Dick Armey

Richard Keith "Dick" Armey
23rd United States House of Representatives Majority Leader
In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Dick Gephardt
Succeeded by	Tom DeLay
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 26th District
In office January 3, 1985 – January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Tom Vandergriff
Succeeded by	Michael C. Burgess
Personal details
Born	(1940-07-07) July 7, 1940 Cando, North Dakota
Political party	Republican
Spouse	[[]]
Profession	Economist

Richard Keith "Dick" Armey (born July 7, 1940 in Cando, North Dakota) is a former U.S. Representative from Texas's 26th congressional district (1985–2003) and House Majority Leader (1995–2003). He was one of the architects of the "Republican Revolution" of the 1990s, in which Republicans were elected to majorities of both houses of Congress for the first time in four decades, and the chief author of the Republican Contract with America.

Early life

Armey grew up in rural North Dakota, living in the farming town of Cando. He attended Jamestown College, earning his bachelor's degree. Armey then received a master's degree from the University of North Dakota and a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. Armey is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

From academia to Congress

Armey, a member of the Republican Party and former economics professor at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton, was first elected to the House in 1984 in the 26th District of Texas, defeating freshman congressman Tom Vandergriff in what is still considered a huge upset (Vandergriff is well-known in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, most notably for bringing Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers to the area). Armey was thus one of six freshmen Republican congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 known as the Texas Six Pack. Due to the increasingly Republican tilt of the Metroplex, Armey would never face another tough race again, and was reelected eight times.

During his time in Congress, Armey conceived the independent nonpolitical commission that became responsible for identifying those military bases to be closed as a cost-cutting measure. Armey was one of Congress's fervent supporters of privatization of Social Security and phasing-out of farm subsidies. He is a strong supporter of replacing the progressive tax levels with a single or flat tax rate. However, Armey is very critical of a competing tax reform proposal that would replace the current system with a national sales tax, the FairTax.

In 1989, he wrote a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts, about the grants for Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, calling their work "morally reprehensible trash."

In 1994, Armey, then House Republican Conference Chairman, joined Minority Whip Newt Gingrich in drafting the Contract with America. Republican members credited this election platform with the Republican takeover of Congress, rewarding Gingrich with the position of Speaker and Armey with the number two position of House Majority Leader. Gingrich delegated to Armey an unprecedented level of authority over scheduling legislation on the House floor, a power traditionally reserved to the Speaker. However, Armey has been accused of being involved in a 1997 attempt to oust Gingrich as Speaker, something Armey has strongly denied.

In 1995 Armey also wrote a book, Freedom Revolution (ISBN 0-89526-469-2).

In 1996, Armey wrote another book, "The Flat Tax: A Citizen's Guide to the Facts on What It Will Do for You, Your Country, and Your Pocketbook," published by Ballantine.

In 1998, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a reporter asked him what he would do if he were in President Bill Clinton's position. He replied "If I were in the President's place I would not have gotten a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood, hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, 'How do I reload this damn thing?'" This caused several of his former female economics students to go public with stories of his sexually harrassing them — harassment allegedly so severe that at least one student transferred to another school. He would later divorce his wife and marry one of his students. That same year, after Gingrich was forced to resign from the House after heavy Republican losses in the midterm elections, Armey had to fend off a bruising challenge for his majority leader post from Steve Largent of Oklahoma. Still, Armey served another four years before announcing his retirement in 2002. In his last legislative effort, he was named chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security and was the primary sponsor of the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security.

According to Armey, he also sparred with Focus on the Family leader James Dobson while in office. Armey wrote, "As Majority Leader, I remember vividly a meeting with the House leadership where Dobson scolded us for having failed to 'deliver' for Christian conservatives, that we owed our majority to him, and that he had the power to take our jobs back. This offended me, and I told him so." Armey states that Focus on the Family targeted him politically after the incident, writing, "Focus on the Family deliberately perpetuates the lie that I am a consultant to the ACLU."

As a free-market economist influenced by the ideas of Milton Friedman, Armey favored relatively open immigration and the elimination of barriers to the movement of goods and people across national boundaries.

After Armey's retirement, fellow Texan and Republican Tom DeLay, then House Majority Whip, was elevated to hold Armey's Majority Leader position. Armey's son, Scott, ran for his father's seat in the 2002 election, but lost in the Republican Party (GOP) runoff to Michael C. Burgess, who would go on to hold the strongly Republican 26th District for the GOP in November.

After Congress

Recently, Armey joined the Washington office of the law firm DLA Piper (formerly DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary) as a senior policy advisor. Armey is also the firm's co-chairman of its Homeland Security Task Force.

In 2003, Armey became co-chairman of Citizens for A Sound Economy, which in 2004 merged with Empower America to become FreedomWorks. "FreedomWorks" is a common Armey saying and the organization is dedicated to advancing a "Freedom Agenda" of "lower taxes, less government, and more freedom." FreedomWorks states that it has 700,000 members nationwide and full time staff in 10 states. In his role as Chairman, Armey continues to be a national political figure and grassroots leader. He travels widely, meeting with activists and legislators. In 2005, for example, he testified before the President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform and debated Governor of Colorado Bill Owens on a tax increase ballot measure.

In 2003, Armey published Armey's Axioms.

In 2006, Michael Isikoff's book Hubris included Armey as an on-the-record source, who said he was initially reluctant to support the Bush administration's call for war with Iraq, and that he had warned President George W. Bush that such a war might be a "quagmire". Armey said that the intelligence presented to him in support of the war appeared questionable, but he gave Bush the benefit of the doubt.

