the opening day of the 114th congress. [gavels pounds] >> the house will be in order. mr. doorkeeper. >> they speaker elect, newt gingrich from georgia and the speaker fell committee. >>[applause]

>> [indiscernible] [laughter] >> ladies and gentlemen of the

house, i first want to thank my democratic colleagues for their support and their confidence. i noted we were a little short. but i appreciate your friendship and your support. as you might imagine, this is not a moment i had been waiting for. [laughter] when you carry the mantle of progress, there is precious little glory in defeat, but sometimes we spend so much timeline arising the winners and labeling the losers, we looked beside the victory we all share in this crown jewel of democracy . you see, mr. speaker this is a day to celebrate a power that belongs not to any political party, but to the people. no matter the margin, no matter the majority.

all across the world, from bosnia to chechnya to south africa, people lay down their lives for the kind of voice we take for granted. too often the transfer of power is an act of pain and carnage not one, as we see today, of peace and decency. that here in the house of representatives, for 219 years longer than any democracy in the world, we heed the people's voice with peace and stability and respect. each and every day, on this very floor, we at go the hopes and dreams of our people. their fears and their failures, their abiding belief in a better america.

we may not all agree with today's changing of the guard. we may not all like it. but we cannot the people's will with dignity and honor and pride . and in that endeavor, mr. speaker, there can be no losers and there can be no defeat. of course, in the 104th congress, there will be conflict and compromise, and agreements will not always be easy. agreement sometimes not even possible. but while we may not agree on matters of party and principle we all abide with the will of the people. that is reason enough to place our good faith and our best hopes in your able hands. i speak from the bottom of my heart when i say i wish you the best in these coming two years

for when this gavel passes into your hands so do the futures and fortunes of millions of americans to make real progress to improve real people's lives. we both have to rise above partisanship. we have to work together, where we can and where we must. it is a profound responsibility, one which knows no bounds of party or politics. it is a responsibility not nearly for those who voted for you, not merely who cast their fate on your side of the aisle but also for those who did not. these are the responsibilities i pass along with the gavel i hold, will hold in my hand. there are some burdens the democratic party will never cease to bear.

as democrats, we came to congress to fight for america's hard-working middle income families. families who are working longer hours for less pay for fewer benefits and jobs they are not sure they can keep. we together must redeem their faith that if they work hard and they play by the rules, they can build a better life for their children. mr. speaker, i want this entire house to speak for those families. the democratic party well. that mantle we will never lay to rest. so with partnership -- [applause] so with partnership, but with purpose i passed this great gavel of our government. with resignation, but with resolve, i hereby and -- end 40

years of democratic rule of this house. [applause] with faith and with friendship and the deepest respect, you are now my speaker. and let the great debate now begin. i have the high honor and distinct privilege to present to the house of representatives our new speaker, the gentleman from georgia, newt gingrich. [applause] >> very well said. [indiscernible]

>> let me say first of all that i am very deeply grateful to my

friend dick gephardt. i cannot help but think that my side overreacted to your statement, ending 40 years of democratic rule. i could not help but think of bob michael who has often been up here and knows this is difficult and painful to lose and on my side of the aisle, we have over 20 elections been on the losing side. and yet there is something so wonderful about the process by which a free people decide, that in my own case i lost two elections and with the good help of my friend came close to losing two others -- [laughter] i'm sorry that did not quite work out. i can tell you every time when the polls close, i thought, good, because when or lose

--win or lose, we are part of the process. in a few minutes i am going to ask the dean of the house to swear me in, to insist on the bipartisan nature we work together in the house. john's father was one of the great stalwarts of the new deal, a man who as a new deal democrat was an architect of this america. that is a tradition we have to recognize and respect and recognize the america that we are going to lead grew from that tradition and is part of that great heritage. i also want just four moment to thank speaker foley, who was extraordinarily generous in his public honor and and everything that he and his staff did to help make the transition. i think he worked very hard to reestablish the dignity of the house.

we can all be proud of the reputation he takes and the spirit with which he led the speakership. and our best wishes go to speaker and mrs. foley. [applause] i also want to thank the various house officers who have been just extraordinary. i want to say for the public record that faced with a result none of them wanted, a situation that i suspect none of them expected within 48 hours every office in this house reacted as a patriot. worked overtime, bent over backwards, and in every way help this and i am very grateful. the cells owes a debt of -- this house owes a debt of gratitude to every officer elected two years ago. >>[applause]

