House minority leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) welcomes new House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) after handing him his official gavel. (Nancy Andrews — The Post) Related Links Full Coverage: Clinton Accused Impeachment Guide Text of Hastert's speech to Congress Key Stories: New GOP Leadership Today in Congress

By Guy Gugliotta and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 7, 1999; Page A9

Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the new speaker of the House, began his tenure yesterday by accepting the gavel and then handing it back to Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) in a simple gesture of bipartisan solidarity before his inaugural speech.

Hastert condemned the "turbulent days behind us" and "the personal attacks." He decried the rancor engendered among those who "have felt slighted, insulted or ignored." Such behavior "is wrong," he said, and "that will change."

Then he paused:

"So where do we go from here?" he asked.

It was an apt question for the opening of the 106th Congress, where the ordinary and extraordinary combined to create an ominous mood on Capitol Hill.

The Republican-controlled House convened following a tumultuous two months in which President Clinton was impeached and one speaker was lost along the way, then a second lost before he even had a chance to take the gavel. The Senate was still looking for a way to hold an impeachment trial and exit the Clinton mess on a quick, bipartisan note, but it was finding heavy going.

As the day opened, the effects of the scandal on Congress were everywhere visible. The House was like the morning after a very ugly party. Members walked carefully, spoke in soft voices, said nice things to each other.

The dinosaur skeleton was gone from the office of former speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), still empty before Hastert moves in. Gingrich, forced to quit when the GOP suffered a net loss of five House seats in November's elections, mailed in his resignation yesterday morning and had it read into the Congressional Record. Later in the day, the House would soften the gift ban he helped install, allowing lawmakers to accept meals and presents valued at less than $50, and accept up to $100 in gifts per source per year.

There was some nostalgia when Republicans compared the euphoria of 1995 with yesterday. Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.), a member of the class of 1994, recalled how it seemed "like a festival" when he was sworn in four years ago. "[Today] is just strangely quiet and subdued," he said. "Not grim, but almost."

Nobody talked about the past few months, when impeachment had put Republicans and Democrats at each other's throats for months. Everyone promised to behave better. "If Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire could figure it out, so can we," said Gephardt.

On the House floor, California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra's three little girls twitched and squirmed in their party dresses. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) pledged allegiance to the flag with his right hand over his heart and his left hand cradling his 2½-month-old son, William Charles.

Hastert, a quiet bear of a man, won election as speaker by a vote of 220 to 205 with two abstentions (himself and Gephardt). He spoke for 17 minutes, never mentioned the "i" word, and though relatively few Democrats knew him well, pledged to meet them "halfway – maybe more so on occasion."

He talked about his priorities: Social Security and health care reform; education; tax reform; strong armed forces. All of these except military spending inspire fierce partisan differences, but Hastert was careful to skirt the hard edges and focus on areas where both parties could agree.

Hastert invited Clinton to present a Social Security reform plan: "He has my assurance it will be taken seriously." He didn't mention tax cuts, simply the need "to put a microscope to the ways the government takes money from our fellow citizens and how it spends it."

The speech played well. "It was an attempt to be less warlike and more civil," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). "The real question will come a few weeks later."

Actually, the real question came only a few hours later when it was time to reappoint the House "managers" who will prosecute the impeachment case against Clinton in the Senate trial. After a vitriolic rehash of last year's arguments, the House reconfirmed the managers on a nearly party-line vote of 223 to 198.

Over in the Senate, people were still treating each other with civility, and there were numerous back-and-forth contacts on the impeachment trial between Republicans and Democrats, a virtually unheard of occurrence when the House was wrestling with the issue.

Still, the two parties began the day forted up in Capitol meeting rooms about 100 feet from one another like rival clans, caucusing about impeachment and ready, it seemed, for hostilities to begin.

"We have to bring dignity to the impeachment process," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) told a mob of reporters.

But unlike the House, where news tends to come in thunderclaps, the Senate is more like a sporadic drizzle: "We're trying to figure out where to put the cots," wise-cracked Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), who knew nothing of use at 10:30 a.m.

A little before 11:30 a.m., a smiling Vice President Gore wished everybody "Happy New Year!" on his way into the chamber to serve as Senate president and swear in new, and newly reelected, members.

This was accomplished without fanfare, with family and friends looking on from galleries high above the chamber. Unlike the House, children and spouses are not allowed to schmooze and frolic on the Senate floor.

A bunch of housekeeping resolutions were passed, then the Senate started a roll call, which is what always happens when nothing is going on. Then Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) appeared: "If we simply apply some common sense, we will find common ground, and the result will be the common good."

Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) followed, expressing optimism that there could be a bipartisan agreement on trial procedure, and complaining that he had been "accused of being holed up in my hometown of Pascagoula, Miss.," when in fact he had been "talking with my colleagues" to see if an agreement could be reached.

The afternoon passed without event, and members on both sides of the Capitol fielded questions on their backgrounds: No, said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), she saw no problem sitting as a juror even though her daughter is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother. And no, said Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), an impeachment manager, he saw no reason why brother Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) should recuse himself.

Newly elected Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he was hoping for better than the endless donnybrook that marked the House debate. He added that in the Senate, "there is less anger and more sorrow."

Staff writers Helen Dewar and Terry M. Neal contributed to this report.