HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH believes ideas have consequences. During the 104th Congress he sought to use the bully pulpit of the speakership to “set the intellectual framework” of political discourse in America. Now this former history professor has made history. To Gingrich goes much of the credit for the first reelection of a House Republican majority since 1928, along with the credit and blame for the successes and failures of the 104th Congress. For that reason we may want to take seriously his Ideas.

In the speaker’s thought, one hears clear echoes of the Anti-Federalist critique of the Constitution 200 years ago. The Anti-Federalists were suspicious of executive power and skeptical of the magisterial tendencies of the presidency (“This Constitution squints toward monarchy,” in Patrick Henry’s phrase). They were the legislative supremacists of their day, though they were wary enough of the aristocratic proclivities of the Senate. Gingrich similarly sought to institute “congressional government” during the 104th Congress, with the House as its center of gravity. And the very idea of a Contract With America echoes the Anti-Federalist call for accountability in government. The Anti-Federalists wanted “citizen legislators,” not career politicians; they favored “rotation” in office, the functional equivalent of term limits.