Henry Hyde, an influential Illinois Republican who sponsored landmark anti-abortion legislation, managed impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton and maintained ties of bipartisan civility during more than three decades in the House of Representatives, died Thursday in Chicago of a heart arrhythmia. He was 83.
Hyde, an eloquent speaker and adept legislator, overcame opposition in both major parties to secure passage of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortions for low-income women. It was the first significant victory for the anti-abortion movement after the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973 made abortion legal.
He also was a leader in 2003 of the ban on what abortion opponents call partial-birth abortions, the first federal restriction on an abortion procedure.
As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in 1998, Hyde led House efforts to impeach Clinton on suspicion of lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Hyde said Clinton’s conduct demeaned the office of the president, the president himself and the laws of the land.
Evenhandedness tested
Tall, white-maned and imposing, the man who represented Illinois’ 6th Congressional District could be ferocious in support of bedrock conservative causes, but he was known for his easy humor and cordial relations with members of the opposition.
“He’s ideologically quite passionate, but he doesn’t allow that passion to make him unfair,” Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said on the eve of the impeachment inquiry.
Hyde’s reputation for civility and evenhandedness was tested by the impeachment ordeal. Critics accused him of losing control of the proceedings to firebrands in his party.
Hyde’s own reputation was tarnished when the online magazine Salon disclosed an affair he had with a married woman in the 1960s. The congressman acknowledged the five-year relationship but called it a “youthful indiscretion.” Critics noted that he was in his 40s when it occurred.
Hyde, a 32-year veteran of the House, retired last year. This month, President Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“This fine man believed in the power of freedom, and he was a tireless champion of the weak and forgotten,” Bush said Thursday. “He used his talents to build a more hopeful America and promote a culture of life.”
Switched parties
Washington on a Georgetown basketball scholarship but dropped out after his freshman year to join the Navy, serving on ships in the South Pacific, New Guinea and the Lingayen Gulf.
He returned to Georgetown after WWII and later earned a law degree at Loyola University in Chicago in 1949.
Although Hyde had grown up in a Democratic household and voted for Harry Truman in 1948, he switched parties after becoming a trial lawyer.
“I became concerned that communism was a serious threat,” he said years later. “I became worried that my government had a blind spot as to the Soviet Union’s intentions. I was worried that Mr. Roosevelt was too cozy with this guy Stalin.”
He first ran for Congress in 1962 “as a lark,” but lost a close race. Elected in 1974, he joined a Congress controlled by Democrats and quickly made a national name for himself as an impassioned abortion foe.
Hyde was one of 12 former directors and officers of an Illinois savings and loan business who were sued by federal regulators for gross negligence after the 1990 failure of the institution, which cost taxpayers an estimated $68 million. Hyde, who left the business in 1984, said he had not engaged in any wrongdoing and was the only director who refused to contribute to an $850,000 settlement that led to the lawsuit’s dismissal in 1997.
Despite his adherence to deeply conservative principles, he wasn’t always a predictable GOP voter. He argued forcefully against term limits. He called them “the dumbing down of democracy.” He supported the Brady Bill, legislation that imposed a waiting period on gun purchases, and, after the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, he backed 24-hour background checks for gun sales at gun shows.
He also supported a ban on assault weapons. They “have no other purpose than to kill a lot of people in a hurry,” he said.
He announced in 2005 that he would retire at the end of his term, citing back problems and other ailments that made it difficult to get around.
He hated to leave, he told friends and former colleagues.
“When I cross the river for the last time,” he said, echoing comments that Gen. Douglas MacArthur made about the Army, “my thoughts will be of the House, the House, the House.”
