
RIP, Mr Speaker
He was reviled by hardline liberals for his willingness to compromise and negotiate.
Thomas S. Foley, a Democratic speaker of the House known for his conciliatory leadership style throughout his three decades in Congress from 1965 to 1995, is dead at the age of 84.
Respected by members of both parties for his efforts at fairness and consensus, Foley's preference for compromise over confrontation frustrated his Democratic counterparts who wished that he would extract more concessions from the other party.
After the resignation of then-Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, amid an ethics scandal in 1989, Foley was elected to the speakership unopposed by his Democratic colleagues.
Foley believed that his efforts at bipartisanship were in the interest of better public policy.
During a voice vote in the chamber intended simply to showcase the Republican opposition to a bill, Foley ruled in favor of allowing them an actual recorded vote on the measure.
" Democrats just sat there because they didn't know what to do. I don't think they knew to ask for a recorded vote because they never had to," then-Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, told the New York Times. "And at that point, every Republican on the floor rose spontaneously and gave Tom Foley a standing ovation."
As time went on it became increasingly difficult to hold on to his congressional seat.
Foley was reluctant to air negative campaign advertisements.
"I've had a very long and satisfying political career," he said. "I am not in any sense bitter. I lost one election in my life; unfortunately, it was the last one."
Despite his defeat, one of Foley's final acts as Speaker was in the spirit of fairness.
It was during the lame-duck session of 1994, a month after the Republican Party had retaken the House for the first time in four decades. One key member of the conference would not be returning: Bob Michel, the House Republican leader, was retiring after 38 years in Congress - all of them spent in the minority. Consequently, Michel never had the opportunity to preside over the House. Although Foley would soon be handing the gavel over to a new era of Republican dominance, he allowed Michel to preside over a session.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/18/ex-house-speaker-tom-foley-dies-at-84/
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