Tom Foley, Speaker of the House 1989-1995, died today.
Foley was enormously popular within the House during the 1980s, at least among Democrats, as he moved from Ag Committee Chair to Whip to Majority Leader to Speaker. He was an excellent Member of Congress, and as far as I know was quite effective at those jobs.
As Speaker, he acquired a reputation of being more liked than effective, and I think that was generally fair. The rise of Newt Gingrich wasn't his fault; if anything, he at least slightly opened up opportunities for the minority party in the House to participate meaningfully. And moving power back from the Speaker's office to the committees was good. Still, however, the general sense was that he didn't co-ordinate the Democratic majority as well as he should have.
(I was a young'n House staffer when Foley was Whip, and I can definitely attest to his reputation on the Hill at that point; I met Foley after he had left office, and I found him both a very nice man and very generous with his willingness to talk to grad students as if we were real people.)
Whatever his problems as Speaker, Foley deserves to be remembered as a patriot who worked hard to make his nation better as he saw it. US political culture, alas, undervalues Congress in general and important Congressional leaders in particular. Foley was an excellent Member of the House for many years; that's actually a big deal, and worth celebrating.
Friday, October 18, 2013
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US political culture, alas, undervalues Congress in general and important Congressional leaders in particular
ReplyDeleteEg The fact that there were years in which Sarah Palin was treated as a more important figure than Nancy Pelosi.
Whatever his problems as Speaker, Foley deserves to be remembered as a patriot who worked hard to make his nation better as he saw it.
ReplyDeleteOh, if only we could have a Speaker like that again.
[sigh]
The interesting thing is that he was able to get re-elected all those decades from a basically Republican district. That would not be possible nowadays (and of course was already impossible in 1994). Similarly with a lot of Republicans who kept getting re-elected from basically Democratic districts.
ReplyDeleteYou were a House staffer?!
ReplyDeleteI to am very interested in this story and would like some elaboration. For example, did they let you listen to Husker Du in the Capitol? Did you ever play "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely" really loud in the office one night while burning the midnight oil? Where DC people really that obsessed with Tom Clancy novels back in the 80's? Does Dick Gephardt's hair actually look exactly the same every single day, or is that just a trick of all those campaign photos? And of course to what degree did Reagan actually dye his hair?
DeleteHey, some of that has to wait for the memoir. Although I'll note generally that playing music in one's office was a much more complicated affair back then.
DeleteI worked on the Hill right out of college, before going to grad school. On the House side in 1985-1986, and then on the Senate side in 1987-1989.