>> this is a historic moment. i was off to i feel and the only word that comes close to adequate is overwhelming. i feel overwhelmed in every way. i feel overwhelmed by mike extended family. overwhelmed by a moment. i stood on the balcony this morning and i was just overwhelmed by the view. two men i will introduce and know very well -- just the sense of being part of america, being part of this great tradition. i have two gavels, actually. dick having to use one. this is a georgia gavel that i got this morning. he decided that the gavels that you saw on tv were not or strong enough, so he made a gavel and set it up. this is a genuine georgia gavel. i am the first georgia speaker in over 100 years.

the last, by the way, had a weird accent, too. his parents were northern actors. they came to the u.s.. and secondly, this is a gavel that speaker martin years. -- speaker martin used. this is the gavel used by the last republican speaker. i want to comment for a minute on two men who served as my leaders and from whom i learned so much. when i arrived as a freshman and the republican party, deeply dispirited by watergate and the loss of the presidency, banded together and worked with a leader who helped save the way for our great party the tree of 1980, and the man who just did a marvelous job and i can't speak more to what i have learned from serving with him in my freshman term and he is with us today. please recognize congressman

john rhodes of arizona. [applause] let me say also that at our request -- he was not sure if she -- if he should be here at all and he was good to hide in the back. i think virtually every democrat in the house will say was a man who genuinely cares about the house and represents the best spirit of the house, a man who i hope i can always rely on for advice, and i hope frankly i can emulate and his commitment to this institution and his willingness to reach beyond his personal interest and his personal partisanship. why don't you join me in thanking him for his years of service -- congressman bob

michael. [applause] i'm very fortunate today. i have my mom and my dad are here. they are right up here. and i am so delighted that they are both able to be here. you know sometimes when you get to my age, you cannot have everyone near you you would love to. i can't say how much i have learned from my dad and his years serving the u.s. army and have learned from my mother, who is clearly my most enthusiastic cheerleader. my daughters are here. kathy and her husband paul and jackie and her husband.

and my closest friend and best advisor -- if i listened to her 20% more, i would get and less trouble. my wife marianne. [applause] i have a very large extended family and their virtually all in town and we have done our part for the tourism season. when i first came on the floor earlier, i went around and saw a number of the young people here children on the floor, the young adult -- the young adults who are close to 12 years of age. [applause] -- [laughter] i could not help but think sitting in the back of the room

close to the center of the house, one of my nephews, kevin who is five and susan who is six and emily who is eight and lauren, who is nine. i think that is probably more than i'm allowed to bring. they are my nieces and nephews. i could not help but think, the way that i wanted to start the speakership was a talk with every member. these young people that you see around you are what this is all about. much more than the negative advertising in the interest groups and all of the different things that make politics all too often cynical and nasty and sometimes frankly just plain miserable. what makes politics worthwhile is the choice, as dick gephardt said between what you see on the evening news and the way we try to do it, is to make this system, a free, representative

self-government work. and the ultimate reason for doing that is these children and the country they will inherit and the world they will live in. we are starting the 104th congress. we have had this for 208 years. we gathered together, the most diverse country in the history of the world. we send all sources of people. each of us can find at least one member you thought was weird. and if we went around the room, the choice would be different from virtually every one of us. because we do allow and insist upon the right of a free people to send an extraordinary diversity of people here. brian lamb of c-span read to me on friday a book. i've been reading a biography of henry clay. he always preferred the house over the senate, although he served them both.

he says the house is more vital more dynamic, more common. "often there is not a distinguished man in the whole number. its members are all up secure individuals whose names bring no associations to mind. they are mostly village lawyers men in trade, or even persons belonging to the lower classes of society." now if you put women in with men , i do not know that we have changed much. but that word had a very particular meaning and it is a meaning that we would do well to study. did tocqueville lived in a world of kings and princes, and the people who come here, come here by the one single act that their citizens freely chose them.

and i don't care what your ethnic crowd, what your ideology, i don't care whether you are younger or older, i do not care if you were born in america or are a naturalized citizen. everyone has an equal standing because their citizens freely sent them and therefore should be heard and they should have a right to participate and it is the most marvelous act of a complex giant country trying to argue, to have a great debate to reach great decisions, not through a civil war not through bombing one of our regional capitals, not by killing a half-million people, not by having snipers -- and let me say unequivocally, i condemn all acts of violence against the law by all people for all reasons. this is a society of law and the society of civil behavior.

and so, here we are as commoners together, to some extent democrats and republicans, to some extent liberals and conservatives, but americans all . i have a copy of the portable abraham lincoln and suggested there is much for me to learn about our party, but i would suggest it does not hurt to have a copy of the portable fdr. this is a great country, a great people. if there is one factor or act of my life that strikes me as a stand appear, the first republican in 40 years to do so when i first became whip, into my office came it russians and a lithuanian.

