Second in line to the presidency after the vicepresident, the Speaker is chosen by the majority party in the House of Representatives. All the people who have held this position have wielded considerable power, but particularly so if they have belonged to the party not currently occupying the presidency When this is not the case, then the Speaker has generally been overshadowed, having the purpose mainly to ensure that the president’s legislative program is passed through the House. In such a case, the Speaker is judged merely according to success in this endeavor.

Sam Rayburn provided the exception to this rule. Rayburn, a Texas Democrat, was Speaker during the Kennedy administration and, along with most Southern Democrats, opposed much of the northerner’s “New Frontier” agenda. When fellow Texan, Lyndon Johnson became president following the Kennedy assassination, however, Rayburn’s role was reduced to that of an assistant to Johnson in the passage of his “Great Society” legislation.

William “Tip” O’Neill, as Speaker during the Reagan administration, was highly visible as Democrats negotiated with the presidency over which elements of “Reagonomics” and the rollback of the welfare state to pass through Congress. This power and visibility were curtailed considerably however, by Reagan’s 1984 landslide reelection victory over Mondale.

Newt Gingrich succeeded in giving the position of Speaker perhaps the greatest visibility it has received. Only two years after the election of Clinton on a platform of “change,” Gingrich trumped him in the 1994 elections by demanding more change still.

Announcing his “Contract with America,” Gingrich pushed for tax cuts and an end to big government. The Republican Party’s astounding victory giving the Grand Old Party control of both Houses, placed Gingrich in the unusual position of dictating policy to a presidency that had lost control of its legislative agenda.

Gingrich’s ability to inspire great hostility among those who were not in his faction of the Party made his ascendancy relatively short-lived. Miscalculations leading to the 1995 shut-down of government over the budget, which greatly reduced Gingrich’s popularity and increased Clinton’s, began to provide room for congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans to begin to oppose the Speaker. When ethics violations were unearthed that appeared to far outweigh the magnitude of those that had caused the downfall of Democrat Jim Wright (and for which Gingrich would be fined $300,000), the Speaker’s claims to being a new style of politician were destroyed. An attempted Republican coup in 1998 failed, but following the surprise setbacks in the November elections of that year Gingrich resigned.

Another power struggle ensued within the Grand Old Party which saw the rise and fall of Bob Livingstone, who was forced to step down because of claims of marital infidelity (which didn’t look good for the Party endeavoring to impeach the president for acts arising out of extra-marital liaisons). Into the vacuum left by Livingstone moved ex-House Deputy Majority Whip J. Dennis Hastert, whose main appeal was that, in contrast to Gingrich, he was offensive to none.