Matters Resolved And Unresolved

By Senior Washington Correspondent
Charles Bierbauer/CNN

WASHINGTON (Jan. 3) -- Does anyone make serious New Year's resolutions any more? Newt Gingrich?

I RESOLVE NEVER TO ENTER A COLLEGE CLASSROOM WITHOUT CONSULTING MY TAX LAWYER FIRST.

Had Gingrich done that four years ago, the Speaker of the House might not be faced with charges of ethics violations. The House might not be starting its new legislative session riven with politics riveted on the Republican Speaker.

This threatens to embroil the House through the first month of the 105th Congress, if not longer.

VOTE FOR ME NOW AND CHASTISE ME LATER.

It might as well be Gingrich's campaign slogan. On Tuesday the House is set to elect its Speaker for the next two years. On Wednesday the House Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics) Committee begins hearings to mete out the punishment for Gingrich's admitted transgressions. It could be as little as a reprimand -- the likely slap on the wrist -- as much as censure -- though expulsion seems highly unlikely since half the committee is Republican.

What's he done?

"I teach a course for free. I have a Ph.D. in European history," Gingrich complains of those who suggest his course -- Renewing American Civilization -- had political purpose. "It has a philosophical and intellectual view. It does not have a partisan view."

PARTISAN IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. IN SOME CASES THE BEHOLDER IS BIPARTISAN.

"In letters sent by GOPAC, a partisan political role for the course was described," the Republican and Democratic members of the Ethics subcommittee concluded in their summary report released just before Christmas. GOPAC is the political action committee Gingrich headed for nearly a decade until early 1995 when he assumed the Speaker's job following the Republican sweep to a Congressional majority.

"If we can reach Americans through my course ... we just might unseat the Democratic majority in the House in 1994," Gingrich wrote in one letter to GOPAC supporters. And they did.

YOU CAN GET MORE ACCOMPLISHED IF YOU DON'T CARE WHO GETS THE CREDIT.

Well, that's what it said on a little sign Ronald Reagan kept on his Oval Office desk.

You could get credit for the course Gingrich taught at Kennesaw State College in his Georgia district in 1993 and some 20 or so miles up the road at Reinhardt College in 1994 and 1995. You could also audit the course on satellite television and cable or by videotape.

But credit was not what the course was about. And Gingrich's demurral that his teaching referred to Reagan and FDR, to Lincoln and Washington, has not persuaded the ethics subcommittee -- Gingrich's peers in the House -- that this was about political neutrality.

The course was "the primary means for developing and disseminating" Gingrich's idea of "Renewing American Civilization." And that theme was "the main message of virtually every political and campaign speech made by Mr. Gingrich in 1993 and 1994," the subcommittee reported.

So what?

TO BE OR NOT TO BE A 501 (c) (3).

The problem is not with what Gingrich said. He is, after all, a politician. The problem is where he said it and who paid for it.

The course was funded through contributions first to the Kennesaw State College Foundation and then through the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank that was an outgrowth of GOPAC.

Here's the catch. The foundations were established as tax-exempt organizations under section 501 (c) (3) of the tax code. But a 501 (c) (3) organization may "not participate in ... any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

The ethics subcommittee has not concluded that Gingrich set out to violate the tax laws. But it did conclude that the activities surrounding the college course "were intended to confer more than insubstantial benefits on Mr. Gingrich, GOPAC, and other Republican entities and candidates."

HINDSIGHT IS 20/20; THE ODDS ON FORESIGHT ARE MUCH WORSE.

"Both the Subcommittee's expert and Mr. Gingrich's tax counsel agree that had they been consulted about this type of activity prior to its taking place, they would have advised that it not be conducted under the auspices of an organization exempt from taxation," the report states now.

Gingrich is chastised for "failing to seek and follow the legal advice" and for providing the committee over the past two years with information which "as Mr. Gingrich should have known, was inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable." That violates House rules.

WHEN CAUGHT RED-HANDED, DON'T PUT ON BOXING GLOVES.

"I, Newt Gingrich, admit to the Statement of Alleged Violation dated December 21, 1996."

Gingrich copped a plea to avoid an even lengthier and potentially more damaging public hearing. He's betting the Republicans, with perhaps a few silent abstentions, will hew to the party whip and re-elect him and the full ethics committee will seek to exact no worse from a sitting Speaker than it has from any previously who has tripped over the fine print or his own ambition.

The betting on Gingrich is that he'll squeak by and be chosen by the Republican majority for a second term as Speaker. Democrats will vote for Minority Leader Dick Gephardt.

But what kind of Speaker?

Gingrich himself has said that where the 104th Congress was fueled by revolution, the 105th should run on implementation.

That requires cooperation and compromise among the Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and the Clinton White House. But the first water being drawn from the wishing well of 1997 is already poisoned by political accusations. Democrats demand a tainted Gingrich resign for besmirching the House. Republicans countercharge the Clintonites have done worse in their political fund-raising.

WE HAVE DONE THOSE THINGS WE OUGHT NOT TO HAVE DONE AND LEFT UNDONE THOSE THINGS WE OUGHT TO HAVE DONE.

So says my old Episcopal book of Common Prayer. Among the promises of Newt Gingrich and all the politicians there is much left undone -- balancing the budget, preserving Medicare, creating jobs for those who seek to escape welfare, stimulating the nation's educational system, perhaps even cutting taxes.

What good are resolutions if there is no resolve?