Tip O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "'Tip" O'Neill Jr.' was an American Democratic Party politician from Massachusetts who served as the 47th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987, the third-longest tenure in history and the longest uninterrupted tenure. He represented northern Boston in the House from 1953 to 1987.
Born in North Cambridge, Massachusetts, O'Neill began campaigning at a young age by volunteering for Al Smith's campaign in the 1928 presidential election. After graduating from Boston College, he won election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he became a strong advocate of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. He became Speaker of the Massachusetts House in 1949 and won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1952 to succeed John F. Kennedy.
In the U.S. House, O'Neill became a protégé of fellow Boston Representative John William McCormack. O'Neill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson on the Vietnam War in 1967 and called for Richard Nixon's resignation in light of the Watergate scandal. He quickly moved up the leadership ranks in the 1970s, becoming House Majority Whip in 1971, House Majority Leader in 1973, and Speaker of the House in 1977. With the election of President Jimmy Carter, O'Neill hoped to establish a universal health care system and a guaranteed jobs program. However, relations between Carter and Congress deteriorated, and Carter lost re-election in the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican. O'Neill became a leading opponent of President Reagan's conservative domestic policies, but O'Neill and Reagan found common ground in foreign policy, fostering the Anglo-Irish Agreement and implementing the Reagan Doctrine during the Cold War.
O'Neill retired from Congress in 1987 but remained active in public life. He published a best-selling autobiography and appeared in several commercials and other media. He died of cardiac arrest in 1994.
Early life and education
Thomas Phillip O'Neill Jr. was the youngest of three children born to Thomas Phillip O'Neill Sr. and Rose Ann O'Neill in the Irish middle-class area of North Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 9, 1912, known at the time as "Old Dublin." His mother died when he was nine months old, and he was raised largely by a French-Canadian housekeeper until his father remarried when he was eight in 1921. O'Neill Sr. started out as a bricklayer, and later won a seat on the Cambridge City Council and was appointed Superintendent of Sewers. During his childhood, O'Neill received the nickname "Tip" after the Canadian baseball player James "Tip" O'Neill. He was educated in Roman Catholic schools, graduating in 1931 from the now defunct St. John High School in Cambridge, where he was captain of the basketball team; he was a lifelong parishioner at the school's affiliated parish church St. John the Evangelist Church. From there he went to Boston College, from which he graduated in 1936.Entry into politics
O'Neill first became active in politics at 15, campaigning for Al Smith in his 1928 presidential campaign. Four years later, he helped campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a senior at Boston College, O'Neill unnsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Cambridge City Council. This was his first race and only electoral defeat. The campaign taught him that "All politics is local."After graduating in 1936, O'Neill was elected at the age of 24 to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, aided by tough economic times among his constituents; the experience made him a strong advocate of the New Deal policies of Roosevelt, which were just then coming to an end. His biographer John Aloysius Farrell said his background in Depression-era working-class Boston, and his interpretation of his Catholic faith, led O'Neill to view the role of government as intervening to cure social ailments. O'Neill was "an absolute, unrepentant, unreconstructed New Deal Democrat," Farrell wrote.
In 1949, he became the first Democratic Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in its history. He remained in that post until 1952, when he ran for the United States House of Representatives from his home district.
U.S. House of Representatives
O'Neill was elected to the congressional seat vacated by Senator-elect John F. Kennedy in 1952. He would be reelected 16 more times, never facing serious opposition. His district, centered around the northern half of Boston, was originally numbered as the 11th District, but became the 8th District in 1963.During his second term in the House, O'Neill was selected to the House Rules Committee where he proved a crucial asset for the Democratic leadership, particularly his mentor, fellow Boston congressman and later Speaker, John William McCormack. O'Neill voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. O'Neill voted against the Alaska Statehood Act but in favor of the Hawaii Admission Act.
After wrestling with the issues surrounding the Vietnam War, in 1967 O'Neill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson and came out in opposition to America's involvement. O'Neill wrote in his autobiography that he also became convinced that the conflict in Vietnam was a civil war and that US involvement was morally wrong. While the decision cost O'Neill some support among older voters in his home district, he benefited from new support among students and faculty members at the many colleges and universities there. In the House of Representatives itself, O'Neill picked up the trust and support of younger House members who shared his antiwar views, and they became important friends who contributed to O'Neill's rise through the ranks in the House.
In 1971, O'Neill was appointed Majority Whip in the House, the number three position for the Democratic Party in the House. Two years later, in 1973, he was elected House Majority Leader, following the disappearance of a small plane carrying Majority Leader Hale Boggs and Congressman Nick Begich in Alaska. As Majority Leader, O'Neill was the most prominent Democrat in the House to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon in light of the Watergate scandal.
Speaker of the House
Election as Speaker and Congressional Ethics
As a result of the Tongsun Park influence-peddling scandal, House Speaker Carl Albert retired from Congress and O'Neill was elected speaker in 1977, the same year that Jimmy Carter became president.O'Neill was elected Speaker on January 4th, 1977. Immediately after his election, he emphasized that Congress had reasserted itself as a co-equal branch of government with the War Powers Resolution and its new budget process after decades of growing executive power, but also said Congress would work in "partnership" with the incoming Carter Administration. He said "Common sense and the Constitution demand that Pennsylvania Avenue remain a two way street."
Tongsun Park had not directly paid O'Neill, although Park's parties in his honor and a new scandal involving a nursing home in which O'Neill had invested $5,000 as a small-business loan in violation of federal law raised questions of impropriety, but did not prevent his reelection.
Shortly after becoming Speaker in January of 1977, O'Neill supported a commission led by Dave Obey to tighten Congressional Ethic rules. Later, in October of 1977, a special rule that prevented amendments to an ambitious ethics reform package supported by O'Neill was defeated by a unanimous House Republican Caucus and a sizable minority of Democrats. This was in part due to opposition towards proposed administrative changes to committee staff and member offices. The Obey Commission's measures on financial disclosure and limits on outside income would later be successfully included in the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which passed with the support of O'Neill and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the House. Congressional Quarterly wrote: "That those recommendations passed the House very nearly intact was a personal victory for Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr" who had to whip members of his own party who been "on the verge of rebellion".
Carter administration
With substantial majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the White House, O'Neill hoped that Democrats would be able to implement their legislation, including universal health care and guaranteed jobs programs. However, the Democrats lacked party discipline, and while the Carter administration and O'Neill started out strong with the passage of ethics and energy packages in 1977, there were major stumbles. Troubles began with Carter's threats to veto a water-projects bill, a pet project of many members of Congress. O'Neill and other Democratic leaders were also upset by Carter's appointments of a number of his fellow Georgians, whom O'Neill considered arrogant and parochial, to federal offices and White House staff.O'Neill was also dismayed by Carter's frugal behavior in cutting executive staff and reducing the scale of White House entertainment. Carter even ended the practice of serving hard liquor at the White House to guests as a cost cutting measure. As Carter's term began in early 1977, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were invited to the White House for a breakfast where Carter served them sugar cookies and coffee. O'Neill, a man of expansive appetite expecting the traditional eggs and sausage, said, "Mr. President... you know, we won the election." Carter was a reform-minded executive who often clashed with O'Neill on legislation. O'Neill wanted to reward loyal Democrats with projects at a time when Carter wanted to reduce government spending. A continually weakening economy and the Iran hostage crisis made prospects bleak for Carter and the Democrats in the 1980 congressional and presidential elections.