they asked me, what does a whip do? they said in russia, we have never at a free parliament since 1917 and that was only 40 two months. what do you do? i tried to explain. it is a little strange if you are from a dictatorship. you are called me with, you do not have a width. you are elected by the people. you're supposed to pressure them. if you pressure them too much, they will not reelect you. if you do not pressure them enough, they will not reelect you. democracy is hard. they came into the the lithuanian was a man in his late 60's. i allowed him to come up here and be speaker. he came out of the chair. he was physically trembling, almost in tears. he said ever since world war ii, i remember what the americans did and i have never believed

the propaganda. i have to tell you, i did not think in my life that i would be able to sit at the center of freedom. it was one of the most compelling moments of my life. what struck me was something i could not help but think of when we were here with president mandela and i went over and saw ron in front of the great work he had done to extend freedom across the planet. that sense of emotion when you see something totally different from what you expected. while presidents are important they are an elected kingship. they are where freedom has to be fought out. that is the tradition i hope we will take with us as we go to work. today, we had a bipartisan prayer service. frank wolf made an important point. he said we have to remember most

of our most painful problems are moral problems, problems of dealing with ourselves and life. he's a character is the key to leadership. he was preaching about the spirit of reconciliation. he talked about caring about our spouses, children, and families. if we are not prepared to model that if we are not prepared to care about our children and families by what arrogance do we think we will transcend our behavior to care about others? that is why with congressman gephardt's help, we established a bipartisan task force on the family. we established the principle we will sit schedules -- set schedules we stick to so families can count on times to be together so families can get to know each other and not just on c-span. i will also say -- [applause]

i will also say that means one of the strongest recommenda one of the strongest recommendations of the bipartisan committee is we have 17 minutes to vote. they pointed out that if you take the time we spent in the last congress where we have one more and one more and a 45-minute vote, you literally can shorten the business and get people home if we will be strict and firm. i say that with all of my colleagues hopefully paying attention because we will work hard that 17 minutes and it is over. leave at the first bell, not the second felt. ok? [applause] this may seem particularly inappropriate to say on the first day because this will be the busiest day on opening day of congressional history.

i want to read part of the contract with america. not as a partisan act but to remind all of us will be go through and why. those of us who ended up in the majority stood on the steps and signed a contract. here is part of what it says. on the first day of the 104th congress, the new republican majority will immediately pass the following major reforms aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the american people and their government. require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to congress. second, select a major independent auditting firm for waste fraud or abuse. third, cut the number of house committees and cut committee staff by a third. fourth, limit the terms of all committee chairs. fifth, ban the casting of proxy votes in committees. six, require committee meetings to be open to the public. seventh, require a three fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase.

guarantee an honest accounting of our budget. i told dick last night if i had to do it over again, we will pledge within three days we would do those things. we did not do that so we've got ourselves in a little bit of a box. i carry the tv guide version of the contract with me at all times. we then said thereafter within the first 100 days we shall bring to the house floor the following bills to be given full and open debate, a clear and fair vote, to be immediately available for inspection. we made it available that day. we listed ten items. a balanced budget amendment and line item veto, top violent -- stop violent criminals, emphasizing an effective and enforceable death penalty. third was welfare reform. fourth protecting our kids. fifth tax cuts for families. six was a stronger national defense. seventh was raising the senior citizens earning limit. eighth rolling back got

-- government regulations. night was common-sense legal reform. and tent was congressional term limits. i think we have this absolute obligation -- is first to work today toward this until we are done. we were hired to do a job and we have to start today to prove we will do it. second, i would say to our friends in the democratic party that we are going to work with you. we are laying out a schedule to make sure we can set dates certain to go home. that does mean two or three weeks out if we are running short, we will have longer sessions on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. we will try to work this out in a bipartisan basis to in a workman like way to get it done. it is going to mean the busiest early months since 1933. beyond the contract, i think there are two giant challenges. i know i'm a very partisan figure but i really hope today that i can speak for a

minute to my friends in the democratic party as well as my own colleagues and the country about these challenges and i hope we can have a dialogue. one is to achieve a balanced budget by 2002. [applause] i think both democratic and republican governors will tell you it is doable but it is hard. i don't think it's doable in a year or two. i don't think we ought to lie to the american people. this is a huge complicated job. second, i think we have to find a way to truly replace the current welfare state with an opportunity society. let me talk very briefly about both. first on the balanced budget. i think we can get it done. i think the baby boomers are now old enough that we can have an honest dialogue about priorities, about resources, about what works about what , doesn't. let me say i've already told

