Newt's minions.

• Author: Waldman, Amy
• Position: Influence of Republican Congressional staff - Cover Story

You won't see them on C-Span, but staffers in Congress run the show. Here's the inside skinny on the new generation of Republicans

There is a new conventional wisdom on the state of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. All eyes follow Newton Leroy Gingrich, the honorable representative from Cobb County, Georgia, maker of revolutions, sealer of Contracts: Ladies and gentlemen, the new Speaker of the House.

But many of the real movers and shakers in the U.S. House of Representatives aren't even elected, much less famous. What regular readers of the Monthly well know, but most Americans do not, is that congressional staff, operating behind the scenes, have a profound impact on the nation's legislative branch. They write the speeches, draft the bills and amendments, stage-manage hearings, and, in a town where access is a hard currency, they decide who the congressmen will, and will not, see. "The place," says Congress guru Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, "does not run without the staff." So I set out to see what makes the foot soldiers of the revolution tick.

You can usually see it even before they start to talk: an admixture of giddiness and passion. Giddiness, of course, because so many are so young, but also because, like corked champagne, the Republicans had been bottled up in the minority for so long. And passion, because so many of them are true believers: Government, I heard again and again, is the problem, not the solution. Loyalty to the cause--"earnestness," if you prefer--is essential, often more valued than experience. But, despite all the talk of revolution, I found, their passion leaves them vulnerable to moneyed interests that have more than the revolution on their minds.

On the Hill, staffers sometimes act more like members of Congress than do the ones who were elected. The idea for the national service and student loan programs, for example, was initiated by a staff member looking for a way his boss could make a mark. Another staffer then shepherded it through the House. A key provision of the bill--a single line that would have provided for IRS loan collection--was unilaterally deleted by the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee as part of a turf war. From conception to passage, argues Steven Waldman in The Bill, legislation is often controlled by people who the voters would not even recognize.

Perhaps the most telling anecdote of staff influence comes from Harrison Fox, who, over 20 years, steered four freshmen Republicans through their terms. "Here's Harrison Fox," said one of the congressmen, introducing his former chief of staff. "I worked for him for four-and-a-half years."

It takes, you see, more than one man--even if that man is Newt Gingrich--to make a revolution. God needs his angels, Satan his minions, and Newt--well, Newt needs his minions too.

Technocrats Shrugged

Nobody understands this better than Morton Blackwell. Blackwell--executive director of the Council for National Policy, a membership-only organization of 500 of the country's most important conservatives, and the man whose Madison County, Virginia cabin was used to draft the Contract With America--is certainly a conservative powerhouse. Yet it is telling that he still devotes large chunks of time to developing young conservatives through his suburban Washington D.C. Leadership Institute.

Robert Giuffra, chief counsel of the Senate Banking Committee, is a graduate of the Institute. Virginia Thomas, House Majority Leader Dick Armey's committee liaison and wife of Clarence, is one too. Kerry Knott, Armey's chief of staff, is another alumnus. And so are the more than 100 staff members and interns that Blackwell has placed in Hill offices just since the November election.

That sounds great to the nearly 200 young (and some not-so-young) job hunters who've trudged through a cold January morning to the Quality Hotel, just a few short blocks from the Capitol building, for the Institute's Congressional staff training workshop. This is Blackwell's third encore since election day. The would-be staffers pack into rows of hard-backed chairs, clutching courtesy copies of Frank Van der Linden's The Real Reagan. Brian Lopina, Jim Istook's administrative assistant, steps to the podium. "For those of you who are new in town," he begins, "welcome to the...