first won a special election in 1977 — the incumbent was ousted for voter fraud — he’s often complained about the financial strain of raising a family on a congressman’s salary. His family tree includes a drafter of the Declaration of Independence and Andrew Jackson’s secretary of state, but it didn’t bring him any money. For his first 17 years in the House, he toiled in obscurity, devoting his energies to the contras and the anti-abortion cause. But unlike other Louisiana politicians, he didn’t stand out: He wasn’t particularly colorful, wasn’t corrupt, and didn’t even have a southern accent. When the GOP won its House majority in 1994, he launched a surprise bid to chair the GOP caucus — the number-four position in the leadership — but withdrew when Gingrich offered him a post he couldn’t refuse: Appropriations Committee chairman (four more-senior committee Republicans were either in ethical trouble or deemed too moderate).
Livingston didn’t disappoint. Shortly after the election, he declared, “We are going to be revolutionary. This is not patty-cake. . . . This is serious. We’re going at their throats.” He appeared at the committee’s first meeting with a six-inch Cajun scalpel — a knife traditionally used to skin alligators — and said he intended to use it on the budget.
By the time Congress adjourned in 1996, Livingston had overseen a $ 53 billion reduction in federal spending and downsized or eliminated hundreds of federal programs. (In his book Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Gingrich described Livingston’s appropriations work as “one of the unsung feats of heroism in the 1995-97 Congress.”) Democrats screamed about the cuts, yet the most nettlesome critics were six freshman conservatives. Their constant pressure for deeper spending cuts provoked intraparty tensions. One episode in particular highlights what can happen when a Republican dares to cross Livingston.
In 1995, Mark Neumann, a nerdy Wisconsin Republican, arrived in Washington obsessed with reducing the deficit. In reward for his narrow victory, he was given a seat on Appropriations. He responded by questioning Livingston’s commitment to spending cuts, and one day in the fall of ’95 he announced that he was going to vote against a defense-appropriation bill, an unusual move for a freshman member of the committee. When a lobbyist told him he wouldn’t be contributing any money to Neumann’s campaign, the congressman stopped by Livingston’s Capitol quarters and asked whether the chairman had been behind the threat. Livingston blew his top: “Get the f — out of my office!” he repeatedly screamed at Neumann so loud that it drew the attention of the Capitol police.
The dispute didn’t end there. Livingston was so angry he announced he was reassigning Neumann to a less influential subcommittee. Freshman Republicans revolted, but Livingston said if his decision were reversed he would quit as chairman. In a compromise worked out with Gingrich, Neumann was removed from Appropriations altogether and given a slot on the Budget Committee.
The episode raises the question of whether Livingston is temperamentally suited for the high-stress job of speaker. While his everyday manner is genial, a survey of congressional staff a few years ago cited him for the third-worst temper on Capitol Hill. He’s also thin-skinned about his track record as Appropriations chairman. When Stephen Moore, a budget analyst at the Cato Institute, wrote a paper last year on the GOP’s failure to cut spending, Livingston distributed to every member of the House a two-page letter challenging Moore’s assertions. Some saw this as overreacting, but those who know Livingston say it was typical. Obey, the fiery Democrat on Appropriations, has said Livingston makes him “look like a pussycat; he’s a door-slammer, a furniture-thrower, a chest-poker.” But, says Obey, “like me, he’s over it in five minutes and apologizing.” Livingston says he’s learned to control his temper and doesn’t hold grudges. That’s good: Building party unity will be critical, but forgiveness is a prerequisite for managing a group as unruly as House Republicans.
One reason to suspect Livingston will be better at uniting the party than Gingrich is that he’s much more reliable. Gingrich was notorious for telling his colleagues to do X, then a few hours later advocating Y. Staffers joked about all the management techniques Gingrich said Republicans should follow but himself violated daily. Livingston is known as a straight-shooter who doesn’t make promises he can’t keep. He also plans to travel less than the peripatetic Gingrich, calling himself “more of a stay-home type of speaker.” The traits they share are a passion for military history and a soft spot for big-think writers: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is one of Livingston’s favorite books.
In the long term, Livingston is unlikely to develop much stature as speaker. There will be little legislative activity in the next two years, and after the 2000 election, the environment is likely to be dramatically different. If a Republican takes the White House, Livingston’s job will be pushing through the president’s agenda. And if the president is a Democrat, the House majority is likely to be Democratic, in which case Livingston won’t be speaker and will probably flee Washington.
Livingston, in other words, has only two real responsibilities for the next two years: build enough party unity to prevent Democratic measures from passing, and create a climate beneficial to the Republican presidential nominee in 2000. He told me earlier this year that his goal, if elected speaker, would be to run the House so as to guarantee 40-60 years of GOP majorities. Achieving a majority beyond the next two years would be a good start.
Matthew Rees is a staff writer for The Weekly Standard.