In August 2009 Armey was asked to step down from his lobbying position at DLA Piper, a Washington lobby firm working for the pharmaceutical industry to pass health care reform legislation. Armey was simultaneously chairing the conservative group FreedomWorks which was actively working to defeat health care reform. DLA Piper was concerned about the conflict of interest particularly since their clients were spending millions in advertising and lobbying money to support the passage of health care reform and FreedomWorks was linked to disruptive right wing demonstrations at town hall forums where health care reform was being discussed.

Relationship with Dick Cheney

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Armey that Saddam Hussein's family had direct ties to Al-Qaeda and that Saddam was developing miniature nuclear weapons. Armey then voted for the Iraq War, but after it became clear this was not true, stated that he "deserves better than to be bullshitted by the Vice President."

Robert Draper's Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush recounts a conversation in late summer 2002 between Armey and Cheney. Armey insisted that American forces would get "mired down" in Iraq if they invaded, but Cheney offered this assurance: "They're going to welcome us. It'll be like the American army going through the streets of Paris. They're sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will be so happy with their freedoms that we'll probably back ourselves out of there within a month or two."

Alleged role in organized disruptions of Congressional town hall meetings on health care reform

In 2009, FreedomWorks launched a campaign against President Barack Obama's health care proposals, accusing the Obama administration of attempting to "socialize medicine". This became controversial in light of the $1,290,000 DLA Piper received in 2009 from the pharmaceutical company Medicines Co. In Rachel Maddow's investigative report entitled "TRMS Investigates FreedomWorks" the reporter argues that the right's strategy has been to disrupt and shut down the August 2009 town hall congressional meetings on health care reform and to rattle the congress people holding them, rather than to seek a compromise solution to health care reform, citing a piece entitled "On Private Conference Call, Tea Party Organizers Say No Reform At All is Goal" on Greg Sargent's progressive blog "The Plum Line." The conference call cited in the article was moderated by The Tea Party Patriots, a national co-partner of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, according to FreedomWorks itself. The Tea Party Patriots website is now calling for "patriots" to begin "making calls to melt Congress' Phone Lines" and to "weigh in" on the health care debate "actively, aggressively, and with big numbers." Maddow points out that, in addition to being the chair of FreedomWorks, Dick Armey is a senior policy adviser for DC-based lobbying firm DLA Piper, whose recent and/or current clients include "pharmaceutical maker Bristol-Myers Squibb Company . . . health care provider Metropolitan Health Networks, and the pharmaceutical firm Medicines Company," all entities that might benefit financially from seeing health care reform defeated. Maddow cited the example of The American Council of Life Insurers, which paid DLA Piper $100,000 shortly before DLA lobbied to deregulate life insurance, as one instance of DLA Piper lobbying for deregulation and perhaps other forms of legislation favorable to their paying clients.

Addressing DLA Piper’s role in the situation, Francis Burch, chairman of DLA Piper, has said “…DLA Piper represents clients who support enactment of effective health care reform this year and encourages responsible national debate. Evidently, upon Armey’s Freedomworks organization receiving considerable media and public blame for disrupting town hall meetings to try to stop health care reform, DLA Piper recognized that Armey was a liability and working against its own clients and best interests. So, on August 14 2009, DLA Piper asked Armey to resign, and he left the firm. Burch responded, “We understand and respect” Armey’s decision; read more: His resignation followed in depth investigative stories by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC-TV, who had questioned the roles of Armey and FreedomWorks in alleged recent organized attempts to shut down civil, facts-based discourse on health care reform: “Who is actively organizing the campaign against health care reform?,” asked Maddow. “Scaring real Americans with increasingly paranoid and kooky lies about health care and then providing a script for how to express that fear.”

Controversial statements

Armey has come under criticism at numerous times during his career for making controversial remarks.

In 1995 Armey referred to openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, as "Barney Fag". Armey said it was a slip of the tongue.

However in a discussion with Dave Barry on August 2, 2000, Armey made a gay-themed joke about Barney Frank:

"Are you really Dick Armey?" Barry asked.

Armey replied, "Yes, I am Dick Armey. And if there is a dick army, Barney Frank would want to join up."

On May 1, 2002, during an interview on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Armey agreed that "Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should get out of there", which the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said was a call for ethnic cleansing.

In a 2002 interview for The New York Times, Armey Stated that his "No. 1 in foreign policy is to protect Israel."

In September 2008, while commenting on Barack Obama's name, Armey stated that it could "give people concerns that he could be or have been too much influenced by Muslims, which is a great threat now." Armey consequently drew stern criticism from Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) whose representative was quoted as stating, "If he (Armey) really believes that Muslims are a threat, then he must be out of step with American values of inclusion, respect and plurality."

On January 28, 2009, in a debate over tax policy with commentator Joan Walsh, editor-in-chief of Salon.com, Armey told her, "I'm so damn glad you can never be my wife, 'cause I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day... That's what I'm talking about — she's making a political malarkey here.".

External links

• United States Congress. "Dick Armey (id: A000217)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Christian Science Monitor, December 13, 2001, "Armey's Exit Triggers Fight for GOP Direction"
• Retiring House GOP leader speaks out against Iraq war
• Rep. Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
• Salon.com, May 24, 2004, "House Divided: GOP Enforcer Tom DeLay and His Former Partner Dick Armey Are Locked in a Nasty Dispute Over the Future of the Republican Party"
• Voting record maintained by the Washington Post

Other sources

• Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn (Crown 2006)
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0576950/