vice president gore we are going to invite him. we're going to invite him to address the republican conference. i believe there are grounds for us to talk together and work together to have hearings together to have task forces together. i think if we set priorities, if we apply the principles of those, if we build on the vice president's reinventing government effort, if we focus on transforming not just cutting not just do you want more or , less but are there ways to do it better? can we learn from the private sector? can we learn from ford, ibm, and microsoft? i think on a bipartisan basis we owe it to our children and grandchildren to get this government in order hand to be able to actually pay our way. i think 2002 is a reasonable time frame and i would hope that together we can open a dialogue with the american people. and i have said i think social security ought to be off limits for at least four to six years because it will destroy us if we

try to bring it into the game. but everything else, whether medicare or agricultural subsidies or defense or anything, that i think the the greatest democratic president of the 20th century and in my judgment the greatest president said it right on march 4, 1933 when he stood in the braces as a man who had polio at a time when nobody who had that kind of disability could be anything in public life and he was president of the united states and he stood in front of this capitol on a rainy march day and he said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. i believe if everyone of us will reach out in that spirit and will pledge -- and i think frankly on a bipartisan basis, i would say to the members of the black and hispanic caucus i hope we can arrange to share districts where you will have a republican who frankly may not know a thing about your district agree to come for a long weekend

with you and you will agree to go for a long weekend with them and we begin a dialogue and openness that is totally different than people are used to seeing in politics in america. and i believe if we do that we can create a dialogue that can lead to a balanced budget. but i think we have a greater challenge. and i want to pick upon what dick gephardt said because he said it right. and no republican here should kid themselves about it. the greatest leaders in fighting for an integrated america in the 20th century were in the democratic party. the fact is it was the liberal wing of the democratic party that ended segregation. the fact is it was franklin delano roosevelt who gave hope to a nation that was in despair and could have slid into dictatorship. and the fact is every republican has much to learn from studying what the democrats did right. but i would say to my friends in the democratic party that there is much to what ronald reagan was trying to get done. there is much to what is being

done today by republicans like bill wells and john engler and tommy thompson and others. and there's much we can share with each other. we must replace the welfare state with an opportunity society. the balanced budget is the right thing to do. but it doesn't in my mind have the moral urgency of coming to grips with what's happening to the poorest americans. i commend to all of you marvin olaski's the tragedy of american's compassion. he goes back to 100 years and looks at what has worked in america, how we have helped people rise beyond poverty, how we have reached out to save people. he may not have the answers but he has the right sense of where we have to go as americans. i don't believe that there is a single american who can see a news report of a four-year-old thrown off a public housing project in chicago by other children and killed and not feel

that a part of your heart went. i think of my nephew in the back kevin. how would any of us feel about our children? how can any american read about an 11-year-old buried with his teddy bear because he killed a 14-year-old and another 14-year-old killed him and not have some sense of where has this country gone? how can we not decide this is a moral crisis equal to segregation? people to slavery? how can we not insist every day we take steps to do something? [applause] i have seldom been more shaken than i was shortly after the election when i had breakfast with two members of the black caucus and one said to me can

you imagine what it's like to visit a first grade class and realize that every fourth or fifth young boy in that class may be dead or in jail within 15 years? and they're your constituents and you're helpless to change it. and that just for some reason i don't know why but maybe because i visit a lot of schools. that got through. that personalized it. that made it real. not just statistics but real people. and then i tried to explain part of my thoughts by talking about the need for alternatives to the bureaucracy and we got into what i think has been a pretty distorted and cheap debate about orphanages. my father who is here today was a foster child who was adopted as a teenager. i am adopted. we have relatives who were adopted. we are not talking out of some

vague impersonal dickens, bleak house, middle-class intellectual model. we have lived the alternatives. i believe when we are told children are so lost in the city bureaucracies that there are children in dumpsters, when we are told there are children doomed to go to school where 80% of them will not graduate, when we are told of public housing projects that are so dangerous that if any private sector ran them they would be put in jail and we will study it. we will get around to it. my only point is we can find ways immediately to do things better and to reach out and break through the bureaucracy and give every young american child a better chance. [applause]

