The LA Times had an editorial today that touched on a subject I’ve been meaning to get to all week: Dennis Hastert is an awful Speaker of the House. The Mark Foley sex scandal has clearly put Hastert’s leadership role in jeopardy, but the longest-serving Republican Speaker in American history demonstrated his inabilities long before we learned about the Foley fiasco.
Dennis Hastert should resign as speaker of the House of Representatives. Not necessarily because he failed to act quickly when shown evidence suggesting that Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) was abusing his power with teenagers — not all the details are known, though the ones that are don’t look good. No, the Illinois Republican should resign because he’s an unimaginative politician and an uninspired legislator. […]
Is [the Foley scandal] reason enough for Hastert to resign? Perhaps. But let’s give Hastert the benefit of the doubt, on the principle that it’s unfair to judge a man for a single mistake. Looking at his record only makes the case for his resignation stronger.
As far as the LAT is concerned, Hastert’s record is rather embarrassing. Under his leadership, the House has dramatically increased government spending, while Hastert praises himself for “holding the line on spending.” Corruption has flourished. The House has “become a rubber stamp for the Bush administration’s expansion of executive-branch power.”
I’d actually go much further.
Under Hastert, the House has simply stopped functioning. Required spending bills aren’t passed. There is no budget. Administrative oversight, one of the reasons the House exists as an institution, is off the table. Hastert unveils various proposals to great fanfare (remember lobbying reform?), but the ideas are quickly discarded. Even when the House successfully gets what it wants through legislation, it manages to screw it up in implementation. I’d take Hastert to task on a daily basis if he was pushing awful bills through the chamber, but at least that would demonstrate some ability to govern. This guy can’t even do that.
Procedurally, the House can’t even hold simple floor votes anymore without twisting, and often ignoring, the rules of the chamber. The Ethics Committee doesn’t work. Conference committees don’t work. The House was in session fewer days this year than any in six decades. Partisan acrimony is as bad as it’s been anytime this century.
The only reason there’s no real public clamoring for Hastert’s ouster is that most of the country has no idea who he is.
To be sure, Hastert’s role in the Foley scandal has been awful. Not only did he ignore the controversy when he should have acted, but over the last week, he’s lied, dissembled, crafted ridiculous conspiracy theories, and passed the buck as frequently as humanly possible.
But to think Hastert has been an otherwise fine leader is demonstrably silly. If House Republicans took governing seriously, Hastert would have been gone years ago.