Dick Armey
Richard Keith "Dick" Armey (born July 7, 1940 in Cando, North Dakota) is a former U.S. Representative and House Majority Leader from Texas. He was one of the architects of the conservative revolution of the 1990s, in which conservative Republicans seized control of both houses of Congress.
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From academia to Congress
Armey, a member of the United States Republican Party and former economics professor at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton, Texas, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1984.
During his time in Congress, he conceived the independent nonpolitical commission that became responsible for identifying those military bases to be closed as a cost-cutting measure. Armey, an ally of Newt Gingrich, has been one of Congress's fervent supporters of privatization of Social Security and phasing-out of farm subsidies.
In 1995, Newt Gingrich selected Armey to be House Majority Leader. That year, he also wrote a book, Freedom Revolution. However, Armey was involved in a 1997 attempt to oust Gingrich as Speaker [1].
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 laying in a pool of my own blood, hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, 'How do I reload this damn thing?'" [2]
Armey announced his retirement in 2002 and did not run for re-election that year. On May 1, 2002, during an interview on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Rep. Armey called on what appeared to many as a call for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians living in the West Bank. He also got into controversy when he called openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, 'Barney Fag', although he said it was a slip of the tongue. But Armey appeared to oppose the Iraq War: on August 8, 2002, he claimed that an "unprovoked" American attack would be illegal. Fellow Texan and Republican Tom DeLay, then House Majority Whip, was elevated to hold Armey's Majority Leader position.
After Congress
Recently, Armey joined the Washington office of the law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary (formerly Piper Rudnick) as a senior policy advisor. [3] Armey is also the firm's co-chairman of its Homeland Security Task Force. [4]
Quotes
- "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape."
- "I've been to Europe once, and I don't need to go again."
- "Yes, I am Dick Armey. And if there is a 'dick army,' Barney Frank would want to join up."