House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) will not seek reelection to the Republican leadership when his members return as a minority party after taking heavy losses in Tuesday's elections, a Republican official tells TIME. Hastert, 64, a low-key former high school wrestling coach, was beloved by members as a "good cop," compared to the enforcer style of the longtime number two leader, former Rep. Tom Delay (R-Tex.). But Hastert was badly damaged by questions about how much he had known about former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and his contact with pages, and members felt Hastert also handled the aftermath of the revelations clumsily.
This is only the first phase of Hastert's disgrace. Democrats will control the Ethics Committee. Republicans will be more than happy to have him fall on the sword. I'm sure many of them are angry at him for his handling of the Foley scandal. It's hard to say how much it hurt Republicans. It certainly wasn't something they wanted to talk about before the election.
The Ethics Committee findings could be so damaging that Hastert has to make a Newt Gingrich-style exit. Foley and the Democrats taking the House is not going to generate much good will within the GOP.
That would mean Hastert and Tom Delay both made departures from the House that was not what they expected. So much for the 1994 revolution.
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