"If Newt scares the pants off progressives, in some ways Livingston is worse."

Livingston is a saint in public and distances himself from GOP party weirdoes like American Nazi David Duke. The only problem is that Duke is from Livingston's own district which is 86% white in the New Orleans suburbs. Duke planned to run for Livingston's seat when Livingston announced he might retire next term. Now, we must give credit to Livingston on his handling of Duke's aspirations -- Livingston swore he would use his personal and campaign funds to make certain that Nazi Dave didn't make it into Congress -- knowing full well that this might have backfired. Duke -- get this -- won 60% of the vote in Livingston's First Congressional District in his 1991 Governor's bid. These are the men and women Livingston represents -- and is responsible to.

Livingston, in behavior antithetical to that of Gingrich, arranged a bipartisan retreat in Pennsylvania in order to bolster "getting along." Conniff quotes Livingston saying, "I think we can disagree without being disagreeable... We can do better as far as respecting the office. There has been too much denigration of this job by us collectively. We ought not to be ashamed of being members of Congress."

The frightening thing just might be that Livingston, despite his hawkish right-wingedness, impresses Democrat members of the House, many of whom trust him far more than they ever trusted Newt.

Remember, Livingston is currently the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. This is the Committee responsible for spending about $1.5 trillion of your money. It hasn't been too long for anyone to remember that this committee did nothing within its constitutional responsibility to distribute these funds for next year -- it did not hold public hearings on the budget and allowed the soon-to-be-ex-Speaker to simply walk up to the White House with Trent Lott and cut a budget deal that Democrats and Republicans didn't like.

But Livingston, as Conniff points out, did plenty to the budget before it headed to 1600 Pennsylvania. He cut $50 billion from the budget, eliminating over 300 government programs -- aimed, of course, at the poor -- and then refused any cuts at all from the military appropriations, including those solid pork Lockheed Martin jumbo jets that the Pentagon did not want but that Gingrich and Livingston did in order to reward one of their most lucrative campaign contributors.

Livingston also wrote the federal "three strikes" law, which puts three-time convicted felons in prison for life without parole. This bill has resulted in federal prisons becoming so crowded that some prisons feature two-to-a-bunk sleeping as the government struggles to incarcerate more and more minorities for such "three strikes" as selling marijuana. While we support three strikes for crimes involving weapons, we wonder about a government that puts people in prison for the rest of their lives for lesser crimes.

Livingston is no friend of women. He expanded abortion restrictions on HMOs and simply stopped federal health programs from funding abortions. At the same time, he cut support for poor women who needed aid to support those babies. That makes real sense.

Livingston is also a union-buster and the co-sponsor of cynically named national "right to work" laws. While he's popping the unions he's taking care of his wealthier friends by trying to repeal the estate tax.

Livingston, in the back pocket of big Louisiana oil, is in favor of obliterating the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce.

Perhaps the scariest thing about Livingston is his relentless crusade against Congressional ethics. Over the last decade Livingston attacked the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) over and over again. The FEC is responsible to investigate violations of campaign finance laws. Under Livingston's watch the FEC has only a couple of investigators and fewer than 30 lawyers in its enforcement division. Livingston steadfastly refused to increase its funding. He knows that even with all the publicity surrounding White House funding practices, the GOP is in a far worse position with regard to campaign finance violations.

Conniff wrote, "Because it is chronically overworked and understaffed, the agency had to drop 204 cases in 1996 and 301 in 1997. That doesn't bother Livingston. 'I've just been singularly unimpressed with this organization for the longest time,' he says."

Livingston is the top House recipient of PAC contributions from Freeport McMoRan, a mining company based in New Orleans, which has been the target of protests for its links to the repressive and corrupt government of Indonesia.

Livingston went through the ceiling when the FEC conducted an audit of his campaign spending. In 1986, Livingston and other members of Congress put an end to that practice. "No one should have to go through that," he says.

In 1997 he launched the third investigation in three years into the agency's operations, tying up FEC's harried staff in the middle of a campaign season. Why? Because he was retaliating for high-profile ethics investigations of Republicans -- including Newt Gingrich, Bud Shuster, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, as well as Gingrich's political action committee, GOPAC, and the Christian Coalition -- investigations still not on the table as they well should be.

The largest PAC contributions Livingston received this season come from defense companies, including Textron, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, for a total of $70,000. And you wonder why he won't cut a nickel from the defense budget?

Conniff writes: "Last year, as co-chairman of the House Ethics Reform Task Force, Livingston helped rewrite the ethics rules for the House of Representatives. The result is a system that bars citizens and outside groups from independently filing ethics complaints against House members. Only another Representative may now file an ethics complaint. The House adopted the new rules in a largely partisan vote of 258-to-154 last September."

Need we say more?

Before Livingston, citizens could file complaints against congressman independently if three members of Congress refused to help. Now this rule is gone. Now citizens must get a member to sign on with them. That's nearly impossible.

If you wonder why you never hear about ethics cases filed against Republicans anymore, you can blame Livingston. I remind you that this man hails from Louisiana, which, behind Mississippi by about half an inch, is the most politically corrupt state in the union.

If you want to know why Bob Livingston will be the next Speaker just read the closing sentence of Ruth Conniff's story:

"Quietly, expertly, with aplomb, Livingston struck the great bipartisan compromises that led to $50 billion in cuts to social programs. He buried his colleagues' ethics violations and closed the ethics process to the public so Republicans and Democrats alike who have something to hide can sleep easier. With friends like that, who needs enemies? "

I couldn't have said it better.

-- - Mac MacArthur

Ruth Conniff is Washington Editor of

The Progressive