Gingrich, Newt, 1943-

<p>Newton Leroy Gingrich (born June 17, 1943) is an American politician, author, and historian who served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 6th congressional district serving north Atlanta and nearby areas from 1979 until his resignation in 1999. In 2012, Gingrich was a candidate for the presidential nomination of his party.</p>

<p>A professor of history and geography at the University of West Georgia in the 1970s, Gingrich won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1978, the first Republican in the history of Georgia's 6th congressional district to do so. He served as House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995. A co-author and architect of the "Contract with America", Gingrich was a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional election. In 1995, Time named him "Man of the Year" for "his role in ending the four-decades-long Democratic majority in the House".</p>

<p>As House Speaker, Gingrich oversaw passage by the House of welfare reform and a capital gains tax cut in 1997. Gingrich played a key role in several government shutdowns, and impeached President Clinton on a party-line vote in the House. The poor showing by Republicans in the 1998 Congressional elections, a reprimand from the House for Gingrich's ethics violation, pressure from Republican colleagues, and revelations of an extramarital affair with a congressional employee 23 years his junior resulted in Gingrich's resignation from the speakership on November 6, 1998. He resigned altogether from the House on January 3, 1999.</p>

<p>Political scientists have credited Gingrich with playing a key role in undermining political decorum in the United States, and hastening political polarization and partisanship.</p>

<p>Since leaving the House, Gingrich has remained active in public policy debates and worked as a political consultant. He founded and chaired several policy think tanks, including American Solutions for Winning the Future and the Center for Health Transformation. He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential election, but ultimately endorsed front runner Mitt Romney, who won the nomination.</p>

<p>Newt Gingrich, in full Newton Leroy Gingrich, original name Newton Leroy McPherson, (born June 17, 1943, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.), American politician, who served as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1995–98); he was the first Republican to hold the office in 40 years. He later sought the party’s nomination for president in 2012.</p>

<p>His parents divorced, and he later took the surname of his mother’s second husband. After graduating from Emory University (1965), Gingrich studied modern European history at Tulane University (M.A., 1968; Ph.D., 1971) and taught at West Georgia College (1970–78). After unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Congress in 1974 and 1976, he won a seat from a district outside Atlanta in 1978. Gingrich quickly became known for his confrontational manner and conservative policies. In 1987 he attacked Speaker of the House Jim Wright for questionable financial dealings; the charges forced Wright to resign in 1989. That same year, Gingrich was narrowly elected House minority whip by his Republican colleagues with a vote of 87–85.</p>

<p>Aided by President Bill Clinton’s unpopularity, the Republican Party gained control of Congress following the 1994 midterm elections. Gingrich was seen as the architect of the victory, especially noted for helping draft the “Contract with America,” a document outlining legislation to be enacted by the House within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress. Among the proposals were tax cuts, a permanent line-item veto, and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. In December 1994 Gingrich was chosen by the majority Republicans as House speaker, and he assumed the office the following month. With one exception, all parts of the “Contract with America” were passed by the House.</p>

<p>Shortly after becoming speaker, however, Gingrich’s popularity began to wane. In late 1995 he was widely blamed for partial government shutdowns after refusing to compromise with President Clinton on the federal budget. He also faced a series of ethics investigations. In 1995 he returned a $4.5 million book advance after the House ethics committee questioned its appropriateness. The following year an investigative subcommittee found that, in connection with a college course he taught from 1993 to 1995, Gingrich had failed to seek legal advice concerning tax-exempt donations used to fund the class and that he had inaccurately denied the involvement of GOPAC, a political action committee that he once headed, in the course’s development. Based on these findings, the ethics committee concluded that he had violated House rules, and in January 1997 the House of Representatives voted to accept the committee’s recommendation that Gingrich be reprimanded for providing false information to the committee and that he pay $300,000, an amount that the committee characterized as partial reimbursement for its investigation. Amid the controversies, which resulted in Gingrich becoming the first speaker in the House’s history to be given a formal reprimand for ethics violations, he was narrowly reelected to the position in early 1997.</p>

<p>In January 1998, reports surfaced alleging that Clinton had lied before a federal grand jury concerning his involvement in an extramarital affair with a former White House intern. Gingrich backed a bid to impeach and remove the president from office. Many voters concluded that the House had overreached in its attack on Clinton, and the Republicans lost five seats to Democrats in the 1998 midterm elections. Following the election, there was a backlash against Gingrich within the Republican Party, with numerous Republicans blaming him for failing to present a clear and innovative agenda to the country and instead choosing to focus party strategy upon the impeachment proceedings against a highly popular president. Faced with dwindling support, Gingrich stepped down as speaker of the House in November 1998, and in January 1999 he resigned his seat in Congress.</p>

<p>Gingrich remained involved in politics, serving as a consultant and as a television commentator on the Fox News Channel. In 2007 he founded American Solutions for Winning the Future, a public policy organization. Amid speculation that he would run for president in 2012, Fox terminated his contract in May 2011. Shortly thereafter Gingrich announced his candidacy. Gingrich’s campaign was almost over before it began, however, when many of his senior advisers resigned en masse in June 2011. Strong performances in a series of televised debates helped him regain his stride, and, by December, national polls of Republicans were showing Gingrich and Mitt Romney as the party’s leading candidates. Gingrich’s subsequent performances over the early months of 2012 were uneven: he won contests in South Carolina and Georgia and finished second in Florida, Nevada, Alabama, and Mississippi, but he placed no higher than third in some 20 other state primaries and caucuses held between January and March. By late March, Gingrich’s campaign acknowledged that he would be unable to win enough delegates to secure the nomination before the Republican National Convention in August. Gingrich subsequently reduced his staff and scaled back his public appearances, though he vowed to stay in the race. In early May, however, he suspended his campaign.</p>

<p>Gingrich continued to maintain a high media profile, however, and in September 2013 he began cohosting the political debate show Crossfire on CNN. The show was cancelled the following year, but he remained at CNN as a commentator until 2015, when he rejoined Fox News. In 2016 Gingrich served as an informal adviser on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and was a vocal supporter of the candidate.</p>

<p>A prolific author, Gingrich contributed articles to numerous publications and penned such books as Lessons Learned the Hard Way (1998), Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America (2005), Rediscovering God in America (2006), To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine (2010), Understanding Trump (2017), and Trump vs. China: Facing America’s Greatest Threat (2019). He also cowrote international thrillers and alternative history series on the Civil War and World War II.</p>

<p>GINGRICH, NEWTON LEROY, a Representative from Georgia; born in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pa., June 17, 1943; attended school at various military installations; graduated from Baker High School, Columbus, Ga., 1961; B.A., Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., 1965; M.A., Tulane University, New Orleans, La., 1968; Ph.D., Tulane University, New Orleans, La., 1971; teacher, West Georgia College, Carrollton, Ga., 1970-1978; elected as a Republican to the Ninety-sixth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1979-January 3, 1999); reprimanded by the U.S. House of Representatives on January 21, 1997, for allowing a Member-affiliated tax-exempt organization to be used for political purposes and for providing inaccurate information to the Ethics Committee; minority whip (One Hundred First through One Hundred Third Congresses); Speaker of the House (One Hundred Fourth and One Hundred Fifth Congresses); reelected to the One Hundred Sixth Congress but did not take his seat; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2012.</p>