let me suggest to you the new book trade i don't agree with all of it but it is fascinating. "working without a net." he draws a distinction worth every american reading between caring and caretaking. he says caretaking is when you bother me a little bit so i do enough so i feel better because i think i took care of you. i may not have done any good to you at all. you may be an alcoholic and i just gave you the money to buy the bottle that kills you. but i feel better and go home. he said caring is actually stopping and dealing with the human being and trying to understand enough about them to generally make sure you improve their life, even at if you have to

start with a conversation like if you quit drinking, i will help you get a job. i want to commend every member on both sides to look carefully. to those republicans who believe in total privatization, you can't believe in the good samaritan and explain that as long as businesses making money, we can walk by a fellow american who is hurt and not do something. i would say to my friends who believe there has never been a government program not worth keeping that you cannot look at a result and not want to reach out to the humans and forget the bureaucracy. if we could build that attitude on both sides of the, we would be an amazingly different place and the country would begin to be a different place. we have to create a partnership. we have to reach out to the american people. we are going to do a lot of important things. as of today, thanks to the house information system, we are going to be online for the whole country, every amendment, every

construct -- conference report. we are working with c-span and congressman gephardt has agreed to help on a bipartisan basis to make the building more open to television and more accessible to the neck and people. i hope to have a bipartisan effort to make the place accessible for all talk radio hosts of all backgrounds no matter the ideology. the house historian's office is going to be much more aggressively run on a bipartisan basis to reach out to teach what the legislative struggle is about. i think over time we will rethink campaign and lobbying reform and review all ethics and rethink what our role should be. but that ain't enough. our challenge shouldn't be to balance the budget, to pass the contract. our challenge should not be anything that is just legislative. we are supposed to each one of us be leaders. i think our challenge has to be set as our goal, and we are not

going to get here in two years. but this ought to be the goal that we go home and we tell people that we believe there will be a monday morning when for the entire week not a single child was killed anywhere in america. that there be a monday morning when every child in the country went to a school that they and their parents thought prepared them as citizens and prepared them to compete in the world market. that there would be a monday morning when it was easy to find a job or create a job and your own government did not punish you if you tried. [applause] we should not be happy just with the language of politicians and the language of legislation. we should insist our success for america is felt in the neighborhoods, in the communities, is felt by real people living real lives who can

say we are safer, we are healthier, we are better educated. america succeeds. this morning's closing hymn at the prayer service was the battle hymn of the republic. it is hard to be in this building and not realize how painful and difficult that battle hymn is. the key phrase is, as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free. it is not just political freedom, although i agree with everything congressman gephardt said earlier. if you can't afford to leave the public housing project, you are not free. if you don't know how to find a job or create a job you're not free. if you can't find a place that will educate you, you're not free. if you are afraid to walk to the store because you could get killed, you are not free.

and so as all of us over the coming months sing that song, as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, i want us to dedicate ourselves to reach out in a genuinely nonpartisan way, to be honest with each other. i promise each of you that without regard to party, my door is going to be open. i will listen to each of you. i will try to work with each of you. i will put in long hours and i will guarantee that i will listen to you first. i will let you hit it all out before i give you my version because you have been patient with me today and you have given me a chance to set the stage. but i want to close by reminding all of us of how much bigger this is than us. because beyond talking with the american people, beyond working together, i think we can only be successful if we start with our limits. i was struck this morning by something bill emerson used, a fairly famous quote of benjamin franklin.

at the point where the constitutional convention was deadlocked and people are tired and there was a real possibility the convention was going to break up, franklin who was quite old and had been relatively quiet the entire convention suddenly stood up and was angry. he said, i have lived, sir, a long time. and the longer i live, the more convincing proofs i see of this truth. that god governs in the affairs of men. and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? at that point, the constitutional convention stopped. it took a day off for fasting and prayer. then having stopping come together, they went back and solve the great question of the large and small states, and they brook the constitution and the united states was created. if each of us will reach out

prayerfully and try to genuinely understand the other, if we will recognize that in this building we symbolize america, that we have an obligation to talk with each other, then i think a year from now we can look on the 104th congress as a truly amazing institution. without regard to party, without regard to ideology, we can say he or america comes to work and here we are preparing for those children a better future. thank you. good luck. and god bless you. let me now: mr. dingell. [applause] -- let me now call on mr. dingell. [applause]

>> i am now ready to take the oath of office. i asked the honorable john dingell of michigan to administer the oath of office. >> will the gentleman from georgia please raise his right hand? do you solemnly swear you will defend and support the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic, that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the

office on which you are about to enter, so help you god? >> i do. >> congratulations, mr. speaker. [applause] >> in 1999 incoming speaker dennis hastert allowed c-span2 follow him around. tell us his reputation among his republican colleagues? what made him an attractive