The Race To Replace Gingrich

Republicans battled Sunday over the leadership of the House, with the leading contender for the top job of Speaker appealing for conservatives to accept compromise after the party's electoral upset last week.

Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, who challenged Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia last week, said conservatives must accept that their agenda was subject to Republicans' wafer-thin majority in the House.

Speaking on ABC television's This Week program, Livingston said House Republicans' small majority in the next Congress, which sits in January, would leave the new Speaker no option but to compromise.

"When you have slim margins ... you can't do everything that you want," Livingston said. "Our forefathers wrote a constitution that gave us the opportunity to settle our differences by compromise, not by dictate."

As for the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, there were few indications on Sunday that Gingrich's departure would exact a significant change.

"There's no alternative to the present course," Cox said. "Over 400 members voted for an impeachment inquiry. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is the Democrats wanted a deadline at year end and that is what Henry Hyde has agreed toÂ…I am inclined to give enormous weight to the recommendation of the judiciary committee."

Gingrich has faced his share of political setbacks and crises including the 1995 government shutdown and a $300,000 fine in 1997 for his questionable use of tax-exempt money for lectures. But most recently, Gingrich has been under fire by angry lawmakers for the Republican setbacks in this year's midterm elections.

Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, had been considered a strong contender, but he announced on Saturday tha he decided not to enter the race. "I may be the right man for the job, but the job is not the right one for me," Archer said in a statement.

Rep. James Talent, R-Mo., is also scrambling for the post.

The maneuvering was set off by Tuesday's elections, in which Republicans who had been hoping to fortify their 22-seat House majority saw it sliced to just a 12-seat margin. In the GOP uproar that followed, Livingston stepped forward Friday, and hours later, Gingrich decided he would abandon his post.

Livingston, 55, started lining up support for the speaker's post earlier this year, saying he wanted to be ready in case Gingrich, his friend, steps down to run for president.

In that effort, he has raised money for many of his colleagues. That head start, plus the power he has as chairman of the committee that controls one-third of the government's $1.7 trillion budget, has made him one of the favorites in the race.

Talent, elected this week to his fourth House term, was in the middle of the 1996 battle over revamping the nation's welfare system, but has generally had a low profile in the House.

"I'm actively considering whether to run for speaker," he said in a brief telephone interview Friday night. "I'm not actively considering any other post."

Talent, who was at home in his St. Louis district, refused to comment further, saying only, "I thought it was an honorable and statesmanlike decision that Newt Gingrich made."

The 42-year-old lawyer is popular in Missouri, where he is being urged by state GOP leaders to run for governor in 2000. Ironically, his St. Louis area district abuts the district represented by House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.

Talent, chairman of the House Small Business Committee, is a conservative who has worked well with GOP moderates and who has a quiet manner. His natural allies would be members of the large GOP House class of 1992 and the conservatives elected in 1994, and he is seen as a dark horse candidate with promise.

Cox, 46, announced his candidacy for the speaker's job in an appearance Friday night on CNN's "Larry King Live" show.

He is already a member of the House leadership, serving as chairman of the House GOP Policy Committee. He is seen as a telegenic lawmaker, but has a Hamlet-like reputation among some colleagues as being slow to make decisions.

Though he probably would get support from many Californians, he is seen as the least likely of the candidates who have emerged so far to succeed Gingrich.

Gingrich said he will resign not just his speakership, but also his seat in the House. He is expected to leave before the new Congress takes its oath on January 6.

"I think there comes a time when you got to set out and let a new team take take over and let a new team try to do the best they can," said Gingrich.

Click here to listen to Gingrich's remarks from his press conference Saturday

He said he couldn't stand by and allow the Republican party to cannibalize itself and that by resigning his congressional seat, it will allow a new leader "to learn, to grow, to do what they have to do."