Newt Gingrich

Newton "Newt" Gingrich (born Harrisburg, Pa., June 17, 1943) served as Speaker of the House from 1995 until 1999, preceding J. Dennis Hastert and succeeding Thomas Foley. He is widely considered the mastermind of the 1994 Republican Revolution and "Contract with America" that led the Republican Party to capture the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1954. He was considered the chief Republican opposition to President Bill Clinton in the 1990's.

Popular with conservatives, Gingrich is a television commentator and the author of nineteen books including 11 fiction and non-fiction New York Times best-sellers.

Under his leadership, Congress passed welfare reform, passed the first balanced budget in a generation, and passed the first tax cut in sixteen years. In addition, the Congress restored funding to strengthen defense and intelligence capabilities, an action later lauded by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

Gingrich's congressional career ended in 1999 when he resigned from Congress after poor showings from Republicans in the midterm elections and being investigated by the House ethics panel:

Democrats filed 84 politically motivated ethics charges against Gingrich. All of them were found to be without merit. The last three were dismissed on Oct. 10, 1998. The fact is, not a single ethics charge filed against Speaker Gingrich was ever found to be based in fact -- not one. Gingrich was cleared of any and all wrongdoing.
The fallout in the case resulted in an IRS investigation and a federal court case. Ultimately, Speaker Gingrich was cleared of any wrongdoing by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, the IRS and a federal judge.

SOURCE: http://www.conservapedia.com/Newt_Gingrich