EVERY Tuesday, the House Republican leadership gathers around a long table in Newt Gingrich’s suite of offices for a meandering demonstration of the dysfunction of the 105th Congress. In response to complaints about centralized decision-making in the last Congress, leadership meetings have been opened up to 23 members. At the first expanded meeting, strategy memos were distributed around the table-and promptly leaked to the press. Now nothing is ever committed to paper. Discussions of abortion must be less than candid, given the presence of the pro-choice Jim Greenwood (Pa.) at the table. Conservative David McIntosh (Ind.), meanwhile, participates in decisions like the one recently to extend the airline-ticket tax that he can’t in good conscience support.
These gatherings are less leadership meetings than representative samples of 10 per cent of the Republican conference. Bill Paxon (N.Y.), not an elected member of the leadership but a rising star tapped by Gingrich to lead the meetings, tries to direct the discussions, in which many of the participants perform as if they were giving speeches on the House floor. Besides the seven elected members of the leadership-Speaker, Majority Leader, etc.-the meetings are attended by six committee chairmen, two representatives of the sophomore class, and one of the freshman class. Mike Crapo (Idaho), who started attending meetings four years ago as the representative of his freshman class, still attends today. Ernest Istook (Okla.) and Jim Greenwood represent the conservative and moderate factions of the conference respectively, holding temporary three-month leadership chairs that rotate-just as on the McLaughlin Group.
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